Stop stringing together random moves. Stop just pulling random workouts that feel hard.
If you want results, your training sessions need to be designed with purpose.
You need to create routines that are actually focused on your goals.
Because training hard and training hard in a way that pushes you forward aren’t the same thing.
One is wasted effort.
The other is progression.
That’s why I want to go over the key factor in creating a workout plan that actually works as well as 3 amazing training techniques to help you build your leanest, strongest body ever!
Because there isn’t just one way to do things or one best workout.
No one best move.
No one best training split.
We need to stop ask what we “should” ideally be doing to start.
Instead we need to ask ourselves, “What is realistic for me based on where I am RIGHT NOW?”
Because even what used to work, may not fit our body or lifestyle now.
Ultimately what dictates what we need as much as our fitness goals is our schedule.
To see results, you have to design for the time you have.
DESIGN FOR THE TIME YOU HAVE:
Many of us have thought, “How many days a week do I need to train? For how long?”
We’ve sought out some ideal, but this stops us from designing for what is actually realistic for our schedules.
When we design for the time we have over getting caught up in some ideal of 1 hour a day, 6 days a week, we can create a routine we can actually be consistent with.
And consistency is key.
Honestly…Inconsistency is the biggest results KILLER.
Yet so often we set ourselves up for inconsistency in our workout routines by focusing on doing more or some ideal over first assessing what is truly realistic for our routines.
And that inconsistency has such a huge impact because your weekly schedule is built on everything working together.
When you design for 6 days a week, you’re using training splits, workout designs and even moves based on having all 6 days a week to train.
Miss one of those days and the whole system isn’t going to give you the same benefit.
That’s why you want to first ask yourself…
“What schedule is realistic for me?”
When you’re looking to start a new routine.
Once you know your timeframe, how many days a week and for how long, you can then select workout layouts, moves, training variables that make the most out of your timeframe.
Because if you have 3 days a week to train you can use full body splits to hit areas 2-3 times whereas you may use more hemisphere splits alternating upper and lower to get the same volume and frequency over the week if you have 6 days to train.
Design so that you don’t miss things and the system can work together!
Not to mention so often just because you have an hour to train doesn’t mean you should just add in MORE to fill the time.
If you have an hour, that can allow maybe for isolation moves for stubborn areas or extra rest to lift heavier.
But an intense speed or power workout still shouldn’t be made longer just because you have the time.
A intense sprint or HIIT workout SHOULD be short.
So once you know your schedule, don’t forget your goal for your training progression. Sometimes you won’t need to use the time just because you have it!
That’s why, with designing for the time we have, it’s key we also stop seeing our workouts as strength OR cardio.
We will often even BLEND both to see the best results based on our schedule and goals!
STRENGTH-CARDIO CONTINUUM:
When thinking about our workouts, we need to think of strength and cardio not as an either or thing in our training, but more as a workout design continuum we can use to our advantage.
Because whether you’re doing what we more traditionally call cardio, which is that steady state endurance type activity….
Or even that more traditional, more low rep slow lifting we call strength…
You’re working an energy system, which is technically having an impact on your cardiovascular health AND your strength and muscle.
And working along this continuum can help you see amazing body recomp while truly designing for the time you have!
It can also help you work not only on your aerobic base but on your speed, power, work capacity, lactic threshold, recovery and so much more.
So we don’t want to see our workouts as either or to get better results.
We also need to be conscious of this continuum so that we aren’t just turning every strength workout into a cardio session, which could be fighting against our muscle gains.
When you design your workouts, stay focused on your goals, not just on making a session feel harder.
Because while a more metabolic strength session that’s more circuit based or even a timed set may be amazing for losing fat while retaining lean muscle during a fat loss phase, that same lack of rest or more metabolic element may be hurting your focus on muscle hypertrophy.
Instead you may need to add in a bit more rest or switch it up to a superset or compound set design.
The key is understanding that how we vary rest and cycle exercises in a workout, the overall workout design we use, and not only the types of moves we use, can impact the results we get – from the strength to cardiovascular benefits.
Not to mention we can use workouts that are a combination of some conditioning and strength work to our advantage, especially when we are short on time.
Because most of us DO need more efficient workouts to fit our busy schedules.
And too often not having enough time is our excuses for not being consistent with our training or seeing the results we want.
