Salt Bae, the Turkish butcher and salt sprinkling maestro, has become an unlikely fitness influencer. While we may have ‘genuine’ fitness inspirational figures who make it their career to teach others about correct form or new and intuitive techniques to help you achieve huge gains, Salt Bae can often go under the radar.
But as we’ve shown time and time again, his workouts, which flicker between the ordinary and not-so-ordinary, are ones you should definitely consider adding into your training regimes. Not least because the work he does, combined with his apparent love for the carnivore diet, allow him to maintain an incredibly low body fat percentage and subsequently improve his muscle definition. He certainly avoids the skinny muscular body type.
But, other than just eating a sh*t tonne of meat, just exactly how does he achieve such a lean physique? Fortunately, the man himself has revealed in yet another series of videos some of the training he performs that keeps him in such great shape.
Taking to his Instagram stories, Salt Bae transitions between revealing shots of his now-famously shredded torso and insane vascularity to playing some clips relaying how he uses a pair of dumbbells and some resistance bands (occasionally combining the two) to put his muscles under incredible tension, which is reported to help improve muscular strength, endurance and growth.
Time Under Tension – or TUT – has been proven to help lower body fat percentage. And, because it usually involves performing movements at a slower pace, you not only allow the muscles to experience the greatest amount of tension for the greatest amount of time, but you also encourage yourself to become more mindful and present, since you need to focus more heavily on the movement being performed (which can lead to better technique).
Check out Salt Bae’s secret to shredding success in the video below
In the videos, he can be seen performing the following movements:
Seated resistance band row: A great upper body exercise that targets your back and upper arm muscles. To perform, sit on the floor with legs together and knees slightly bent. Depending on the type of resistance band you have, you can either wrap the ends around the soles of your feet or wrap it around a solid pole.
Hold the ends of the resistance band in each hand with palms facing in, brace your core and lock your shoulder blades down. Pull both hands towards your chest until they are over your thighs, keeping your palms in line with your nipples and your elbows close to your body. You’ll want to aim to hold this end position for a minimum of one second, but as Salt Bae shows, holding for longer increases the time under tension.
Dumbbell squats with resistance band: Squats, as we should all know by now, are a fantastic compound movement that targets not only the major muscles in your legs but your core and back too, since they’re activated to help keep your torso upright during the movement.
Foregoing traditional barbell back squats, Salt Bae can be seen performing dumbbell squats, with a resistance band wrapped around them. Dumbbell squats are noted for activating different muscles compared to barbell squats, and primarily focus on the legs, core and forearms, as well as putting more focus on the lats compared to using a barbell.
Adding a resistance band into the mix helps to increase the weight of the load, without increasing the actual weight of the dumbbells. It’s a neat trick to use if you don’t have access to heavier weights, but find that your usual load is becoming a little easy.
To perform, hold a dumbbell in each hand and loop a single resistance band around the two, with the other end wrapped around a solid pole. In Salt Bae’s case, he’s performing a cannonball squat, which sees the feet brought closer together than in a regular squat. This can help to place more focus on the quadriceps, although some believe they don’t offer a huge difference to regular squats.
With feet close together, squat down, pushing your bum out and keeping your knees over your toes and dumbbells in front of your knees. Hold this squat position for a second or two and push back up with some explosive power, and squeeze your glutes before performing another squat.
Dumbbell glute bridge: The dumbbell glute bridge works, unsurprisingly, the glutes. Most people who perform this movement using dumbbells would just use a singular one placed horizontally across their hips. Salt Bae, however, uses two dumbbells, with each placed vertically on his upper thigh to provide a greater load to push against.
To perform, lie on your back with your knees bent. Hold a dumbbell in each hand with palms facing inward, and with each dumbbell resting on your upper thighs. Push your heels into the floor to help with pushing your hips upwards, ensuring that you hold the dumbbells in position as you do so. Raise your hips until your back and lower body form a straight line. Squeeze your glutes for a second or two at the top of the movement, before lowering back down to the starting position.
Perform these three movements on a regular basis, ensuring you employ the time under tension technique, and you’ll not only feel the difference the next day through muscle soreness, but you’ll start to notice a difference in muscle size, too.
Check out some of Salt Bae’s other workouts for shredded success in the video below.