It’s been a long time since the movie 300 was the biggest workout phenomenon in the US – Four years.
Even still, over 10,000 people per month come to this blog just looking for “The 300 Workout”.
It never cooled off. It never went away. People are still interested, new people are still just getting started on the 300 workout. It’s amazing, considering how quickly people lost interest in workouts related to other movies.
In fact, what’s really surprised me lately is how many women have been telling me they “just started doing that 300 workout thing”.
Since 1000 people per day are still reading about 300 here, I figured I’d give ’em some new content – a 300 Workout Training Program – It’s what everyone always asked for.
It’s not that I never wrote 300 workout programs, I did. Lots of people actually hired me as their personal trainer just for that. I just never posted them publicly.
Two of craziest guys in my gym, David and Monte, got this program. For most of 2006 they followed the program religiously, they ate a ton (sometimes they even ate during the workout) and they became monsters. Neither David nor Monte ever were like the fastest guys at doing 300, but they both gained about 15 pounds of muscle that year – and actually leaned up at the same time.
On the days that they weren’t doing one of these four workouts, they’d come in and row 5000 meters and practice handstands, or they’d try to chain weights to their body and run around the gym (note: weighted Parkour = bad idea). It’s funny, the whole midnight workout crew would follow them through their workouts. It’s kind of nostalgic thinking back.
I’m not going to say much about muscle gain – it isn’t my specialty. My specialty is getting people lean. But what I will say is that awesome things happen when people get a lot stronger and aren’t afraid of putting in a lot of sets and reps, with heavy weight, for months and months consistently.
The 300 Workout Training Program:
1.) Strength (deadlifts, bench press, heavy dumbbell bent over rows). You can start with a basic 5×5 routine, and later move into the “Bear Program” from Power to the People
2.) TRX + Kettlebell Iron Circtuit Conditioning
3.) Strength (deadlifts, barbell standing shoulder presses, pullups). Again, you can start with 5×5, and over time work into P2P Bear Program
Four day workout week. It’s pretty simple.
The biggest mistake most people made with 300 was to dive right in to doing The 300 Workout workout three times per week, which isn’t optimal. You don’t train for a marathon by running a marathon every day. It just isn’t effective.
The problem is that people in the gym are actually just to weak in big movements to ever really get good at a workout like this.
They saying goes, you can take someone who is strong, and they’ll get good at circuits in a month. Take someone with “cardio” and they’ll never get good at circuits, except with really light (read: pointless) weights.
Note when I say “300 variation”, I came up with a few different 300 training variations. This is a really important point, they’re training days. You don’t go 100% balls to the wall every day.
There is a difference between training and testing.
The 300 workout was a test, not a training day. They only did it once.
Are You Even Ready for 300?
Most people aren’t.
Most people are either too overweight to really take on the 300 workout, or they are too weak.
If you’re a heavy dude, then you’re going to struggle with the pullups, and you might even hurt yourself on the box jumps. That has to get fixed.
If you’re too skinny and weak, you’ll get slaughtered on the deadlifts. And you run the risk of doing too many circuit workouts and just getting skinnier and weaker.
If either case, don’t worry, I’ve got a solution for you.
If You Are A Fat Kid, Then Here Are Your Goals:
1.) Eat less calories. You’re fastest rout to more pullups is losing fat.
2.) Eat better quality food.
3.) Do a hard core, full body weight loss workout program like Fighter Workouts for Fat Loss.
4.) Get to 5 free hanging pullups – then you can start playing around with the 300 Workout Program. Even for a big dude, 5 is within reach, and you should really be looking towards sets of 10+ over time.
Variation #2: The Skinny Weak Kid Version
If You Are a Skinny Weak Kid, Then Here Are Your Goals:
1.) Eat More Protein, minimum 1 gram of protein per pound of target body weight.
2.) Eat more food in general, eat when you aren’t hungry; gain weight.
3.) Focus your workouts around working up to Deadlifting 1.5 times your body weight and military pressing 0.75 times your body weight – then you can start playing with the 300 Workout.
4.) After you hit those goals, while you are working on the 300 workout, your long term strength goals should be deadlifting 2 times your body weight and military pressing your body weight.
Check tomorrow for the 300 Training Variation Days.
-Josh Hillis, Level 2 RKC Kettlebell Instructor
Nice follow up. ^_^