April 14th, 2009 Posted in Exercise Tips |
2 Comments »
Last newsletter, I promised to share a “secret” technique that I personally use to dramatically increase my workout results.
It’s simple and ALMOST obvious, but virtually no one does it.
Once I tried it and saw the results, I never wanted to go back to the old way of training. Plus, it saves me time, which I love.
Here is my secret technique: eliminate rest between exercises.
While this idea sounds simple, there is a lot to it that is not obvious to most people. It sure wasn’t obvious to me at first.
Right now I’m going to bring you into the exclusive group of people who sees things that the average gym-goer never sees.
I’m going to give you a STEP-BY-STEP blueprint of ten advanced ways that I accomplish eliminating rest between exercises.
Any one of them could generate noticeable improvements in your workout; the combination of all ten could be rocket fuel for your results.
Here is that secret blueprint:
(then, further below, I’ll blow your mind when I quantify exactly how much your results can improve from implementing this simple technique)
1. I plan out my workout in advance: I have written down the exact weights and machine settings in my LA gym that I’ll be using before I start my workout. I also determine the order that I’ll do the exercises. This way there is no time wasted thinking and analyzing between exercises.
2. I set up all the machines in advance. This way, when I am finished with one exercise, I can start immediately on the next exercise without fumbling around to get the machine set up.
3. I do not talk during my workout. Not between exercises and not with anyone. Not even my personal trainer/workout partner. I only say something if it is absolutely necessary, and I save talking and chatting until after I’ve finished my entire workout.
4. When I complete one exercise, I begin the next exercise as quickly as possible … making it seem like a continuation of the previous exercise. I do not hesitate or move slowly between exercises. Recall: I’ve already set up the machines and determined my order in advance.
5. I do not check my text messages, email, etc. between exercises. In fact my phone is on silent and in another room so it cannot distract me at all.
6. I do not drink water between exercises. This might seem strange, but Since my workout is so short, and I’m hydrated going in, I won’t get dehydrated during my workout. My mouth does gets dry from breathing a lot, but I’m fine with that. And I drink some water right after my workout is complete to instantly eliminate the dryness in my mouth.
7. The moment I set down the weight after one exercise and feel my muscles unload, I use that as my cue to begin moving toward the next machine.
8. The moment I am seated and positioned on a new machine, I begin lightly pushing/pulling to feel the muscles I am going to be targeting. From here, I smoothly increase my effort over several seconds until the weight starts moving. I do NOT do the following: rest completely, then psych myself up, then jab at the machine. That is what I observe many people doing, and that is what I also USED to do. That was before I experienced how much more effective the “zero rest” method is.
9. I eliminate overheating in two ways: 1. by keeping the gym temperature between 61 and 64 degrees, and 2. directing a fan at me so a light breeze is carrying away the layer of warm air that surrounds my body. This prevents all the heat that I am generating from getting trapped in my body and forcing me to stop and cool down between exercises. It also prevents excess
sweating and water loss, because I am no longer overheating.
10. In my mind, I approach the whole workout as one big, continuous exercise that begins when I start on the first machine, and does not end until I finish the last machine–it does not stop anywhere in the middle. I don’t look for a sense of completion after each exercise this way–only after the entire
workout is complete.
Now for the mind-blowing part …
It might seem an overstatement to claim that this strategy could make your workout 50% more intense. Claiming 100% improvement probably sounds crazy.
I would have thought so before I experienced the difference.
Now, I’m about to show you how this makes a whole lot of sense…and you’ll be able to impress all of your friends with your superior knowledge of exercise.
If you took the conventional approach, you’d probably try to maximize the intensity of each individual exercise by resting a little between exercises.
That intuitively makes sense, however, we’ll see in a second how this sacrifices the overall intensity of your workout far more than any possible gain you could get on the individual exercises.
My approach, by contrast to the conventional approach, is to maximize the intensity of my entire workout–by having zero rest between exercises.
One result of this is that the weights and times on individual exercises WILL often be lower than what they would be if I was resting between exercises.
At first this might make it appear that I am accomplishing less; but the counterintuitive truth is that this is precisely a sign that I have accomplished MORE.
The fact that I started with the same strength and become capable of doing less during my version of the workout is a sign that I have achieved a greater level of exhaustion in less time.
And this is a critical point: it isn’t just that I’ve become more exhausted, it’s that I’ve done so in LESS time.
