Living Lean #5: Training Shoulder & Abs With Fabrizio Cavallaro

Fabrizio just got here. We’re gonna have a lot of fun. Here he is, the man in the house. So, uh, this is gonna be a lot of fun.

Fabrizio: I’m super excited to do this.

Joseph: We’re going to do shoulders and abs today.

Fabrizio: This sounds like the most amazing workout of my life.
Joseph: We’re going to have a lot of fun today. So, uh, so let’s go into the gym here. How do you feel, bro?

Fabrizio: Amazing.

Joseph: So, uh, what all have you done this week as far as exercise as well?

Fabrizio: Okay. So this week it’s been pretty hard because I just came back from, I was on tour.

Joseph: Yeah.

Fabrizio: So I didn’t really get the chance to work out. So I’m excited again that we decided to step back in right away.

Joseph: So we’re starting right up. Yeah. So as I said, he’s a, he’s a professional drummer and you play in studios, right, studio drumming?
Fabrizio: Yeah. In Florida on tour.
Joseph: Okay. And how long were you on tour?

Fabrizio: It was like two weeks.

Joseph: Two weeks, okay. So we’re back at it now today. I said it’s going to be a lot of fun, uh, Fabrizio is super lean, as you’re going to be able to see.
Um, and so we’ve been working on, uh, uh, nutrition stuff. I know that, um, you know, a few months ago whenever we started doing that. And so how has that all been going for you?

Fabrizio: Man, it’s been, it’s been literally life-changing because I mean, I definitely always had a fast metabolism. But I tell you what like I was always getting to a plateau state. I looked fine to the normal people, but then like after that point I wasn’t able to grow, you know? Until you started tracking macros, and you started talking to me about nutrition strategies, diets, and stuff. That really changed it for me.

Joseph: That’s awesome.

Fabrizio: So, and then, and then also on top of that, what really helped me while leaning down, what helped me to maintain like the muscle, was the fact that the programs that you gave me, you know, you could really track. You know how much weight you are doing, all that stuff.

Joseph: Yeah, the training program, yeah.

Fabrizio: So by doing that, I was able not to lose strength.

Joseph: Yeah.

Fabrizio: And therefore the size, if anything, maybe that as well.

Joseph: That’s awesome. Yeah. And so I was just, I was making, I was talking about that a little bit earlier as well, where I was saying, um, you know, he, he was really wanting to lose some more body fat, but also build some size and build strength, which has a lot of, you guys know it’s hard to do that. So you have to be very precise with everything. But, this guy is a legend. And, uh, you’ll have to look him up too. Don’t you have a YouTube channel?

Fabrizio: Yeah.

Joseph: We’ll link, we’ll link his, uh, his YouTube channel and Instagram as well. You guys can check out his, uh, his, uh, skills “musicianally”, musically.

Fabrizio: That’s how we met, through music.

Joseph: It is, yeah, we met through that. Um, I play music as well, so we’ve been, we’ve played together a lot so guys can be a lot of fun.
All right. So, uh, we got some Karbolyn Fuel here, guys, and some Training Ground PRE. I’m gonna change your life. You never have, have you ever had this before?

Fabrizio: Never have.

Joseph: So, um, this is something I take. I just took, uh, some of this, and I mixed them together.

Fabrizio: What is the difference between the two?

Joseph: So this is an actual pre-workout. This has caffeine in it, it has, ah, citrulline, beta-alanine. It even has Kre-Alkalyn, which is an EFX product. Um, and, uh, it’s, you know, it’s a stimulant. More of a stimulant. Karbolyn Fuel is a performance carb. So we’re gonna mix some of this stuff together. And, um, and we’re going to have them.

Fabrizio: they smell amazing. What are those?

Joseph: Strawberry. So that’s going to be kind of a, it’s going to be kind of weird mixing it, but I like it. So there you have it. And you said you needed a pre-workout, right?

Fabrizio: Yeah.

Joseph: We’ll mix a little bit more for you. So let’s put some water in this bad boy.

Probably tastes, probably tastes a little weird with the orange and the strawberry flavor.

Fabrizio: It actually tastes good.

Joseph: Is it really good? Okay.

Fabrizio: That’s stuff’s okay, man.

Joseph: Yeah. So, uh, so I was just telling Fabrizio, you though, when you get, when you take Karbolyn, it gets you pumped because it’s literally performance carbs.

So it hits your body in a weird way. It’s like a sustained carb. So it’s like, eh, you know, not like how sugar hits you and you get that, that rush. It’s kind of like that but, it’s sustained. You don’t have a crash from it.

