May 8, 2017

Time-efficient hypertrophy

Time-efficient hypertrophy

Source : https://www.t-nation.com/workouts/time-efficient-hypertrophy

New job, new baby, new girlfriend.
Hectic season, moving house, longer commutes to work.
More work, more responsibility, less free time

Is life getting a little too hectic?

There are a number of circumstances where life gets more hectic and the first thing to get cut out of the schedule is usually time at the gym. We've all been there, and maybe you're going through some of the same things listed above right now. So let me ask you this - a question I've asked every one of my clients who has come to me in a similar situation:

Do you have half an hour?

Surely you have half an hour. Almost everyone can find a free half hour in their schedule. But what the hell can you accomplish in half an hour?

The answer is: assuming you have the right plan - everything you need to do.

In a minute, I'm going to reveal a hypertrophy program for you that is sure to cut your time in the gym in half, while still allowing you to achieve optimal gains in muscle mass and strength. The only thing you'll have to give up is wasted time.

The need for something better

Before we talk about the reasoning behind the setup of this program, or the program, I first want to take a look at a few commonly recommended methods for busy people and why they don't really solve the problem.

Circuit training

At some point, someone decided to pick a series of machines and go through them as quickly as possible one after the other for a time-efficient workout. The idea was to trade time for intensity (intensity in terms of effort and not in terms of a percentage of maximum weight for one repetition (1RM)) and get muscular and strong in half the time.

While this time-intensity exchange works quite well for cardio training and the desired adaptations, applying this principle to training with weights fails miserably. Trading time for intensity during resistance training means that training loads suffer greatly and such weights are not sufficient to adequately stimulate muscle tissue for growth or an increase in strength.

Simply put, the gains in muscle mass and strength as a result of circuit training are close to zero. Sure, circuit training saves time, but if time is saved at the expense of performance and progress, such an approach is far from efficient. Remember that training must not be compromised if a method is to be efficient and circuit training does not even begin to fulfill this criterion.

The two days a week full body training program

I guess the fact that this program only involves two training days per week catches the attention of exercisers who are pressed for time, but when they then learn that they have to devote at least 90 minutes to perform a grueling full-body workout on those said two days, this approach loses some of its initial appeal.

Let's face it - the last thing anyone who is already under stress wants is a tough full-body workout. Combine this with the fact that you probably don't even have the time one day a week for such a training session and you'll see why this approach isn't really suitable for people who don't have much time.

The ideal training session in this situation is one that is short and after which the exerciser leaves the gym fresh and revitalized and not tired and exhausted - something that the time-efficient hypertrophy program described below can give you as opposed to a twice-weekly full-body workout.

Let's get down to business

Now that we've determined the needs, let's talk about how to best meet those needs. Below I will outline a number of ways in which you can reduce training time without sacrificing results. All of these have been incorporated into the Time Efficient Hypertrophy Program.

Only use multi-joint exercises

This is probably not news to many readers, but it's still worth mentioning. Multi-joint exercises allow the exerciser to train multiple muscle groups with a single exercise and are therefore a very efficient way to train.

Take the bench press, which trains the chest, triceps and front shoulder muscles, as an example. Five sets of bench presses of 10 repetitions performed at a 31X pace with 90 seconds rest between sets will take about 13 minutes to complete. To duplicate the training effect of this exercise by training the individual muscle groups in isolation, we would need to perform 5 sets of flying movements of 10 repetitions, followed by 5 sets of tricep presses of 10 repetitions, followed by 5 sets of front raises of 10 repetitions. This would add up to 30 minutes, which is almost three times as long.

Even though isolation exercises have their place in training, we can't waste time on these exercises when we only have half an hour of training time available. For this reason, any time-efficient program should avoid isolation exercises and consist exclusively of multi-joint exercises.

Use an overlapping training split

Overlapping training splits, or training splits that are designed to stimulate muscle groups sometimes repeatedly within a short period of time (e.g. performing dips on Monday and performing dumbbell bench presses, which also work the triceps to some degree, on Wednesday), have long been frowned upon by many in the bodybuilding community (mainly those with very limited knowledge of the body's recovery capabilities ). However, the common use of such splits - and especially in this situation - is priceless.

Stimulating muscle tissue in both primary and secondary ways throughout the week improves recovery by increasing the delivery of nutrient-rich blood to the recovering muscles and allows the exerciser to stimulate all muscle groups at a high weekly volume without having to spend a lot of time performing the workouts.

This becomes quite obvious when you look at the structure of the time-efficient hypertrophy training described below.

