Less Gym, More Muscle

Author: Tommy Leung | 08/28/2008 | Fitness, Muscle Building, Strength Training

I am in favor of going to the gym a few days a week for about an hour each session. I’m not a bodybuilder in training or a professional athlete so why mimic their schedules? A lot of people like to split up their workouts into body parts or groups. I prefer doing a total body workout that lasts about an hour three times a week at most. There are times when I’m starting a new routine where I have to take longer than an hour and that’s fine but certainly no more than 90 minutes.

I’ve tried splitting my workouts into body parts–I never liked it. With a split body part plan, you usually only workout each body part or group once a week. With a total body plan, I hit every muscle three times a week and I do it in half the time. It looks to me that three total body workouts ends up being better than one body part a day.

Working more muscles also leads to more hormones being released which helps your muscles grow even faster. Bodybuilders naturally scoff at this idea and if you asked them for advice, you will more than likely get pointed in the direction of split body parts. Even for bodybuilders, I always encourage them to look into High Intensity Training which advocates less work for better results.

Trying to fit a total body workout into an hour is no easy task. My personal strategy is to have two different routines that I alternate. Each routine is similar in their goals–total body–but, employ different exercises to work some muscles more than others. This keeps things fresh and makes it more difficult for my body to adapt so it will grow even faster.

I like to lead off each routine with either a squat or a deadlift–I consider those two the kings of exercises. Starting with either one of those, I follow with more compound exercises that target the next biggest muscle and so forth and so on. Your biggest muscle group is your legs followed by your back and chest.

I also like to have a couple of stability/core exercises–anything with a swiss ball, includes a twisting motion, or forces you to stabilize a weight. If you know you are weak in an area, add an exercise that targets that area.

I generally don’t put much emphasis on my smaller muscles like my arms. Guys love doing arm exercises at the gym. I do love to have bulging biceps with equally impressive triceps but, I don’t usually include an exercise for both. I don’t consider it all that important to have specific arm exercises after all those compound exercise. However, in the name of vanity, I put a bicep exercise and the end of routine A and a triceps exercise at the end of routine B.

In order to keep this to an hour, you’ll need to have about 8 different exercises per routine. You can time your rest periods–say 2 minutes at most–or you can do something a little more natural. If your breathing returns to normal, you should be good to go. Obviously, if you did a set and felt nothing, go heavier. :) Intensity trumps quantity of time. You also don’t need to do 3 sets. Theoretically 1 set can be just as effective if you do one very intense set. I’d recommend seriously putting in the intensity and doing 2 sets–good old middle ground.

Less is more if you are doing it right. There is more to life than spending it at the gym. Here’s a couple more tips for reducing gym time.

By Tommy Leung