Fabrizio: Should you drink it all before starting to work out?

Joseph: Yeah. I would say drink. You know, you can either drink most of it right now, and then we can drink a little bit during the workout, or we can drink the whole thing.

Fabrizio: I like the taste, I mean, yeah.

Joseph: Yeah. me too. I love it.

Joseph: So we’re just getting the shoulders warmed up here. Fabrizio hasn’t been working out for two weeks because he’s been on tour as we were saying. So I’m just getting everything warmed up. Getting ready for what we’re going to do.

Part of the thing guys is that, you know, if you’re working out hard and you’re doing heavy strength training, one of the things you would need to make sure you do is get warmed up first. And so one of the things a lot of people do is they’ll just jump right into heavy sets and they will, they’ll tear muscles, they’ll, um, they’ll notice over a period of time that their, their bodies are beginning to fall apart.

You know, they’re having shoulder problems that come out of nowhere. They’ll have knee problems cause they’re squatting super-heavy out of nowhere, uh, without warmup sets. So we’re just getting warmed up right now, getting ready for where we’re going to go in this workout. Um, so I wanna encourage you guys with that.

Just begin to make sure you’re warming up for your workouts. So, yeah. So we’re going to start off with, um, one of the things a lot of people do is they’ll do like a lot of barbell work with their, uh, with their shoulder workouts. They’ll do a lot of hang clean presses. Or overhead shoulder presses, military presses.

And, um, and so one of the things about the overhead barbell presses is that they’re working the front delt, uh, the front deltoid a lot more than the medial dealt, that side. And that’s really what a lot of us are wanting to work. Cause with your incline presses, with chest exercises, you’re already hitting it super hard.

So we don’t need to hit it extremely hard in that front area. Um, as, as hard as, you know, as hard as a lot of us do. Well, a lot of us were wanting that medial delt. We’re wanting to be a little bit wider, right? And so we’re going to actually focus on dumbbell, a seated dumbbell press today.

And what they’ve found through EMG scans is that the medial delt is hit extremely hard through that seated dumbbell shoulder press. And so we’re going to hit that first. We’re going to do five sets of the seated dumbbell shoulder press. So, let’s actually take these twenty-fives.

A lot of people with chest, ah, dumbbell chest exercises and shoulders, they always think they need to touch the dumbbells. That’s not super necessary at all. Um, the biggest thing is our range of motion, and it’s focusing on the muscles that we’re working, and you can really feel this medial head, um, really be an activated here. So, it’s still a warm-up. He’s doing light weight. We’re going to have you do 150-pound dumbbells in each hand. I’m just kidding.

All right, so we’re going forties next. He’s still, we’re still working our way up. We’re still working that warm-up zone here. So, um, we’re going to end up working up to about 60, 65-pound dumbbells. Some of you guys might do a lot more than that. Some of you might not be able to do that much.

Uh, just work in that range, uh, that weight range that you’re comfortable with. Don’t try to go too heavy. Make sure you’re not going too light. Today we’re going to be working six to eight reps on each set here. So we’re going kind of heavy. And 60 to 65 pounds is heavy for him. Might not be healthy for you or might be too heavy, so just know your body.

All right, beautiful. That’s good, beautiful. We don’t want to get too worn out, so, ah, because of the weight we’re using. So if it’s not, we’re going to bump it up a little bit more.

Fabrizio: Okay, but you said like.

Joseph: Well, we’re going to stay about two reps shy of failure. We don’t want to fail yet. We’re gonna save that for later on in the workout.

So we were just talking about how with caffeine, you, uh, you get, you tolerant, you begin to tolerate caffeine, and it begins to, you lose that, uh, you know, that effect. And you have to keep taking more. With carbs, you don’t need to do that, which is why Karbolyn is so cool. But, uh, but, you know, obviously carbs before a workout, there’s just nothing like it.

So, yeah. We’re going to go into this next set here, 60 pounds. And Fabrizio did some shoulders yesterday, which we were saying might not have been a great idea. But, uh, we’re hitting them again, so there’s nothing wrong with that. You know, these dumbbell, seated dumbbell presses. Cool thing about them is that we’re, we’re on the side here.

With the barbell shoulder press, you have to have it in the front, obviously, because your head’s in the way. So these are really cool. That’s why they hit that medial delt so hard. And that’s why you can get so much size in there when you’re really just focusing on bringing the dumbbells right to your side just like that.

