How To Get The Body You Want In The Time That You Have: Get In, Get Out and Get Fit Fast
September 17, 2009 by admin
My fiancé and I were in Gastonia, NC (that just sounds country) this weekend getting ready for our wedding – going to a food tasting, getting tuxes, getting wedding portraits, getting wedding rings, and on and on and on. I’m usually expecting a relaxing weekend when we go visit her parents in NC, but this was anything but. By the time we made it to the gym we were really pressed for time.
What’s funny is that there were these two guys who doing their chest workout when we walked into the gym to change. We got our warm-up (foam rolling, corrective exercise and dynamic flexibility) + every single muscle in our body + a killer cardio workout in LESS time than it took these two guys to complete their workout for just one muscle – their chest. We walked out of the gym and these two guys were still doing their chest workout.
Oh, and as arrogant as it sounds, I’m bigger than both of the guys who spent at least 60min on just their chest. I did “chest” workouts for 9 years with essentially nothing to show for it. I built all 215lbs of my muscle with 3 short total body workouts per week (and I got lean with 3 different short total body workouts per week).
If I was still doing workouts where each body part (chest, shoulders, arms, hands, ankles…) needed it’s own special day that took an hour or more to do, there is no way on Earth that I would be able to fit them in my life.
Does Your Chest Even Need It’s Own Day In The First Place?
No! Not for muscle growth, not for fat-loss, and not for getting stronger either.
Attempting to isolate a body part does not make any physiological sense whatsoever. It’s geography.
Neck crunches for neck day
Let’s take the cardiovascular system (heart & lungs) for example. We’ve all been sold the idea that you need to isolate your cardiovascular system by hoping on a treadmill and keeping your heart rate elevated for 20min or more.
Why? Is this based on any sort of scientific evidence or physiology?
Does it work particularly well to improve the health and fitness of your cardiovascular system? No.
We’ve known for over a decade that you can get into BETTER cardiovascular shape with 4 min of interval training than you can with 60min of steady-state “cardio.”
Can you even isolate your heart and lungs? Like, can you take the heart and lungs out of your chest and have them run miles for you?
The only reason that your heart and lungs will work harder – get fitter over time – is that your muscles demand more blood and oxygen. There is nothing magical about boring stuff like jogging at the same speed for 20, 30 or 60min.
You can work the hell out of your heart and lungs with your resistance training so that you can look better naked while getting fitter and healthier. Try doing 10 squats, then 10 push-ups, then 10 lunges, then 10 inverted rows, then resting for 1 min and repeating. That will hit every single muscle in your body, massively accelerate fat-loss, and get you in better cardiovascular shape than jogging. Oh, and it’s not boring either.
Is it even remotely useful for fat-loss? No. You can look are this post, this post or this post for the details on that.
The body is a system and if you use it as a whole system you can get substantially better results in less time and with far less risk of injury, and without destroying your coordination and athleticism.
Take Home Point
Why waste time doing things the way everyone else does them? Especially when it doesn’t deliver better results.
In 3 one hour total body workouts per week you can:
• Lose fat and/or gain muscle
• Work every single muscle in your body 3 times per week
• Improve flexibility
• Improve balance
• Improve your cardiovascular fitness
• Get rid of nagging aches and pains
This would take 18 hours of traditional “isolation” workouts to get the same, or even inferior benefits. Slightly inferior benefits would cost:
• 3 chest workouts (3 x 45min = 135min)
• 3 back workout (3 x 45min = 135min)
• 3 shoulder workouts (3 x 45min = 135min)
• 3 arm workouts (3 x 45min = 135min)
• 3 leg workouts (3 x 60min = 180min)
• 3 “ab” workout (3 x 30min = 90min)
• 3 cardio workout (3 x 60min = 180min)
• 3 flexibility session (3 x 30min = 90min)
Oh, and pretty much everyone who does body part isolation workouts ends up with some pretty nasty joint pain. I remember wrapping my knees and elbows as a 15 year old from my stupid isolation workouts.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
-Ralph Waldo Emmerson
This is the reason I love working out at my local Crossfit gym. Killer work out in under 20 mins every time (working your entire body)! Have you ever tried Crossfit?
I have. There are definitely things to like about it, but there’s also a lot to be desired in the safety and well thought out progression/program design system department. In the class that I was in there were 4 people who could not do a body weight squat period, and the workout involved high rep olympic lifting.
In my opinion that is crazy unsafe and dangerous. Those are the most technical lifts and the most difficult to learn. You can’t teach someone who can’t squat to o-lift to begin with. I am actually pretty good at the o-lifts, but I’ve been practicing for years and I hired a USAW coach to help me with my technique, and I would never do a high rep o-lift set myself. Too much risk for too little reward.