Aziz Shavershian known as Zyzz gained a large fan base over a very short period of time with his provocative YouTube videos and attitude, even now almost a year after his death he still has impact on many young bodybuilders and fitness enthusiast.
His well-developed physique combined with a notorious lifestyle have been a theme of many discussions in bodybuilding and fitness community forums. Mixing a reckless fast lifestyle, partying, drinking with training, clean diet and speaking openly about using steroids created a lot of controversy and nobody remained indifferent.
Aziz in his short life was defined as a rebel, denying social conditioning resulting in his behavior often described as narcissist and egoistic. Nevertheless Zyzz has achieved his goal in making an impact on the world, his road from a skinny high school kid with no self-esteem to somebody who is being compared with great bodybuilders was a hard one and in the process he gained thousands of fans all over the world, it was truly a Hollywood movie story.
Zyzz Workout Routine – Exercises for the Aesthetically Pleasing
Core of his training philosophy is about pushing yourself beyond your limits as much as possible on every workout. Zyzz workout routine looked like this:
Monday: Chest/Biceps
- 4 sets of Incline Dumbbell Press, 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Bench Press, 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Incline Flies, 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Chest Dips until failure
- 3 sets of Barbell Curls, 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Preacher Curls, 8-10 reps, then drop the weight to half, and push out another 8
Review: Zyzz workout for chest looks like a solid routine packed with good old proven compound movements. His main focus was developing a wide upper chest with incline movements which gave him a pleasing aesthetic look.
Tuesday: Legs/Calves
- 4 sets of Squats 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Lunges 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Leg Press 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Leg Extensions till failure
- 3 sets of Leg Curls 8-10 reps
Review: Zyzz never denied the importance of leg training. He hated it but also knew the massive benefits we get from leg training. Personally I wouldn’t recommend going to failure on leg extensions more than once in 3 weeks. The rep range should vary around 4-6 if you want density and strength but for pure size do 10-12 repetitions.
Wednesday: Back
- 3 sets of Lat Pulldowns 8-10 reps
- 4 sets of Deadlifts 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Bent Over Rows 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Dumbell Rows 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Hyperextensions 8-10 reps
Review: Back training incorporates solid exercises for developing thick back. I would change the lat pull downs to wide grip pull ups and change hyper-extension for mid grip pull ups. I’m a big fan of pull ups and encourage all my clients as soon as possible to switch from machine based lat pull downs or assisted lat machines to body weight exercises.
Thursday: Shoulders/Triceps
- 4 sets of Shoulder Press, alternate with Barbell & Dumbell every week 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Upright Rows supersetted with Lateral Raises 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of front raises 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Lying Rear Delt Raises 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Close-Grip Bench Press 8-10 reps
- 4 sets of Pulldowns 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Skullcrushers 8-10 reps
Review: The shoulder Zyzz workout is basic compound movements mixed, the super set for mid deltoids is a killer for muscle growth. I’d personally throw in Face Pulls and super set them with Lying Rear Delt Raises for more rear deltoid development.
I’ve been getting many complaints that skull crushers can cause elbow injury so if my clients experience any discomfort when the weight on that exercise goes up we switch it with dumbbell french press. Overall shoulder workout is good, occasional rep range change for middle delt exercises to 10-12 would probably get you more size.
Saturday: Full Body
- 3 sets of Deadlifts 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Squats 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Clean and Jerk 8-10 reps
- 3 sets of Weighted Pull ups 8-10 reps
Review: If you are a beginner you’d want to skip this Full Body workout day to maximize your gains and recovery. Zyzz wasn’t a big fan of cardio for cutting and I think this day was kind of a substitute for that but I don’t think it’s a good idea for recovery to do such taxing exercises more than once a week.
Zyzz Diet Plan and Supplements Review – Key to Staying Lean
He didn’t utilize cardio in his workout plan which tells us that his diet must be the key to staying lean all the time.
General rules of Zyzz diet plan are:
- No fast food.
- No soft drinks
- No sweets or sugar
- Only fluid you shall drink is water, and green tea
Sample Daily Diet:
- Meal 1 – 6 boiled Eggs, 2 cups of Oatmeal and a Protein Shake
- Meal 2 – 300g Chicken Breast (boiled) Broccoli and Brown Rice
- Meal 3 – 200g Tuna chunks in spring water, mixed with Spinach Leaves, and Wholemeal Pasta
- Post-Workout Shake with Whey Protein and other supplements
- Meal 4 – Stir fry Beef/Kangaroo Mince with some vegetables
- Meal 5 – Steak or Kangaroo and Brussels Sprouts
- Meal 6 – 4 scrambled Eggs and some Salmon
- Meal 7 – One cup of no fat Cottage Cheese 10m before bed
Review: Zyzz diet plan is similar to many other bodybuilding diets, as you can see he focused on whole foods, lean meat, a lot of vegetables and he didn’t avoid fat. His diet is highly anabolic due to high fat intake.
Combining different protein sources throughout the day provides a full spectrum of amino-acids optimal for muscle growth. He also incorporated occasional cheat meals in his diet. There is also a Zyzz Supplements company called Protein of the Gods which became very famous in some parts of the world like Austrlia.
Conclusion
Zyzz workout is a great place to start build up your physique to a new level. He was a one of a kind individual, in 2 years he achieved such global popularity that many people struggle for years to accomplish. Fitness lifestyle is not an easy one, it takes a lot of dedication and effort to improve your physique and if you back off just a little bit you lose your gains quickly.
Worrying about nutrition and vitamin supplements, eating every couple of hours to keep your muscle, sacrificing free time for the greater good sometimes can make you feel chained and trapped. Zyzz took it to the other extreme ending in his death which shows us that any extreme is often fatal, but we can still learn from his example that it is good to let go sometimes, live in the moment and just enjoy life.
Here is Zyzz on Wikipedia.
His favorite quote was “Obsessed is a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated.” Check out more Zyzz quotes.
