Six in the morning with Zay Washington

It's 6 am in LA and the light is still soft on the street. Zay has the plan written before you've laced up.

That is where it always starts with him. Your goal goes down on paper first, then the weeks it will take to reach it, then today. No guessing, and no going hard every day just to feel busy. You walk in already knowing why you are here.

The warm-up is not a formality. Lunges with a reach, high knees, side shuffles: your whole body wakes up at once, and your head arrives with it. Nothing heavy moves until you are present, because a workout without your mind in it does not count.

Then the work. A med ball leaves your hands and hits the floor, and you feel the power rise from your hips. The big lifts follow in supersets, a press and then a row with barely a breath between them, so your heart stays up and nothing is wasted.

Near the end comes the air bike, or the ski-row, short and honest. Your lungs burn, your legs argue, and the last interval is the one you remember on the drive home.

Through all of it, your core is trained the whole way around: front, back and sides. Not for a six-pack. For the posture that carries you for decades.

The week has a shape. Four main sessions, an optional fifth when you have it in you, and rest days that are part of the plan, not a reward for surviving it. Push too hard too fast and the body and the mind both give out. Zay builds the weeks so neither does.

It is the framework he built with NFL and Division 1 football players, made for anyone who wants to train like an athlete and move like one. You leave lighter, stronger and a little more sure of yourself than when you came in.

It's fire, and as inspiring as he is.

Available at TrainHeroic, or by asking Theins for a training program.