Work while you rest

If you are performing straight sets, then you are wasting valuable time and missing out on the benefits of antagonistic supersets. Whenever possible, use pairings of exercises for muscle groups that perform opposite actions and switch back and forth between these exercises. An example of this would be biceps and triceps (pairing exercises for quadriceps and hamstrings within the same workout is not a good idea, as alternating two large multi-joint exercises such as deadlifts and squats will reduce the weights you can use for each of these exercises).

This way, instead of sitting around waiting for your rest time between sets to end, you can jump to another part of your training session. Not only that, but research suggests that alternating exercises for opposing muscle groups could also improve performance.

Under normal circumstances, antagonists (muscles that perform opposite actions to the working muscles) limit the force production of the agonist (working muscle) by co-contracting during any exercise where the agonist is doing work. However, if you switch back and forth between opposing muscles, the antagonists will be fatigued from the previous set and therefore unable to fully contract. Save time - increase your performance.

This is efficient!

The time-efficient hypertrophy program

Here it is, in all its time-efficient glory (see below for repetition schemes and parameters):

Monday (chest/back)

A1) Dumbbell incline bench press with 30 degree incline
A2) Pull-ups with underhand grip

(Note: alternate between exercise 1 and 2, observing the rest times indicated below. The same instructions apply to all subsequent exercise combinations).

Tuesday (quadriceps dominant legs/calves)

A1) Squats with moderate foot spacing
A2) Calf raises on the leg press

Wednesday (arms)

A1) Dips
A2) Incline bench curls

Thursday (hip dominant legs/shoulders)

A1) Deadlift
A2) Barbell shoulder press standing

Friday (full body regeneration)

A1) Bench press
A2) Bent-over rowing
A3) Leg extensions
A4) Leg curls

Repetition patterns / training parameters

Odd weeks (Monday to Thursday):

Sets/repetitions: 5 x 8-10
Load: 10RM
Rest between sets: 60 seconds

Increase the weight by 2.5 to 5 kilos if you are able to perform more than 10 repetitions in your first set.

Even weeks (Monday to Thursday):

Sets/reps: 10 x 5
Load: 7RM
Rest between sets: 60 seconds

Increase the weight by 2.5 to 5 kilos if you are able to perform 5 repetitions on all sets.

Friday training session: 1x50

Sets/reps: 1 x 50
Load: A weight at which you reach muscle failure after 40 to 60 repetitions

The rests between the sets of this recovery training unit are not specific - simply move on to the next exercise after performing one exercise.

Even if you train 5 days a week in this program, none of the training sessions will last longer than half an hour. The training sessions from Monday to Thursday last around 22 minutes on odd-numbered weeks (5 x 10) and around 28 minutes on even-numbered weeks (10 x 5). The regeneration training sessions on Friday last about 14 minutes.

Here are some recommendations for when you can do these training sessions:

a) First thing in the morning (just get up a little earlier)

b) During your lunch break (exercise and eat your lunch - your training shake - at the same time)

c) Directly after work, before you go home

d) For pupils and students, first thing in the morning between lectures or after lectures.

As the workouts are short, finding the time to do them should not be a problem. The key is to do these workouts whenever you can fit them into your schedule. Be aware of your schedule for the next day and plan the next day's training session the night before.

Some enlightening information about the composition of the program

As you can see, we only use multi-joint exercises (with the exception of the recovery training session on Friday) and have put the program together in an overlapping manner (as opposed to the popular push-pull approach).

As mentioned above, this allows us to stimulate all muscle groups with a high weekly volume without having to spend a lot of time on any of the workouts. In the above program, for example, the triceps are stimulated on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, resulting in a high weekly volume for this muscle group (and creating a huge growth stimulus), yet none of the training sessions last longer than 30 minutes.

We also significantly reduce the rest times by alternating between the specified exercises rather than performing "straight sets".

The recovery training session on Friday is extremely short, which is a great way to ease into the weekend while getting nutrient-rich blood into the muscle tissue you've been working hard on all week.

Additionally, the varying repetition schemes cover it all. They stimulate growth at both the sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar levels, improve muscle tone through myofibril proliferation, and challenge the nervous system for strength gains and an increase in neurogenic muscle tone.

Last but not least, the frequent workouts stimulate the release of "feel-good endorphins" on a daily basis, which helps alleviate stress from the many other things busy people are exposed to. At the same time, each training session is short enough to avoid the demanding effects that longer training sessions have on the nervous system of people who are already stressed.

In short, the frequent but short training sessions are exactly what busy people need, as they contribute to more energy and higher productivity in other areas of life.

Conclusion

There will always be times when things get hectic and free time is limited - it's the nature of any productive person's life. However, this does not mean that you have to neglect your body during these times.

I hope you will find the exercise program described to be the ideal solution for busy people: optimal results, less time, more energy, higher productivity.

So the next time life gets crazy and you think about putting your body development goals on hold, ask yourself: do I have half an hour?