That’s why I wanted to share 3 training techniques that can help you not only get BOTH cardio and strength benefits but also be super effective in allowing you to see results while designing for the schedule that is realistic for you….
First, Use Interval Workout Designs For Your STRENGTH Workouts.
When we think of an “interval workout,” we think of a cardio session.
And, yes, this can make your lifting sessions a bit more metabolic.
You may find you get more out of breath.
But intervals can also be a great way to increase your training density, especially when you’re short on time to improve your strength and muscle gains.
By using intervals with more strength based lifting exercises, you can help yourself achieve amazing body recomp, building muscle, improving your work capacity and even your recovery.
You can use interval workouts whether you’re doing more of an anterior/posterior split or even full body routines.
But set an interval of work, generally a minute for more strength exercises is good, using an exercise and load that challenges you so that you are almost working past failure in that time.
In back to back intervals even alternate areas worked so one muscle group can rest as you continue to use the time you have efficiently to work another area.
But during each interval of work, because the goal of this session is still building strength and muscle, challenge yourself so you need to pause for a second or two.
This pause to completely more reps means you were challenging yourself with loads. And generally at that pause with traditional reps and sets, we would have STOPPED and moved on.
But because we still have time in that interval to work, we do more!
This ultimately helps you lift more quality loads in a shorter amount of time, creating an amazing stimulus for muscle growth even when you need a quicker training session!
Interval strength work done this way, also implements the second training technique that can help you be more efficient in your workouts…
#2: Rest Pause Technique.
Rest-Pause Technique has many offshoots and usages.
But in its most basic form, you will perform reps until you need to pause, then rest for generally 15-30 seconds, before trying to eek out a few more reps with the same loads.
In the interval work, you want to rest no more than a few seconds to keep moving.
With things like cluster sets, you may use this brief pause but with smaller sets that don’t fully take you to failure, but allow you to lift heavier than you would be able to had you just done all reps straight.
But using this brief rest allows you to not only increase your training density, doing more reps in a shorter amount of time, but also often lift MORE weight in that same timeframe as you can go heavier for the same volume because of the rest.
You will find this improves not only your strength but also your muscle gains and even strength endurance.
And you may be surprised too by how much you see your recovery times improve in your other conditioning work even!
Now, this final technique I want to share goes against what we often think to do when we’re short on time and designing efficient workouts…
But I want to share it because it highlights how many opportunities and options there are out there to make things match what we need and progress over time.
Too often we get stuck feeling there is only one right way, and then miss out on an option that is different but could be the switch up we need.
Usually when we are short on time, we design our workouts to cycle areas worked.
This allows one area to rest as another is worked.
So in a circuit or set back to back moves may be one upper then one lower body exercise instead of back to back moves for the same muscle group.
But you may want to break this rule at times if you are really focused on those muscle gains, especially for stubborn areas.
This is where Post-Exhaust technique can come in handy, especially for more advanced lifters!
#3: Post Exhaust
With post-exhaust technique, you are working the same muscle group with back to back moves, usually using a compound exercise even followed by an isolation move to hone in on one of the muscles that was just worked.
This can help you work past failure in another way and recruit more muscle fiber to improve your muscle growth and strength gains.
But because you’re doing a high volume of very focused work for an area in a short amount of time, it can help you see better results even when you’re workout schedule is more limited.
You aren’t giving an area a chance to recover yet you’re working at an intensity with the change up in moves that allows you to keep that quality of work.
By pairing these two moves together back to back as then you even cycle between pairing that target different areas, you’ll be able to use all 3 drivers of muscle growth very efficiently.
BONUS: You can even do post-exhaust in an interval design, working the same muscle in back to back intervals!
And you may be surprised by how much you feel your blood pumping without doing anything you’ve usually thought of as remotely cardio!
So just remember, there are lots of ways to use different moves, techniques, and workout designs to our advantaged based on the time we have.
And we don’t have to see our workouts as just cardio or strength.
But we need to make sure we design everything with purposed focused on meeting ourselves where we are at to move forward toward our goals.
And be realistic with what you need.
Design for the time you have!
Want amazing workouts designed to help you rock those results no matter your fitness level, schedule or the equipment you have?
Check out my Dynamic Strength program!
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