How To Make Your Workout More Effective
If you don't want to spend hours at the gym it's important to know how to make your workout more effective. I'd call it working out smarter, not harder but you'll find that oftentimes working out smarter is actually harder! The good news is because it's much more effective you won't have to workout as long. Not everyone likes spending hours at the gym, but everyone wants to get stronger, fitter, leaner, and just plain look good.
It’s possible to get a super-effective workout in 30 minutes, and only do a few workouts a week, if you maximize your workouts. Lucky for you this is what Koko Fit specializes in. Here's a handful of tips on how to double your workout effectiveness.
1. Fuel Up. Despite the low-carb craze, carbs are your body's main source of fuel for high-intensity workouts. When your body is properly fueled, your body is going to perform more efficiently and effectively. Smartly timed snacks can give your body the fuel it needs to build muscle, burn fat, and recover as best it can. You don't need to eat much so think in terms of a small pre-workout snack 45-60 minutes prior to your workout. A couple of my go to's are avocado toast on whole-wheat bread or a banana which is a great source of low fiber/high glycemic carbohydrates necessary for a good workout.
2. Warm Up. Properly warming up will raise your body's core temperature, increase blood flow, improve your range of motion and increase the amount of power a muscle can produce, making movements more efficient. In essence a good warm-up optimally primes your body for actviity. But before you go through your high school strecth routine, STOP! You'll want to save the static (bend and hold) stretches for after your workout. You'll instead use dynamic moves/stretches in which you'll be moving through the stretches instead of holding the stretch in place. I like to get warmed up with a combo of dynamic stretches and bodyweight moves like reverse lunges, modified squats (touch the floor at the bottom of the movement and reach for the sky on your tippy toes at the top of the movement), plank walk outs, arm circles, arm hugs, inward hip rotations, outward hip rotations, and some good ol' jumping jacks for a total of about 5-10 min.
3. Range of motion. Perform each exercise to the fullest range of motion possible, causing the weight to travel a longer distance and forcing more work to be done. For example squatting until your butt is just a few inches from the floor. Conciously maximizing the fullest range of motion possible, will typically allow you to activate more muscle groups and improve your exercise effectiveness and efficiency. During strength training, simply focus on moving as far as your joints comfortably allow.
4. Time under tension (TUT). Time under tension refers to how long your muscles work against resistance during a given exercise. Think about how much easier it is to crank out 10 reps of curls in 30 seconds than it is to slow the exercise down and perform the same 10 reps in 90 seconds. Increasing the time your muscles are working during any given exercise creates more overload and makes it that much more difficult. Leah Friedlander, New York City-based manager of group fitness programming at Equinox says, “Research has shown that muscle strength and endurance don’t happen based on just how much weight a person lifts, but also the total amount of time someone is working against that load." Slow your reps down and and as an added bonus incorporate pauses or pulses into any lift for maximum TUT benfit!
5. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). High intensity interval training refers to short bursts of very intense work followed by short low-intensity breaks/periods of recovery. HIIT workouts are incredibly efficient and effective because you're packing in so much work in so little time resulting in cardiovascular and fat loss benefits that are just too legit to quit. With HIIT you'll also be burning calories after your workout thanks to what is known as EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption). Need I say more? While HIIT can be applied to both cardiovascular and strength exercises we're going to focus specifically on HIIT cardio for our purposes. To get you started I'll keep it simple with one of my favorite HIIT protocols. Simply choose your cardio like the elliptical, bike, or row machine. Next you'll go as hard as you can with all out effort for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, and repeat for a total of four minutes. Rest for one full minute and repeat for a total of 3 rounds/15 minutes. Ready, set, GO!
6. Circuits. Circuit training is when you cycle through a series of exercises targeting different muscle groups withoit resting in between. For example if you were doing a full body workout you would do an exercise targeting a different muscle group one after the other with little to no rest in between sets. This might look like moving from squats to push-ups to pull-ups to lateral rises to curls to tricep extensions, then taking a short break once the entire sequence is done before repeating it all over again for a certain number of sets. For those who are busy and time crucnched circuit training helps you maximize your results in a minimum amount of time.
7. Form. One of the most important reasons for maintaining proper form while exercising is to prevent injury!! But having proper form and technique is crucial to make sure you’re working the intended muscle groups that you want to develop and grow. For example if you're trying to focus on the biceps with a bicep curl but you're swinging your entire body to help curl the weight you're now engaging too much core and shoulder girdle for it to be as effective as possible. The lesson? Focus on form and value your quality of reps over your quantity of reps.
8. Full Body. There are many different split routines when it comes to working out (Upper/Lower OR Push/Pull/Legs OR "Bro" splits and on and on). For our purposes we'll be discussing the total body split which means you'll be training every muscle group in one workout and doing it every other day such as M, W, F or T, TH, SAT. Total body training allows us more frequent stimulation of ALL the muscles in your body while also giving your body more recovery in the week which is a win-win in my book. In essence full body workouts are going to give you the most bang for your buck by helping you burn more calories in less time during your workout. Furthermore full body training instigates gene activity that keep metabollic processes reved up in every single muscle group all day long, which essentially means you're burning more fat and carbs for fuel the rest of the day!
9. Breathing. One of the easiest ways to spot a rookie from a vet, especially when it comes to athletic training is to wacth how someone breathes or doesn't breathe in the weight room. Proper breathing technque will not only help you improve perfromance, it will also reduce the chances of dizziness or severe increases in blood pressure. The rule of thumb during strength training is to inhale on relaxation and exhale during exertion. At the minimum just stop holding your breath and breathe naturally.
10. Compound Exercises. Compound exercises work multiple muscle groups at the same time as opposed to isolation exercises which are geared towards isolating individual muscles. Both compound and isolation exercises have their place of course but when it comes to getting the most bang for your buck you'll want to focus on implemetning compound exercises to make your workouts more effective. As an added benefit, because they require more energy output, you'll also burn more calories. Compound exercises can be single moves that put multiple groups to work at the same time (like front squats or deadlifts), or they can be two moves strung together (like bicep curls to shoulder presses).
11. The Right Weight. Lift to heavy and you're likely to injure yourself. Lift too light and you won't see your strength improve. The key is to choose a weight that is just right, which will take some trail and error. For the sake of simplicity and not confusing you with 1RM and percentages (leave that to you're trainer!) you'll generally want to train with a weight where you can finish all the reps, but feel like you're struggling on the last 2-3 reps. So if you're having to excessively cheat or your unable to keep good form you're lifting to heavy. If you're getting to the last 2-3 reps and feel like you can jeep going without breaking a sweat you're lifting too light! Finding this delicate balance is key to maximizing your workouts and results.
12. S-L-E-E-P. Listen to your mom and GO TO BED! In order for your body to properly recover, rebuild, and repair from training you must be getting an adequate amount of sleep not to mention that a well rested body is an optimally performing body. Although sleep requirements vary from person to person, a good rule of thumb for most healthy adults is to aim for 7-9 hours of sgut eye. In the words of neuroscientist Dr. Walker, “sleep is probably the greatest legal performance-enhancing drug that few are abusing enough”.
Implement one tip at a time or implement all 12 tips at one time but implement them none the less! Knowledge is power to the fullest when applied so go get your exercise on and reap the benefits of your new and improved (more efficient and effective) training plan.