Maximise your workout time

I often hear people talk about how many hours they spend in the gym – almost boasting about it. My immediate reaction is: You must either have alot of time on your hands or you must be doing the wrong exercises. As people are becoming increasingly time poor, it is important that they are given the opportunity to gain maximum bite for the buck or get maximum results in minimal time. Further as most people really dont enjoy the “pain” of exercise they should be given the opportunity to achieve maximum results with minimal effort.

The best form of exercise to increase your metabolism and achieve a great body shape is weight training; and the best weight training exercise are “compound” (those that move multiple joints and muscles at one time). One of the best examples of a compound exercise is the  squat, which works the thighs, hamstrings , calves, abdominals. Other example of these exercises include squats, lunges, leg presses, bench press, lat pulldown and should presses. Isolation exercises on the other hand focus on targeting one muscle group at a time and one of the best examples of isolation exercises is the bicep curl.

Compound exercises general work the largest and strongest muscles of the body. Hence, they also provide the largest muscle gains and stimulate the release of testosterone and growth hormones. Compound exercises are the most demanding, however, the muscle gains from performing compound exercises far outweigh the muscle gains from performing isolation exercises alone. Hence for time poor, I don’t believe there is a need to perform isolation exercises at all. Why would you say perform 3 sets of cable flys for your chest, 3 sets of front dumbbell raises to work our shoulders and 3 sets of tricep pushdowns for your triceps when you can perform 3 sets of the bench press which works the chest, shoulders and triceps at the same time? It makes no sense.

Another major point to consider is the inverse relationship between intensity and volume. Obviously the longer you workout for, the lower the intensity will be and as any improvement in body shape requires overload or high intensity efforts, short sessions are more beneficial. As a result, I would recommend that only 2 x 30 minutes weight training work outs are needed per week for weight loss and no more than 3 x 60 minutes sessions are needed for muscle gain (Compound exercises only of course!)