Time is something that our modern society always seems short on. Even if you are the most avid gym goer, it's still likely life has other stresses that sometimes means you are short on time in the gym. It's nice to spend time in the gym, I get it. For a lot of people, it's relaxing, pushing your body to the limit nearly every day of the week. So, fear not, as you can still make progress and walk out the gym feeling like you have accomplished your goals in half the time you train now. It’s all about getting in, stimulating protein synthesis and then feeding your body what it needs to repair.
So, what’s the best way to decrease your time in the gym whilst keeping your intensity high enough to stimulate muscle growth and fat loss?
Well, firstly, you don’t want to have too much volume using these techniques, as it could lead to burn out pretty quickly. I recommend hitting each muscle group twice per week with these techniques implemented and only 1-2 sets per exercise. What that looks like is up to you, but a good time-tested program would be push pull legs repeat, or upper lower, upper lower.
If you are doing straight sets to failure, do 2 sets per exercise and aim to fail in the 5-9 bracket and 10-15 bracket. With any other technique, still perform 2 straight sets (not failure, keep 1-2 reps in reserve) and implement one technique at the end of the second set for each exercise. Cycle this technique for 4-6 weeks then take a 1-2 week break from it and then introduce a new one.
Sets to failure
An absolute favourite of mine, this technique really took my physique to the next level when I first implemented it. You only need to rep until you reach muscular failure, do not get your partners help to go beyond (this is in fact another technique). For obvious reasons, don’t use this technique on any compounds if you are by yourself. It is better used on isolation exercises, as the muscle goes through a prescribed movement pattern where you can safely fail. Imagine the damage you could do going to failure on the bench press or the deadlift (I’m picturing snapped tendons all over the place) .
Rest Pause
The more reps you can do at a higher weight, coupled with a calorie surplus and rest equals more muscle and strength, right? So, imagine if you could extend your set in some way and perform more reps at a heavy weight. That’s exactly what rest pauses are! Once you have finished your normal set, leave the weight on, rest 15-20 seconds then complete around 3-5 reps. Rest another 15-20 seconds and then complete another 2-4 reps. If your original set was hard enough, you shouldn’t be able to do anymore than this. Only perform a rest pause set on the last set of an exercise.
Forced reps
Briefly touched upon earlier, forced reps are when you have already taken the set to failure, but you have a training partner assist you with another 2-5 reps. They are quite easy to abuse, as you can become reliant on your partner to increase your intensity. It's also pretty easy to fake failing a rep, so you need to stay true to yourself and partner when training this way.
Negative reps
In my opinion, this should be used for every rep anyway. A lot of people try performing a set as fast as possible. This just isn’t a good way of building muscle. Increasing the amount of time a muscle is under tension is the best way for a muscle to grow, so why wouldn’t you do it all the time? It's not so demanding on the body that you can’t use it in every workout either. Make every rep last between 3-5 seconds and feel the muscle working. You will be surprised how much you benefit from it.
