Q) That seems like a lot! How can I finish it in time?
A) Good question. Time spent at the gym is one important factor you
should consider because the longer you workout, the more you're
breaking down your muscles. You see, when you start exerting your
muscles and stressing them with physical work, you induce some
hormone release in your body. These include anabolic(muscle
building) and catabolic(muscle breaking) ones. Initially the
anabolic ones are higher, but if you stress your body long enough
the catabolic ones will win. Afterall, you can't expect to train 12
hours intensively and not lose muscle. How long is long enough? The
limit is about 45-50mins, so keep your workouts within that time.
Note that this duration is from your first work set to the last
work set, including any HIIT you have at the end. This doesn't
include any warmup or stretching, since you're not exerting
yourself that hard.
Now, in order to finish all that 8 lifts within 45min, you're gonna
have to move around fast! This means short rest intervals. This is
in line with fat loss because the shorter you rest, the more
metabolic demands you place on your body, since you're not giving
your body sufficient time to recover completely before your next
set. For fat loss, keep rest intervals between sets to about
30-60s
Now, assuming you take 30s to complete the set and 30s to rest
before the next set. That's about 1 minute in total for each set.
You have 24 sets to do, so that only takes 24mins. Doesn't seem
that long now does it?
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So all in all, the training parameters are as follows, assuming you
tain 3x a week:
Sets: 2-3 work sets, 1 warmup set
Reps: 10-12 on Monday, 7-9 on Wednesday, 4-7 on Friday
Load: 12-14RM on Monday, 9-11RM on Wednesday, 6-8RM on Friday
Rest interval: 30s
Q) Why and how does this work?
A) This works because of several reasons. In case you want to
know...
- Compound movements cause the most stress to your body because
many joints and muscle groups are involved, and heavier weights are
carried. They are metabolically and neurally more intensive, hence
burns more calories and induces more EPOC and hormonal response,
all of which are conducive for fat loss and muscle building.
- Alternating sets allow one part of your body to rest while
another part works. It also increases the work density while not
compromising too much the actual rest a muscle group has. For
example if you look at A1/A2. While rest intervals between the
deadlift and bench press is only 30s, if you think about it, rest
intervals between each deadlift is actually twice that or more, and
because the deadlift uses different muscle groups from the bench
press, they are more or less independent, so you get more rest
while still doing work. That's multitasking at the gym!
- Low number of sets allow more exercises to do be done. We have 8
to get through in 1 workout, so you can only afford to spend 3-4
sets in total for each exercise. This balances out the various
movement and muscle groups so you don't have any imbalances.
- Moderately high reps takes some duration of time to complete them
while still allowing you to use heavy enough weights. When done
fast, they are also lactate inducing(this is what causes the "burn"
in your muscles right after you complete the set). This again
causes a hormonal response, as well as triggers your body to get
rid of the lactate from your muscles. This is metabolically
expensive and hence more calories are burnt
- Heavy loads are more intensive than 1kg pink dumbbells. Loads
that challenge your body to lift them cause several responses from
your body that include fat loss and lean muscle growth. Light
weights have no chance of eliciting these responses because they
are too easy.
- Short rest intervals makes perceived intensity higher, because
you're not giving your body enough time to rest. In 30s your body
cannot remove the lactate, or lower your pulse rate, or lower your
body temperature, etc, however you would have enough rest to be
able to perform the next set
Q) I've been doing this for a 2 weeks and the workout now seems
easier. I'm not so out of breath anymore, and the weights don't
seem that heavy
A) That's good news! It's because your body has adapted to the
program and is now fitter and stronger. However, that's bad news
for fat loss and muscle growth, because you're no longer presenting
your body with as much stress as when you first started...so how do
you fix this? Easy, by increasing the resistance! Ideally for
beginners, every workout you should aim to add some weight. For
example if you start out with a 20kg barbell squat(20kg is the
weight of the empty long barbell), the next workout, put a pair of
1.25kg or 2.5kg on it(1 on each side), and so on...you will need to
constantly evaluate your new 10-14RM by listening to your
body.
Q) What about abs or "core" exercises? I don't see any listed
there?
A) Good question. Core exercises are a different class altogether,
but most people train them wrongly. Without going into too much
detail, avoid traditional crunches and situps because they don't
train the core the way it should be trained. The core should first
be trained to prevent motion, not to create it. Exercises that
train this include side planks/bridges and the ab-wheel. Do these
after you warmup, but before the strength training. 5-10min of this
should be sufficient. Core work doesn't fall within the 45min
window since it's not very intensive.
Q) Speaking of warmup, how should I do this? Should I run on the
treadmill for 5min before doing some stretching?
A) It may seem weird, but a warmup need not consist of actually
warming your body up. It certainly need not include any kind of
cardio beforehand. It doesn't hurt too much if you're only cycling
for 5min, except for the fact that 5min is wasted. So what should
you do? Several things:
- self massage or "self myofascial release"(SMFR): this releases
the "knots" in your muscle fibers and increases your muscle tissue
quality. Picture your muscle fibers as a big rubber band with
several knots. If you just stretch it, the knots are still there,
and will even get tighter. Now if you release those knots, you're
able to stretch the rubber band more. SMFR can be performed with a
tennis ball, golf ball, or ideally a foam roller. Basically you
roll these around various muscles while putting your bodyweight on
it, and then when you find a "tender spot" which illicits pain,
stay in that position for about half a minute, and the pain will
subside. It can be pretty painful the first time you do it, but
you'll be amazed at how this can give relief to some nagging aches
all around your body!
- static stretching: Now that the knots are released, you're ready
to stretch! Stretch only what is tight/inflexible. Girls are
usually more flexible than guys so it shouldn't be that time
consuming. A few stretches include hamstring, glutes, hip flexors
and quads for the lower body, and pecs and lats for the upper body.
Do a google search for how to stretch these parts.
- muscle activation: this "activates" your muscles so that they're
not sleeping. Believe it or not, many of us have muscles that are
sleeping, or deactivated. Due to modern lifestyle and a 9-5
deskbound jobs, we have lost the ability to recruit those muscles.
Hence when we perform certain lifts that are usually performed by
those muscles, other muscles come in and try to lift it instead.
This causes faulty movement patterns and can lead to over-stressing
of the wrong muscles, which can ultimately lead to injury. This is
one of the reasons why you hear of people getting back injuries
from just bending down and picking up a pencil.
The glutes are a muscle group that are usually dormant and
deactivated. A good way to activate it is to do a "clamshell",
where you lay on your side, wrap a resistance band/tubing around
your knees, and open/close your legs like a clamshell. If you're
doing it right, you should feel it on your butt. Another good one
is the side-step, where you hold a resistance band/tubing with your
hands, step on it with both legs, then step to the side several
times 1 direction, and several times back. The band/tubing provides
some form of resistance.
- specific movement preparation: this prepares your body for the
actual lifting/movement that it's about to perform. This is what
the warmup set with a lighter weight does.
After you do all this, your body temperature will probably be
raised already, so like I said earlier, there's no point in doing
any actual "warming up" to warm your body up.
That's all I can think of now...hope this helps!