When I accomplish a greater level of exhaustion in less total time, that is an increase in intensity.
This example will make it clear:
Imagine that you ran a mile in 10 minutes, and then ran that same mile in 5 minutes. Now, “intensity” is difficult to precisely define, but we can probably agree that you might approximate that you worked twice as intensely when you ran the mile in 5 minutes as opposed to 10. In this case, you performed the same amount of work (running a mile) in half the time. Afterwards, you probably felt at least twice as exhausted.
Both the research that I’ve seen and my practical experience in training clients for the last 11 years point toward INTENSITY of work as the hands-down winner on what generates results.
NOT the total amount of work done, and NOT the level of exhaustion reached…but the intensity during the workout.
People who get fatigued from a lower level of intensity (i.e., using activities that take longer to get them fatigued) just don’t get nearly as good of results.
I could get completely exhausted by walking, say, 32 hours non-stop. My intensity throughout this activity would be low, but I’d be so exhausted at the end that I may not be able to remain standing. And I’d probably see no benefit from this at all–likely only detriment.
In contrast, a single two-minute, all-out sprint could also get me to the point where I was too exhausted to stand, but this would be far more intense, because it took a lot less time. And it’s far more likely to yield beneficial results.
Now, running is easy for most people to relate to, but there are several reasons why controlled weight training with ideal equipment is both more effective than running and can have a much lower risk of injury. It is something that nearly anyone, at any level of fitness can start with and be
progressing on–if done properly.
To sum up, If I want more strength, more definition, more stamina, and more results, then I want to accomplish more fatigue faster during my workouts.
More intensity is what triggers my body to respond and get stronger, leaner, and more conditioned more rapidly.
Here is how this applies to a workout in the gym:
Suppose that you normally did 6 exercises in about 30 minutes…
Each of those 6 exercises might last around 2 minutes.
After each exercise, suppose you rested a few seconds on the machine. Then you walked around a little bit, got a sip of water, chatted a little bit. Then you set up the weights on the next machine. Then you got into the machine, rested a little bit and got focused. Finally, you started the
exercise.
That could easily take 4 to 5 minutes of time between the end of one exercise and the beginning of the next.
In this case, your workout would consist of six 2-minute exercises and four 4-minute breaks: a total of 28 minutes. If you did nothing but cut your rest time to 20 seconds between each exercise, your entire workout time would fall to just 14 minutes. That’s HALF the time.
Even if you had to lower the weights you were using a little because you were getting so exhausted in the latter part of your workout, your overall workout intensity would still be MUCH higher than before…perhaps near 100% greater intensity. All from that one simple change of cutting out the
rest between exercises.
If you think you don’t actually rest that long between exercises, I challenge you to have a friend use a stopwatch and time you from the moment you set down the weights on one machine to the moment you begin the next. You might be shocked that each period that seems like 20 seconds is
actually 2+ minutes.
I notice that the difference between resting 45 seconds and 20 seconds is a night-and-day difference in what I feel after the workout, and in the results I get.
I often try to get my time between exercises down to around 10 seconds.
In addition to the awesome strength results, if you want to have amazing conditioning, there isn’t much that compares to a workout done this way.
Now, it’s a real challenge to get the time between exercises down under 20 seconds…and even more so to get it to around 10 seconds.
You’ll need to spend a little time to plan your strategy, and involve your trainer/workout partner in the planning. The pay-off and time saved is well worth the planning effort, though.
Also, I find that it helps to have the machines I’m using right next to each other, so it takes just two or three steps to get from one to the next. (And I designed the layout of my gym for this purpose)
If you took the conventional approach of resting a little between exercises to last a few seconds longer or lift a little bit more weight, you may achieve a *perceived* 5-10% increase on the individual exercise intensity. However, you’ll find that there is no comparison to the increased intensity and results of eliminating rest between exercises…the conventional approach loses
out hands-down.
Here’s a surprising kicker…even while you can increase your *perceived* intensity on an individual exercise, the actual intensity may still be LOWER–even if you just look at the individual exercise.
As long as you are not mentally giving up on an exercise, you are experiencing more intensity on an exercising where you are fatiguing more rapidly.
Exercise intensity is not the same as simple mechanical work performed (i.e., how much a weight is moved). This has confused many a gym-goer and even most trainers.
There are several major, VERY popular workout movements today that are based around trying to get people to do ever more mechanical work.
