Weight Training Workouts: Use Your Time Efficiently

Using your time as efficiently as possible by Charles Staley EDT Training System

After you get an accurate estimate of how much time you really have available to train, let’s consider how to use this time as wisely as possible.

1 Concise warm-ups: many trainees spend far too much time warming up. In most cases, 6-8 warm-up sets, with 15-30 seconds rest between sets, is plenty. Many people will start their warm-ups with, for example, an easy 135×10, and then rest 3 minutes! Another mistaken notion that your last warm-up set must consist of at least as many reps as your first work set. The purpose of the last warm-up set is to make an accurate determination of the correct weight for your work sets— it should only take a rep or two to make this decision.

2) Utilize periodization: very brief workouts work much better if you can occasionally do longer ones. For example, you might perform 30 to 45 minute workouts for 3 weeks, and 60 minute workouts for one week, and repeat. Rotate long and short workouts for each muscle also. In other words, for three weeks, you might use 4-5 sets per workout for chest, but only 1-2 sets for back, and then for the next three week phase, reverse the pattern. In this way, each muscle group experiences a “development” phase and a “maintenance” phase, which, when you think about it, is far superior to a continuous maintenance phase.

3) Don’t skimp on frequency: Your workouts can be brief, but you must maintain optimal training frequency for best results. Training a muscle for 25 minutes twice a week is far superior to training it for 60 minutes once every two weeks.

4) Train opposing or antagonistic bodyparts back to back: All muscles are paired with another muscle (called an “antagonist”), which (ideally) is capable of opposing its force. Training muscles in antagonistic pairs is time-efficient on several levels:

• Because antagonists are usually located close to each other, a set for one muscle becomes a warm-up for the other.

• For various neurological reasons, when you perform a set for one muscle (say, the biceps), the antagonist (the triceps) becomes facilitated for a better contraction.

• Compared to training all sets for one muscle, and then all sets for the second muscle, training antagonists “back to back” allows for twice as much rest between two sets of the same exercise. For example, if you’re performing bench presses and chin-ups with two minutes of rest between sets, you’ll actually get over four minutes of rest between two successive sets of bench presses.

5) Use a home gym: For many people, using a home gym saves an average of 20 minutes per workout in travel, parking, and changing. If space and cost is a concern, consider the following home gym:

Swiss ball from Sissel (aprox. $30)
Power Block dumbbell set from SportStrength (aprox. $650)
6×8 foot 3/4″ thick weightroom mat from Bigger, Faster, Stronger (aprox.$115)
300 pound Olympic barbell set (aprox $100)
Chin-up bar (aprox $40)



This home gym, which allows you do do a huge variety of exercises, costs less than $1000, and takes up only 48 square feet of space. Much of this equipment can be picked up second-hand for a significant reduction in price.

6) Emphasize compound movements for the posterior kinematic chain (glutes, hams, low back) It is well known in the strength training community that squats, deadlifts, and their numerous permutations have the greatest return per unit of investment than any other type of exercise.



The Workouts


General Notes:

1) These workouts should be used as suggestions, not iron-clad laws. It’s more important to understand the principle behind them than to try to perform them literally. If you do not have the experience, facilities, or health status to perform these exercises, select an appropriate substitute.

2) If you have a muscle or muscle group which is already well-developed, concentrate on other areas

3) Dips can potentially be damaging if you already have existing shoulder problems, particularly if you have ever experienced a dislocated shoulder.

4) Although I have outlines specific repetition brackets, it is important to emphasize volume (through the use of higher reps) and intensity (through lower repetitions) sequentially, utilizing one method for 3-4 weeks, followed by the other for 3-4 weeks.

5) The Olympic lifts and their modifications are often my first choice for efficient training tools, however, I realize many readers do not have a training background in these lifts. If you do have experience in these movements, you can substitute them where appropriate in the following workouts.