And then obviously lateral raises are huge as well. We’re going to, we’re going to jump into some lateral raises here in a little bit. Um, but those exercises that are coming over to the side are, uh, you know, firing up that medial delt really heavily.

Fabrizio: So I do feel a difference compared to the barbell. You can go more back here.

Joseph: Yeah, exactly. And the barbell, there’s nothing wrong with barbell shoulder presses. Obviously, they do hit that, uh, that part of the delt. But, um, but they’re just more focused on the front. So you just want to mix things up. Don’t always just stick to dumbbells. Don’t always just do barbells. We want to, you know, have a variety.

And, uh, some of the best bodybuilders that have ever lived, you know, that’s one of the things they preach heavily is don’t just do one thing, always switch things up and, um, don’t get super locked into just one grove, you know, so.

An exercise that I would particularly, um, encourage people not to go super heavy on just because we’re behind the neck, we’re putting our shoulders and kind of a vulnerable position.

Um, and so we’re going to go a little bit light.

Fabrizio: So am I going to lift it this way?

Joseph: That’s it. And then put it up behind your head. Yeah, there you go. Perfect. Beautiful.

You see he’s going really slow here as well.

One of the things we’re focusing on is, uh, we’re focusing on volume. We’re focusing on, uh, you know, even that time aspect. And then, yeah, it’s a variable of training where a lot of us don’t even think about the time at all. But, when you really allow your muscles to feel that eccentric and concentric portion of the, of the lift equally, um, and really slow down those negatives.

Fabrizio: One of the things you really taught me. A lighter weight can feel way heavier if you really think about controlling the negative, right.

Joseph: Yeah, exactly.

Fabrizio: It made a huge difference for me.

Joseph: A lot of people are just throwing around weights. You see it every single day. I, you know, every time I’m in the gym, I think people, you know, doing curls, you know, they’re, they’re going curls, like with a barbell. It’s way too heavy for them. They’re just like, you know, that’s, you know, you’re not building biceps muscle, you know, in there. All right. You’re not stimulating growth. You’re not causing hypertrophy.

To cause hypertrophy, you need to feel that. You need to get in there. Um, a great, great grip for there is to be about shoulder-width and just squeeze. There we go. Let’s do that again.

We’re going on to set number two here, so. Behind the neck, we’re still focusing on slowing down as we do each rep. And, uh, and still this is really, still really focusing on that, that medial head here, that, the side of the shoulder, really building that width. There we go.

And you notice we don’t have too much weight on the bar at all, but, uh. But going nice and slow as, as we go down, he’s going two to three seconds on the negative, which is great. So there we go.

Good. Beautiful, nice. And we’ll move into some, uh, lean away cable raises here, and this is going to be a lot of fun.

So this is an exercise that a lot of people, I think a lot of people do dumbbell lateral raises a lot. But, people don’t really ever try a lean away variation where you’re actually putting tension on the shoulder the entire time.

So as you come down, you know, especially with the cable, you’re putting tension on that shoulder no matter what area it is in. There’s tension on that sucker.

So you focus in, in between the legs. Yes, we’re going to go in between the legs with the cables. Just try that out.

I’m intimidated by the abdominals that this guy has.

Fabrizio: All thanks to him, all thanks to him. So I lay here like that.

Joseph: There we go, yeah. So I wanted to take the shirt off so you guys can just see, see how everything is working here. And whenever you have this much definition, you can really see muscles in a whole different way, um, so that’s what’s really cool here.

You guys can see all these things are twitching as you are going down.

Fabrizio: Man, this one feels way better than just the normal lateral raise.

Joseph: I want him to get between 12 to 15 reps and so we’re really focusing on overloading the shoulder, finishing this off. There we go. Good.

Fabrizio: One more?

Joseph: One more. Let’s go. Awesome.

Fabrizio: Compared to the just the dumbbells, I really like it because of the angle, I feel the tension throughout. Like, there is no point where there is no tension. But with a dumbbell, like here, I have no tension.

Joseph: There is no tension. You’re just going up and you’re going back down. A lot of people, they just let it fall down. That doesn’t work.

Fabrizio: But here, it’s like constant. And it’s impossible to cheat because I’m here.

Joseph: Exactly. Because you’re hanging. You’re going light and you’re going slow.

Fabrizio: It’s really sad, yeah.

Joseph: So, uh, so you guys you notice, um, obviously, Fabrizio, where are you at? Seven or eight percent body fat right now? Somewhere around that zone.

Fabrizio: Yeah.

