The BS Line!!

“I just did not have enough time to workout”.  Do you know how many times I have heard that.  How about this line:  ”If I had a dollar for every time I heard that….I’d be rich”.  Well, I think I would be rich.  Let’s face it; we are all busy.  That is just today’s lifestyle unfortunately.  But there are ways, to get more accomplished in shorter periods of time, to make crunch workouts more productive.  Here are some ideas for you so you don’t sacrifice a workout day.

Super setting:  Basically you will do an exercise for one muscle group and then with no or very little rest do another exercise for the opposite muscle.  A great example of this would be performing a body weight dip for the triceps and then do a standing barbell curl for the biceps.  You will accomplish twice as much work and see more dramatic results.

Compound setting:  Depending on what you are trying to accomplish on that day or how your training program is set up you might want to focus on a particular muscle group or area of the body.  With this type of training you would focus on the same principles discussed in super setting but instead of changing to an opposite muscle you will stay with the same muscle or area but you would just change the exercise .  Let’s say we want to focus in on our chest area.  You could perform incline dumbbell press and then follow that up with cable fly.  Then if you wanted to even take it one step further you go go into cluster training for that area.  Just add a third or fourth exercise to what you just did.   An example might be to add body weight push-ups after the cable fly and burn it out to failure.  If you do 1-3 clusters or compound sets you would be done for the day for that area of the body and it did not take you that long.

Circuit training:  Let’s say you are more into total body training or workouts.  This training style might be just what you are looking for.  I personally like to set up circuits going from lower body to upper body movements.  This again can be done with very short or exact timed rest periods between exercises.   Let me explain that there are so many different ways to do circuit training.  For this post, I will stay more focused on general weight training movements.    This would be one example of a circuit training routine:

Walking Dumbbell Lunge 10-15 yards

Bench Press 8-12 reps

Romanian Dead Lift 6-10 reps

Seated Row 10-14 reps

Alternating Db Step-up 12-16 reps

Standing Military Press 8-12 reps

Depending on your level of training, you could give yourself 30 seconds to 2 minutes rest in between each exercise.  Do two to three cycles and I bet you will be “feeling it”.

This is just a few ways to get in your workouts when you “just did not have enough time”.  Remember, the only excuse is the one you are telling yourself!

Have a great workout today!!!