The 45 minute workout

If you’re able to train 3 times a week for 45 minutes, try the following approach:

Monday
00:00 to 00:05: Warm-up
00:05 to 20:00: Incline Dumbbell Press on Ball; Stiff-leg Deadlift: Perform back to back, 5 sets of 6-8 repetitions each, using a 4-5 second tempo and resting 90 seconds between each set
00:20 to 45:00: Ball Crunches; Seated Dumbbell Curls. Perform back to back, 5 sets of 6-8 repetitions each, using a 4-5 second tempo and resting 90 seconds between each set

Wednesday
00:00 to 00:05: Warm-up
00:05 to 20:00: Front squat; Lying Dumbbell Tricep Extension: Perform back to back, 5 sets of 6-8 repetitions each, using a 4-5 second tempo and resting 90 seconds between each set
00:20 to 45:00: Military Press; Leg Press Calf Raise. Perform back to back, 5 sets of 6-8 repetitions each, using a 4-5 second tempo and resting 90 seconds between each set

Note: As the bar is already on the rack from front squats, I have chosen military presses for deltoids to minimize set-up time.

Friday
00:00 to 00:05: Warm-up
00:05 to 20:00: Chin-up; Dips: Perform back to back, 5 sets of 6-8 repetitions each, using a 4-5 second tempo and resting 90 seconds between each set
00:20 to 45:00: Bent-over Row; Seated Leg Curl. Perform back to back, 5 sets of 6-8 repetitions each, using a 4-5 second tempo and resting 90 seconds between each set



The 30 minute workout

If you’re able to train 3 times a week for 30 minutes, try this approach. It utilizes circuits of 3 exercises per session. For the following workouts, perform 4 sets of 8-10 repetitions with a 4-5 second tempo and rest 60 to 90 seconds between each set, depending on the reps and tempo you use (the higher the reps and the longer the tempo, the shorter the rest).

Monday
00:00 to 00:05: Warm-up
00:05 to 00:30: Three exercise circuit:
Set 1: Pull-ups
Set 2: Back Squat
Set 3: Seated Dumbbell Press

Wednesday
00:00 to 00:05: Warm-up
00:05 to 00:30: Three exercise circuit:
Set 1: Flat Dumbbell Bench Press
Set 2: Standing Calf Raise
Set 3: Seated Dumbbell Hammer Curl

Friday
00:00 to 00:05: Warm-up
00:05 to 00:30: Three exercise circuit:
Set 1: Stiff leg Deadlift or Reverse HyperSet 2: Dips
Set 3: Ball Crunch

The 15 Minute Workout

Let me state right off the bat that if you’re reading this and can only find 15 minutes to train, your life is out of balance! However, if you truly are able to train 3 times a week for only15 minutes, try this approach. It utilizes one exercise per session.

Monday
00:00 to 00:05: Warm-up
00:05 to 00:15: Squat or Deadlift

Wednesday
00:00 to 00:05: Warm-up
00:05 to 00:15: Flat Dumbbell Bench Press or Dips

Friday
00:00 to 00:05: Warm-up
00:05 to 00:15: Chin-up or Pull-up
The “Busy during the week, but weekends are free” workout

This is a situation that many people find themselves in: the weekdays are a race against time, but the weekends are relatively peaceful. This workout is designed with longer workouts involving large muscle groups over the weekend, and a shorter session involving smaller, less energy-intensive muscles on Wednesday. The “nuts & bolts” should be fairly intuitive— just utilize the same principles and acute training parameters as the previous workout schedules.

Saturday (Chest & Delts)
Sunday (Legs & Back, & Abdominals)
Wednesday (Bi’s, Tri’s, & Calves)
General references on time (and life) management

Charles Staley, B.Sc., MSS: His colleagues call him an iconoclast, a visionary, a rule-breaker. His clients call him “The Secret Weapon” for his ability to see what other coaches miss. Charles calls himself a “geek” who struggled in Phys Ed throughout school. Whatever you call him, Charles' methods are ahead of their time and quickly produce serious results. His counter-intuitive approach and self-effacing demeanor have lead to appearances on NBC’s The TODAY Show and The CBS Early Show. Learn more about Charles’ Escalating Density Training program online at EDT Training System

Busy Women - You Fit And Healthy Fast

How The Busy Woman Get's Fit Fast. Guy's this works for you too.


What do you do when you are short on time and something in you life needs to take a back seat. You put off your weight training workouts. I'll do it later or tommorrow. The problem is later or tommorrow never comes.