Joseph: Um, and so, uh, so we’re going to do a little bit of abs here in a little bit. Um, I’ll show you a great ab workout that I’m going to put him through. And one of the things you need to remember is to get this lean, is it’s really about nutrition more than anything.

And so he obviously trains hard. He pushes it. When he first came to me and we were talking about mixing up his training routines and working together, one of the things we had to do was give him an entirely new training regimen, and he was only doing like 30-minute workouts at the time. So we mixed it up, and now we have… He’s doing like hour-long workouts, very intense training. He’s putting on muscle. He’s getting leaner. His nutrition is better than ever.

And so obviously nutrition is the biggest part, guys. But, um, but you also need to make sure you’re adding enough training volume in there to stimulate muscle growth, uh, and then to speed up that fat loss process as well. So, how’s that feel?

Fabrizio: Nice, it’s burning like crazy. Nice.

Joseph: Awesome. All right so we’re going to jump into some abs next Let’s go.

Up. Here we go. And then try to bring yourself past that parallel point. So try to, try to bring your pelvis up as well. Um, there you go, just like that.

So a lot of, a lot of people just do crunches or sit-ups for abs, but this is a bottom-up movement here, the hanging leg raise. And you’ll see how his lower abs are working. Um, if all you do is just bring your legs up the straight to parallel with the floor, then you’re really hitting the hip flexors a lot more. We’re trying to focus on those lower abs either as much or more than just the hip flexors. So, he’s really trying to bring that pelvis up as well during this process.

All right guys, so we just did the hanging leg raises for that bottom-up motion. Now we’re going to go top-down. So, what we’re going to do is we’re going to do a weighted sit up. Uh, so Fabrizio is putting a mat down here, and what we’re going to do is we’re going to have a ball, and he’s gonna, it’s going to be a weighted ball. So, he’s gonna throw that ball to me, and then I’m going to be throwing it back to him.

So, this is a great exercise for that top-down motion where we’re really developing those upper abs a little bit more focusing a little bit more on those. Um, and so we don’t want to just stick to one or the other. We don’t want to just stick to the leg raises, you know, those bottom-up motions.

And we don’t want to just do the crunches. We want to focus on both aspects of ab training. And that’s one of the reasons that Fabrizio here has such good ab development. He’s, uh, he’s not just focusing on one thing or the other, but he really tries to mix things up. So, um, let’s do this.

Alright, here we go. So, Fabrizio is gonna throw me this ball. I’m gonna launch it back to him. Little bit of weight in here.

Alright, so we have Fabrizio here focusing on bent over rear delt raises. And these are obviously focusing on the rear deltoids posterior delts. And so, um, this is a great exercise.

He’s really focusing on squeezing. He’s focusing on going nice and slow. On each rep he’s going down nice and slow. So, this is what we want right here. Beautiful. Here we go. Awesome.

Here we go. Set number two. Going nice and light because we’re going so slow. There we go. One, two. Here we go. Two seconds on the way down. One, two. Beautiful. Nice and slow. One, two. See how he’s holding that at the top too. And then one, two. He’s holding it for a second or two at the top. There we go. One, two. That’s what we want.

All right guys, so we’re going to finish off this incredible shoulder workout with something really, really cool that we came up with. So, what we’re going to do is he’s going to actually do 50… 50-pound dumbbells, and he’s going to do two reps. Okay, and then we’re going to come all the way to the other side of the rack, and we’re going to start with fives, and he’s going to do 20 reps of five pounds for lateral raises.

So, he’s going to do shoulder press over here, and then we’re going to go do lateral raises, and we’re going to literally meet in the middle. So, he’s going to do reps of two. So he’s going to do two reps of shoulder press, then he’s going to go all the way there 20 reps, and then back to two reps, and then go 18 reps of the tens. And so I’ll show you guys what I mean as we go, but let’s get started here.

So we’re going to do 50-pound dumbbells, and he’s only going to do two reps on each set. Sounds like not very many, but it’s going to add up pretty quick. So let’s go.

One, two. Nice. Here we go. Alright, so we’re going all the way to the other side. Five pounds. We’re doing 20 reps, lateral raises. Here we go.

Good. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. How’s that feeling?

Fabrizio: Good.

Joseph: 19. Good. There we go. All right, we’re coming back over to the other side. Two reps with 45, here we go. Good. All right, we’re going to 10, and we’re going to do 18 reps of 10. This is gonna be a little tougher here. You have one 10. All right. Good.

