The premise behind Flex 4 is you pick two pairs of exercises. I refer to “pairs” because I refer to Pair 1 and Pair 2 on the audio. I am a big fan of push-pull pairing. Do a push exercise, then rest very little, then do a pull exercise, or vice versa - doesn’t matter. You could do a pull and then a push. Or you could do an upper body and then a lower body or vice versa. The important thing, for everyday, regular use, is you don’t do two exercises in a row that compete with each other — unless you are nuts and advanced like me. Read on.

An example of a push-pull pair would be

Barbell bench press (chest exercise)
- paired with
Lat Pull Down (back exercise)

With Flex 4 you will be guided and instructed to perform the first exercise of pair 1 and then you’d do the 2nd exercise of pair 1.

Well, that’s great for everyone and especially beginners to intermediates. But I’m advanced and kind of nuts anyway when it comes to training so I’ve been playing around with some stuff.

Like I said, Flex 4 is a 12-workout series with no two workouts being exactly alike. Well, workout 6 is four sets of 8 reps on every exercise. You already know you’ll be doing 4 exercises. I mean, it’s called Flex 4 right? Well, not so fast. Here’s what I did.

I started with Leg Press which is a lower body pressing exercise. I should have chosen a pulling exercise or upper body exercise as the pair for it. Well, I cheated. I simply kept leg press as my 2nd exercise of pair 1. So, what that meant was I ended up doing this

Leg Press
- rest 50 secs
Leg Press
- rest 50 secs
Leg Press
- rest 50 secs
Leg Press
- rest 50 secs
Leg Press
- rest 50 secs
Leg Press
- rest 50 secs
Leg Press
- rest 50 secs
Leg Press

Okay, that was fun. 8 sets of Leg Press with less than 1 min rest between sets.

Next, after about a 2 minute break (which is on the audio) I was supposed to do my 2nd pair of exercises. Well, I cheated again. I chose Squat and one-leg leg curl. Hmm, how the heck does this work? Well, remember, workout 6 is 4 sets of 8 reps on EVERY exercise.

Here’s what I did ..

Squat
- rest 50 secs
Squat
- rest 50 secs
Leg Curl One Leg - Right side
- rest 50 secs
Leg Curl One Leg - Left Side
- rest 50 secs
Squat
- rest 50 secs
Squat
- rest 50 secs
Leg Curl One Leg - Right side
- rest 50 secs
Leg Curl One Leg - Left Side
Squat
- rest 50 secs
Squat
Done

Do you see what is going on there? It’s two quick sets of squats and then a really long rest while you do the one-leg leg curl. Then back to two quick sets of squats.

As you can see that’s 6 sets of squats and really only 2 sets of leg curl per leg. Uh oh, I violated all kinds of lifting laws according to some people. Good! You see, I don’t panic over the balance of ONE workout. Next time maybe I’ll trash my hamstrings in a similar manner using Flex 4 instead of my quads. I had fun, it was tough, and I got to use my audio all the way through. I just had to ignore the typical pairing guidance. But I never touched the audio, never changed anything on the audio, never pushed stopped or pause and listened to my guidance for the tempo, cadence, rest between sets and motivation.

Yes, it’s weird kicking your own ass on audio but it’s fun, even for me.

This just goes to show what you can do with a little ingenuity and a touch of being nuts from the get go.

Flex 4 is great for beginners, intermediates and even advanced if you’ll use your noggin and think about it.

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Yours in strength and health,

David Greenwalt CSCS
The Muscle Professor
www.muscleaudio.com