More Results, Less Time – Part II

Boom-shaka-laka! I’m back!

Yesterday I hit you up with a killer technique for saving time in the gym while enhancing the effectiveness of your workouts (see antagonistic supersets), and today, as promised, I’ve got two more time-saving, results-boosting strategies for you.

Here they be:

1. Utilize “Big Money” Exercises – Big Money Exercises (aka compound movements) are exercises which cross multiple joints and recruit multiple muscle groups simultaneously, making their use an extremely efficient way to train.

Take for example the bench press.

Bench pressing, be it with dumbbells or a barbell, works the chest, triceps, and anterior deltoids (front of the shoulder). Five sets of 10 repetitions of the bench press at a moderate tempo may take somewhere around 12 minutes to complete.

In order to duplicate the same stimulatory effect by working each muscle individually, you’d need to perform 5 sets of 10 repetitions of flyes, followed by 5 sets of 10 repetitions of overhead extensions, followed by 5 sets of 10 repetitions of front raises, totaling over 30 minutes or THREE TIMES as long.

Now that’s not to say that isolation exercises have no value, but you’d be wise to limit them in favor of bigger, compound movements.

2. Strive for Overlap – Overlapping splits, or splits that are set up in such a way that muscle groups are sometimes stimulated repeatedly within a short period of time (i.e. performing dips on Monday and then dumbbell bench press, which also works the triceps to a degree, on Wednesday), have been frowned upon by many (mostly those who have very limited knowledge of the body’s recovery abilities) in the bodybuilding community for years; however their use in general, and particularly when looking to save time, is invaluable.

Stimulating muscle tissue in both primary and secondary fashions throughout the week increases recovery through the shuttling of nutrient rich blood to recovering muscles and also allows trainees to stimulate all muscle groups with a high weekly volume without having to spend a great deal of time conducting any one session.

There you have it – two more ways to save time in the gym! Combine them with antagonistic supersets and you’ll be amazed how much you can actually get done in a half hour!

Want to see how to combine all three strategies into a single workout regimen? At least 50 comments and I’ll be back on Friday with a complete time-saving workout plan!

Talk to you in the comments section!

Joel