Nice. There’s 18 reps with 10. All right. One with forties. So we’re going to go 40, 35, and then thirties to finish off. Here we go. Good, two, nice.
All right guys, so we’re on the third round of the lateral raises. So he’s going fifteens this time, and he’s actually doing 15 reps as well. So his shoulders are on fire, but he’s moving, he’s going, he’s not giving up. So here we go. Good.

And you see he’s putting a little bit of English on it here. He’s putting a little bit of momentum into it cause it’s getting so difficult. Now, normally I wouldn’t recommend you guys putting, you know, that swing motion into it, but this is getting to the point where he’s, he’s burnt down the shoulders so much, he’s overloaded them, that it’s almost impossible unless he swings just a little bit. So how do you feel?

Fabrizio: Amazing, man, the burn is insane. 35’s now, right?

Joseph: 35’s, two reps. Here we go. Sometimes, guys, that’s really good to take your muscles to this point of exhaustion, to overload them. A lot of us, you know, we end our workouts, and we’re like “Nope, that was fine. I did all my exercises”.

But, you really need to actually overload them, and really take them to that point where you don’t normally go. So, uh, so twenties, Yep. Uh, right there. All right, 10 reps, yep. Here we go. Good. Three, four, good, five, six. You got it, four more. Seven. Nice. Eight. Only two more. You got this. You’re crushing it. 10, good…good job.

All right, this is our last round guys. Thirties. All right, guys. Here we go. Thirties, two reps never felt so heavy with 30 pounds. Here we go. 25’s, set of eight. This is it right here. Good, good. That’s what we want.

Beautiful. You’ve got this. Killing it. Almost done. Good. You can see that pain right there. Good job. That is amazing! Way to push it, bro. How do you feel?

Fabrizio: Most intense shoulder workout I’ve ever done in my life. That’s the truth.

Joseph: That’s what I’m talking about.

Fabrizio: The burn is insane.

Joseph: Yeah, so what we did guys is we went all the way from 50, we went all the way through here, to the thirties with the shoulder press. But, then we started with the fives, and then we came all the way up to twenty fives with lateral raises in between.

So, um, so guys that was an incredible shoulder workout. Uh, incredible abs workout as well. So, how do you feel?

Fabrizio: Amazing. I mean it makes me think about how many sets that I’m working on by myself. I think I already reached my limit. But, today because you were here, man, I really pushed myself beyond anything.

Joseph: Yeah, that’s amazing. I love it.

Fabrizio: There’s something to say about that for sure.

Joseph: All right guys, that’s a wrap. We just had an incredible shoulders and abs workout. I’m super excited that you got to follow along with us. How do you feel, Fabrizio?

Fabrizio: Exhausted.

Joseph: That’s awesome. So, uh, he was just telling me how, how great he felt from the Karbolyn Fuel and the Training Ground PRE from EFX Sports. So how did you feel like specifically during that workout?

Fabrizio: I took other pre-workouts at other times, right? But, this time I felt like my energy was equally distributed throughout the whole workout. It didn’t fade. Even at the last insane drop set that we did, you know, the one that you… It’s like I had energy until the last freaking rep. So, yeah.

Joseph: Yeah, and that’s really, you know it’s because of that, that Karbolyn Fuel. Uh, when you can refill your glycogen stores in such a way and can provide your body the proper nutrition, not only just caffeine and getting stimulated. But, uh, our bodies need carbs, right? Our bodies need them to train at that maximum level. Um, and so that’s really why you were able to get that pump that you had, why you were able to push so hard continually throughout the workout.

Obviously, some people train fasted. Some people do, you know, Keto and no carbs, super low carbs. But, uh, you know there is a big difference when you do implement carbs before your workouts. Just that feeling that you get, and, you know, I’ve never found a supplement like Karbolyn Fuel that helps you better, uh, you know, better than Karbolyn. So, I would recommend going to efxsports.com. Click the link below, check it out.

And as well guys if you need any help with coaching, if you need to get to that next level of leanness, that next level in your fitness journey, I’ve been working with Fabrizio for a while helping him with his nutrition, with his training, and it’s … as you can see it’s working.

And so reach out to me. We’ll see if we’re a good fit to work together in one of my coaching programs. And we’ll just talk, and we’ll, we’ll jump on the phone, we’ll book in a free strategy call, and, ah, and we’ll just get to know each other a little bit.

So, guys, I hope you enjoyed this video. Make sure you like the video, make sure you subscribe and leave a comment down below with your favorite part of the video. And, ah, we’re looking forward to the next one. We’ll see you guys soon.