This is misguided and wrong, wrong, wrong.
Such people may be getting results to the degree that they are working intensely, but they are missing out on a lot more results.
At the same time, they are missing out on a lot of efficiency in their training that could give them hours, days, and months of their life back.
And they are needlessly putting their bodies through a lot more stress and trauma than is needed to get results–and this could be increasing the risk of injury and actually accelerating the aging process.
When you exercise, a muscle that gets more exhausted in less time has worked MORE intensely, regardless of how much mechanical work (i.e., amount of movement) it has performed.
This means that if you can figure out how to exhaust a muscle to a greater degree in less time with less weight, this INCREASES the intensity. This increased intensity exercises that muscle more than if you’d exhausted that same muscle using more weight and more time.
This is exactly what cutting out rest time allows you to do,
What most people perceive as a loss of intensity when cutting out rest is actually is actually an INCREASE in intensity–and a great benefit you do not want to miss out on.
Oh, and one more thing…you may have noticed that this not only improves your intensity and results up to 100%, but it also cuts your workout time by up to 50%.
Or MORE…
As your intensity and strength rise, you’ll eventually have to cut out entire exercises as the intensity and effect of just a few exercises goes through the roof.
Advanced subjects may not be able to tolerate more than 3 exercises…and less than 8 minutes of working out, start-to-finish, once a week.
At that level, this is more than enough to get very impressive and rapid strength and cardiovascular results.
I personally usually do just 3 exercises once a week; and I finish my workout in less than 8 minutes.
When I remove the rest between exercises, the cardiovascular effect is amazing … it’s not uncommon for me to be still out of breath and have my heart rate elevated 20 minutes after I finish this workout.
Nearly anyone can get close to that level…it’s just a matter of identifying where you are now and progressively improving a little bit each workout.
Because this has such a huge impact on the intensity, if you’re not used to it, give yourself several workouts to work up to it a little at a time…don’t expect to be able to instantly implement everything I do above.
Now, if you want me to give a more detailed outline of how to go through this “ramping up” process, email me back and let me know–and I’ll be happy to do it in another newsletter.
I know this post is getting long, and I need to end it, even though I have a lot more I could say about this, including…
-details of how to “ramp up” from out-of-shape to intense workout master–it’s not an overnight process
-psychological hurdles everyone encounters as the workout gets more intense, and how to easily overcome them
-how to identify and eliminate bad workout habits that are holding you back
-research studies that show dramatically more results in shockingly less timewhen exercise intensity is increased
-how the rest you’re getting DURING each exercise might be compromising results even more than the rest between exercises. Eliminating the several sources of hidden rest during exercises is actually where we begin with people we train one-on-one
But for now, I’ll wait to hear from you what you would like me to talk about. So email me and let me know.
And if you want to have someone guide you through this process and take care of all the details for you–while holding your hand and making sure you are getting the maximum benefit every step of the way, that is exactly what we do at my private gym in Los Angeles.
We’re not free, and we’re not for everyone. But if you’re serious about doing something and hiring someone to make sure you do everything you can to be getting the best results in the least amount of your time, then here’s my deal to you:
Try an introductory workout with us, and, if you don’t love it, I’ll personally refund your money.
I can’t offer you a better deal than that, and I can’t offer this deal forever.
You can see the details of this guarantee offer at the upper right of this blog.
(If the guarantee offer is gone when you click the link, that means time has run out and I’ve taken it down.)
At the same link, you’ll see details of the workout and a special interest form that will send your info straight to us so we can call you back immediately…today, and figure out if we’re a good match for working with each other.
If you’ve decided that it’s time to get the ball rolling on getting into better shape, and you’d like us to manage all of the details for you so you just have to show up, then I look forward to hearing from you today.
To health and life,
Chad
Chad Morris
Myogenics Fitness
P.S. Please comment below with any questions and feedback…or anything else you want to know, and want me to discuss in a future newsletter. While I cannot always personally respond, I read every comment, and I will try to reply in an upcoming newsletter.
—————————— —————————–
Disclaimer: All material provided herein is provided
for educational purposes only. Consult your own
physician regarding the applicability of any opinions
or recommendations with respect to your symptoms
or medical condition. Copyright 2009 Myogenics Fitness.
All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part
without permission is prohibited without express
written permission. http://www.myogenicsfitness.com
—————————— —————————–