There is a question that I would like to ask you to ask yourself:
Are you wasting too much of your valuable time by going to the
gym to lift weights? Are you trying to convince yourself that
the more time you spend in the gym working out, the better off
your results will be?
One of the biggest misconceptions I deal with each and every
day as a personal trainer is the belief people have that it takes
hours in the gym lifting weights to produce a fit and toned body.
I have some (good) news for you. What if I told you that only
20% of your total fitness results will come from the time you
spend lifting weights. What if I told you that 80% of your weight
loss or weight management results come from the time you spend
OUT OF THE GYM!
How much time do you really need to spend lifting weights to
get a great body and be in great shape? What if I said only 3
minutes a day, 3 times a week, for a TOTAL of 9 minutes A WEEK!
I am willing to bet money that you are spending a lot more than
9 minutes a week on weight lifting and I am also willing to bet
you are not totally happy with your results. Before totally labeling
me crazy, let me explain.
Let's take a visit to the gym for a moment, and join up with
yourself in a workout. Today is "chest day" for your
workout. Let's assume that for each exercise, you perform the
standard norm of 10 repetitions per set. So, if you do a bench
press, you probably do 10 reps. That, my friend, amounts to about
10 seconds of time that you are actually physically moving the
weight. Next time you are in the gym, time yourself and see how
long it takes to perform a set of 10 reps. (Please do not look
at your watch while doing the exercise!) Let me save you the time--it
takes 10 seconds.
If you perform 3 sets, which most people do, you are now up to
30 seconds (3x10) of actual lifting movement. If you do 3 exercises
for each muscle group (for the chest we can do bench press, incline
dumbbell press, and dips) you are now only up to 90 seconds, or
1 1/2 minutes. So far, so good?
Let's assume you do two muscle groups per workout (let's say
chest and back). You have doubled your 1 1/2 minutes to 3 minutes.
1 1/2 minutes spent on chest ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY LIFTING THE WEIGHTS
and 1 1/2 minutes spent working out your back, ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY
LIFTING THE WEIGHTS. Total time=3 minutes.
All of the other time you are spending can be put into one of
these other categories:
1. RESTING BETWEEN SETS
2. WASTED TIME
Hopefully, most of the time that you are not actually lifting
is spent in category #1, rest. Waiting between sets, walking around
a bit, getting a drink of water. But this should only amount to
1-2 minutes between sets.
So, what does all of this mean? You have 3 minutes to make or
break your results.
3 minutes to give everything you can give while in the gym. Treat
it like the last 3 minutes you will ever have (you never really
know when it will be) and I absolutely bet that you will have
an incredible workout and will soon be reaping incredible results.
Remember I said at the beginning that 20% of your results come
from the time spent in the gym lifting weights and the other 80%
comes from time spent out of the gym.
