So you're chubby. Or maybe you're scrawny. Maybe you're just not as healthy as you aught to be. You've been sitting around all winter eating stuffing and cake while watching every hockey game you possibly could sittin' on your tush.... and now you're paying for it. I've been there. It sucks, but it's not as hard as you think to get out of the slump.
Over the past year I've stayed up into the late late hours reading boring science articles just so that I could help you get buff. Ok not really for you, it was for me, but you're going to benefit from it so let's just pretend I did all this for you.
I originally started out with a much more traditional workout plan. Anyone who's read a bodybuilding mag or men's fitness can attest to this one. You basically take 5 days out of the week and hit the gym for at least an hour each day. For every visit you pick a muscle group (ie. chest and tris) and you work them into complete exhaustion with multiple sets of multiple reps of multiple exercises. By the end of the work out your one set of muscles are completely done.
This workout plan I've constructed is a little bit different. It's designed to build the most muscle mass with the least amount of time. It works great for people who have a busy schedule and can't make 4 to 5 workout sessions in a week. It also works well for competing athletes as it can be worked around competitions without weakening the body so much that it affects performance.
Why does it work just as well, if not better, than the 5 days of weights? Oh there are a whole heck of a lot of reasons. Here's a few off the top of my head, if you're still not satisfied, let me know in the comments and I'll list as many more as I can.
Here is a quote to make your eyes bleed...
Protocols high in volume, moderate to high in intensity, using short rest intervals and stressing a large muscle mass, tend to produce the greatest acute hormonal elevations (e.g. testosterone, GH and the catabolic hormone cortisol) compared with low-volume, high-intensity protocols using long rest intervals. - Kraemer WJ, Ratamess NA.
So What the heck does that mean? Well your body will release more human growth hormones when you workout with shorter rests, high - medium intensity when working out large muscle groups and doing high reps. This plan achieves all of those. When you workout you work out your largest muscles in every single session. Quads? Check. Pecs? Check. Lats? Check. Hamstrings? Check. Glutes? Check. Not only that but if you do mostly compound exercises you will hit far more muscles than if you do focused exercises. When you're done this workout you can really tell your whole body has been activated.
Now onto intensity and efficiency. With this workout you take very few rests between the exercises and you do a combination of low and high rep sets. This allows you to up the intensity as you are spending more time working out rather than sitting on your tush. Even better, you're making more use of your time while you're working out. In a standard muscle specific workout you will do 6 exercises with 3 sets for each one. Normally you'll do 2 minutes break between each set and 3 minutes between each exercise.
Exercise 1
set - 2 min break - set - 2 min break - set
3 min break
Exercise 2
set - 2 min break - set 2 min break - set
3 min break
Exercise 3
Add that up. It's a total of 39 minutes of rest. Let's take a look at the new age fancy pants workout plan designed by the master of the universe, Science.
Exercise 1
set - set - set - 2min break
set - set - set - 2min break
set - set - set - 2 min break
5 min break
set - set - set - 2 min break
There's one last little thing I'd like to add in. I can't seem to find a bloody link for it though, so you're going to have to take my word on it. On one of my silly late night researches, I read a paper where they looked at Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and its affects on the body. From what they found, HGH tends to only affect the body for a short period of time. Something like 30 minutes if I remember right and the more intense release the better the results. So if you hit all your muscle groups at once with a very large amount of HGH they will all benefit highly from it; However, if you only hit one muscle group at a time they will only benefit from the small amount of HGH released from that one muscle. A la corporate jargon, your muscles benefit from HGH synergy. Yeah that's right, I said HGH Synergy.
Now onto intensity and efficiency. With this workout you take very few rests between the exercises and you do a combination of low and high rep sets. This allows you to up the intensity as you are spending more time working out rather than sitting on your tush. Even better, you're making more use of your time while you're working out. In a standard muscle specific workout you will do 6 exercises with 3 sets for each one. Normally you'll do 2 minutes break between each set and 3 minutes between each exercise.
Exercise 1
set - 2 min break - set - 2 min break - set
3 min break
Exercise 2
set - 2 min break - set 2 min break - set
3 min break
Exercise 3
set - 2 min break - set - 2 min break - set
3 min break
Exercise 4
set - 2 min break - set 2 min break - set
3 min break
Exercise 5
set - 2 min break - set - 2 min break - set
3 min break
Exercise 6
set - 2 min break - set 2 min break - set
Add that up. It's a total of 39 minutes of rest. Let's take a look at the new age fancy pants workout plan designed by the master of the universe, Science.
Exercise 1
set - set - set - 2min break
set - set - set - 2min break
set - set - set - 2 min break
5 min break
set - set - set - 2 min break
set - set - set - 2min break
set - set - set -
Total rest time: 15 minutes. To be fair, the time it takes to travel between each exercise isn't necessarily 0, it's probably more like 5 seconds if you have all your equipment prepped. So if we say 10 seconds between sets (this is too much but we'll be generous), it adds another 2 minutes for a grand total of 17 minutes of rest.
There's one last little thing I'd like to add in. I can't seem to find a bloody link for it though, so you're going to have to take my word on it. On one of my silly late night researches, I read a paper where they looked at Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and its affects on the body. From what they found, HGH tends to only affect the body for a short period of time. Something like 30 minutes if I remember right and the more intense release the better the results. So if you hit all your muscle groups at once with a very large amount of HGH they will all benefit highly from it; However, if you only hit one muscle group at a time they will only benefit from the small amount of HGH released from that one muscle. A la corporate jargon, your muscles benefit from HGH synergy. Yeah that's right, I said HGH Synergy.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post in the comments section.
links for geeks
http://www.springerlink.com/content/gw3714668l5r34ul/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9140905?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=19
links for geeks
http://www.springerlink.com/content/gw3714668l5r34ul/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9140905?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=19
Posts
wade! you're so cool. what an awesome blog =)
ReplyDeleteimmma stalk your blog like an internet stalker.
-monkey.
Cool blog, Fife. I`ll follow along. I`ve been hitting the weights pretty hard at home. I find I that a routine is great to follow, but mixing it up every 6-8 weeks is key to keeping me motivated...and to keep my body guessing (and growing). So, I`ll try some of the different workouts when I`m looking for something new.
ReplyDeleteShawnyboy
Yeah that's exactly right. It's good to keep it interesting as well as putting your body through new stresses.
ReplyDeleteThat is another bonus to this routine, which I'll have to add to at a later date. Each workout should be a different exercise. Dips one day, pushups the next, then bench.
I'll be sure to add a few other routines as well as the time comes.
Cheers!