After seeing Brie Larson at the SAG-AFTRA awards earlier this year where she was looking in tip-top shape in a beautiful pink gown, I felt re-inspired to try a structured program at the gym. For months I had just been going in following my old routine very loosely (squat, bench, back, deadlift), but I knew I needed to switch things up and light a fire under my current program.
So I did as anyone would do and google Brie Larson workout program. There were tons of options to choose from and it was tricky to decipher which site could be trusted to have the inside scoop on her program.
In my work as an affiliate manager, I became familiar with a number of major publishers in the fitness space, and found a link to setforset article that said they had the Brie Larson’s workout program. They had previously been a trustworthy publisher so I clicked through and read their breakdown of her program.
The website even said it was fact checked, so I thought I was in for the real deal. They had plenty of video embeds of interviews and segments she had done with other magazines that showed her living her life and what her training program looked like.
So I trusted the program they had and copied it into an excel spreadsheet to try it out the next day.
I realized pretty quickly that this program was definitely not Brie Larson’s workout program. If you want to know when a program was put together by a likely young, inexperienced trainer who has never had to build a woman’s body to look strong, but still feminine, look for shoulder shrugs.
Not the shoulder shrugs…
In all my years as a personal trainer, as someone who regularly works out, and as my friend’s go-to person to ask questions about training – no one has ever wanted big traps. If you don’t know, traps are the muscles behind your neck between your shoulders.
If you’re anything like me, working a desk job and carrying every day life stress, these muscles are probably already more developed than you’d like. So adding in shoulder shrugs is only meant to build up those muscles even more. Additionally there is no functional benefit that is worth adding shoulder shrugs to a woman’s workout program.
If you look at pictures of Brie Larson, you can see she has a balance upper body, and no overdeveloped trap muscles.
Even the most intense programs are balanced
I don’t care if you are training to be a Marvel superhero or training for your best friends wedding, a well designed workout program will always be balanced. You simply cannot sustain an imbalance program.
Let’s analyze one of the workout days to give you a better idea of what I mean by a balanced program and how this one was very poorly balanced and clearly made by a young guy sharing his favourite workout program and calling it Brie Larson’s:
| Exercise | Sets | Reps |
| Push Ups | 3 | 20 |
| Overhead Barbell Military Press | 5 | 12, 10, 8, 5, 3 |
| Front Raises | 3 | 10 |
| Dumbbell Shrugs | 3 | 10 |
| Dumbbell Power Clean | 3 | 10 |
| Dumbbell Snatches | 3 | 10 |
| Shoulder Flyes | 3 | 10 |
Let’s start with 20 push-ups to start off the program. Now they do mention that this workout program is not for the faint of heart, but 3 sets of 20 push-ups is a lot to start a workout with. There was also no mention of rest.
I actually went through this workout program, and as I mentioned, I had been training prior to this and consider myself in good shape, but I have never been in more pain after a workout than I was after this workout.
Once you’ve finished 60 total pushups, they want you to somehow move on to a very shoulder-heavy workout program.
Personally, I would never schedule so many shoulder exercises. Your shoulder muscles are not a very large muscle group. They are also highly susceptible to injury, so you have to be so careful with shoulder exercises. Shoulders are typically an accessory exercise at the end of my back day and I am so careful to keep the weights manageable so I avoid injury.
This workout just absolutely slams your shoulders. Not to mention that 2 days later they have you doing a heavy chest day. With sore shoulders, that chest workout is actually more dangerous than it is worth.
And of course, this is a 5-day program. I believe that Brie Larson would likely be working out 5 days a week to stay in shape, but not with this type of program. If you’d like to see how I am currently structuring my 4-day workout program, you can check out my current workout routine here.
The problem with trainers who build programs they would do, instead of that fit their client’s needs
I just want to be able to vent about this because it highlights a problem that I ran into a lot when I was working as a personal trainer and having mainly female clients. It doesn’t take too many female clients to learn that there are specific areas of a woman’s body that a woman wants to define with exercise, and other areas where they really don’t want to get “bulky”.
I am not saying that young men can’t train women, but I would caution you to make sure you are clear with your trainer what you are hoping to achieve from your workout program. Let them know exactly where you’re at in terms of experience, if you have any aches and pains doing certain exercises, and what areas you would like to define, and which you would not.
A good trainer will take all of this into consideration and design a program that is correct for your needs and not just give you a program that they would do and then maybe lower the weights for you.
So here is a slightly less formal blog, but one that I (clearly) feel very passionate about. Let me know in the comments if you’ve ever had sketchy training programs or were prescribed an exercise that made no sense for your goals.
Riley Pearce 