So let me give you a 3 exercise weight training workout. When it comes down to it you don't need and shouldn't be doing hour long marathon workouts. Research has shown time and again 20- 30 minutes 3-4 time a week is best.

The key is using total body exercises (compound exercises). For those of you not familiar with the term compound exercises they are exercises that work multiple bodyparts in one exercise.

Compound exercises:
Deadlift
Squats
Bench Press
Barbell or Dumbbell Cleans
Dumbbell or Barbell Presses

That is a short list to give you an idea of the weight training exercises you should be doing. Total body conditiong gives you the most bang for your effort.

Weight Training Workout

after your warm-up:

1 - Deadlifts (barbell) 3-5 sets of 5-8 reps

2 - Bench Press (barbell or dumbbell) 3-5 sets of 5-8 reps

3 - Clean and Press (barbell or dumbbell) 3-5 sets 0f 5-8 reps

Yes that's it with this workout you have worked virtually every muscle group in your body(muscle building and strengthening). Keep your rest between sets short(fat burning).

You could do this workout in straight sets(bodybuilding style) or you could do it in a circuit style one exercise after the other.

The days of the marathon workouts are over. If anyone tells you that your weight training, kettlebell or interval workouts should be for at least an hour at a time doesn't have a clue.

Trust me short sweet and to the point gets it done.

Of course the workout I showed you here is just one example there are countless combinations you can use.

See Also

You Fit And Healthy for more workouts I have listed for you.

Busy Women Do Weight Training

I don't know about you, but I'm getting rather tired of all the stereotypical nonsense surrounding women and weight training.

"Deadlifts? No, no. That's a man's exercise; we don't want to hurt ourselves now do we? You better stick to this here butt blaster instead. Don't go too heavy now; that'll just make you big and bulky like those female bodybuilders. If you want to 'tone up,' you need to go for the 'burn' with high reps and just a little bit of weight. Okay, now over to the hip adductor machine. This one is great for targeting and toning up those inner thighs."

And as if the abundance of misinformation spouted out by the average lay person regarding women and weight training isn't enough, these words actually came from the mouth of a "certified" personal trainer. A man's exercise? What the heck is that? Are women so incompetent and weak that they can't manage to conduct exercises with barbells and dumbbells or something? Higher reps to tone up? Big and bulky?

Man, I wanted to clock this guy; however, instead of "laying the smack down" on his misinformed butt, I decided to write this article instead. Let's take a look at how a woman should train and at the same time dispel some of the common misconceptions regarding female trainees:


How Women Should Train...


1. If you want to be lean, sexy, and hard, you should train with weights.

A desirable female physique is one that can only be achieved by moving some serious iron in the weight room! But what about all the talk about weight training making women big and bulky? First, it is physiologically impossible for you as a woman to put on large amounts of muscle mass; you're body's hormonal makeup is not one that will allow you to do so.

God never intended for women to look like men (go figure), so he made the chemistry of each gender's respective bodies different. Regardless of how you train, how often you train, how much protein you eat, etc, you're not going to even come close to the big, bulky physique of a female bodybuilder.

It will not happen. That look is only obtainable by one means: steroids. Because their natural hormonal profiles would never allow them to get that "big," they resort to changing their body's chemistry through the use of illegal drugs. Secondly, if the right training method is chosen, the hypertrophic (growth) response to resistance training can be even further reduced. This brings us to our next point.

2. If you want to be lean, sexy, and hard, you should train HEAVY.

Yeah, I know what they told you, lighten the load and go for the burn... hogwash. To comprehend why this is indeed nonsense, we have to understand a few things about muscle tone in general. There are two types of muscle tone; myogenic and neurogenic. Don't get thrown off by the sciency words; the first simply refers to your muscle tone at rest. It is affected by the density of your muscles; the greater the density of your muscles, the harder and firmer you will appear. Heavy training increases your myogenic tone through the hypertrophy (growth) of the contractile proteins myosin and actin (myosin and actin are by far the most dense components of skeletal muscle).

Training in higher rep ranges promotes more sarcoplasmic (fluid) hypertrophy, which in turn yields a "softer" pumped look. If you want to be hard, firm, tight, etc, the latter is certainly not the way to go. The second aspect of a muscles' tone is neurogenic tone, or the tone that is expressed when movements or contractions occur. Again, lower rep training comes out on top as training with heavy loads will increase the sensitivity of alpha and gamma motor neurons, thus increasing neurogenic tone when conducting even the simplest of movements (i.e. walking, extending your arm to point, etc).

Finally, as alluded to in point number one, training with heavy loads and low volume (sets x reps) is the best way to get hard and strong, but not big. Muscular hypertrophy is generally a response to a high volume work output; therefore, by keeping the sets and reps low with heavy training, you wont have to fear getting overly big (this really isn't even an issue due to the physiological reasons mentioned earlier).

Why then is it commonly recommended that women train with lighter loads? Well, there are a couple reasons. First, there is the typical stereotype that women are weak, fragile creatures who can't handle anything more than pushups on their knees and bicep curls with pink dumbbells. Try telling that to 123 lb Mary Jeffrey who bench presses a world record 275 lbs and you'll likely get smacked upside the head with a 45 lb plate. Give me a break. Secondly, the belief that high-rep training increases muscle tone is 100% myth.

Strength training guru and Muscle Media contributor Pavel Tsatsouline explains this quite nicely, "Your muscle fibers are like mouse traps... they go off by themselves, but need energy to be reset to contract again. A dead body is out of ATP, the energy compound that relaxes the muscles... A high rep workout exhausts ATP in your muscle and leads to temporary hardness... The only way to make such 'tone' last is by killing yourself." Hmmm, sounds like fun to me. Pavel goes on to note, "You better get on a first name basis with heavy dead[lift]s if you are after a hard butt!" This brings us to our third and final point.

3. If you want to be lean, sexy, and hard, you should train with compound, multi-joint movements.

Forget the butt blaster, forget leg extensions and leg curls, and forget "muscle sculpting" with Susie the hyperactive personal trainer. As stated in point number two, if you want to sport a hard body, you better start training heavy. Big, compound movements such as the deadlift and the squat are superior to machine, isolation-type movements for hardening up your thighs and butt as they allow you to use maximal weight while training a number of muscle groups simultaneously.

Another benefit obtained by performing multi-joint compound movements is increased confidence. With strength comes confidence. Also, there is nothing like claiming your ground in the gym by loading up the squat bar and proceeding to execute a few heavy, crisp repetitions. After all, 90% percent of the guys in your gym probably don't squat, and those of them that do most likely resort to using the smith machine and/or doing partial repetitions.

Know why? Because free squatting with a full range of motion is hard. It takes will power to get under that bar week after week and squat all the way down. Simply put, most people fear the squat and the deadlift (along with anything else challenging in life). So, after that macho guy gets done barbell curling in the squat rack, throw the bar up on the J-hooks where it belongs and show 'em what kind of woman you are!

"So, ya want me to lift how much?"

Don't get the impression that I'm telling you that you need to be able to lift "x" number of lbs to obtain a hard physique. Heavy is a relative term; 600 lbs is considered "light" to some of the guys on the Westside Barbell powerlifting team; however, the average gym goer would deem that same load monsterously heavy. In fact, if I loaded 600 lbs on the squat bar and proceeded to attempt a repetition, I would be rewarded with a few broken legs, but I digress.

It's not important that you move big weights; what is important is that you are selecting and lifting loads that are heavy for you. Over time, you will get stronger and the poundage you can handle will increase. So, for you as a female trainee, a "heavy" load can be defined as a weight that you can lift in good form for 3-6 repetitions. This is in agreement with the recommendations of Canadian strength coach Christian Thibaudeau as he notes, "Women do not have the capacity to recruit as many motor units as men do.

As such, they'll need 1-2 more reps to fully stimulate their muscles. So when training for strength, a man should use between 1 and 5 reps while a woman will benefit more from doing 3-6 reps. Also, most women will need to perform 1-2 more sets of an exercise to achieve the same degree of stimulation as a man, once again because of their lower motor unit activation." The weight training routine that we will outline next month is modeled around these recommendations.

Busy Women Do Lift Weights and Kettlebells and anything else only the guy's are supposed to do.