Q CAN I GET STRONGER BY TRAINING LESS?
Focus on quality rather than quantity at the gym to get better results and avoid injury
A lot of people assume the more work they put in at the gym, and the longer and harder they push themselves, the better their results will be. It seems logical. But if you want to maximise your gains, the key is to focus on the quality of the work rather than the quantity.
Your body is capable of making only tiny, marginal adaptations and improvements at any one time. Once you’ve given it enough stimulus to make these changes, any additional work you do after that point won’t be making you any better. If anything, it’ll hamper your progress because you’ll need longer to recover afterwards and won’t feel as fresh when you start your next session. Ideally you want to do the smallest amount of work required to stimulate growth in every workout, then immediately call it a day – in other words, the minimum dose stimulates the maximum marginal gains.
How much work you need to do is relative to your current fitness levels. For example, a relatively new gym-goer who wants to get stronger might read about a squat workout of ten sets of five reps and try it in his next session. In theory it’s a sensible protocol for building strength, but if he’s only ever attempted three sets of five in his previous workouts, he’d be wasting time. The fourth set would push him past his previous limit and force adaptation, but subsequent sets would just add more stress to his system and increase the likelihood of injury.
As a general rule, regardless of your experience, aim to only increase the volume of any exercise by one set or one to two reps from workout to workout.
How much work you need to do is relative to your current fitness levels
Warm to the task
Another benefit of streamlining your main workout is it will free up more time for a thorough warm-up, which can help make your sessions even more productive. If you think five minutes on the treadmill followed by some static stretching is the best way to start, think again.
A quality warm-up should follow a RAMP protocol: raising your pulse, activating relevant muscle groups, mobilising your joints and movement patterns, and focusing on potentiation, which means using power-based exercises to prime the body. The treadmill approach will raise your heart rate and activate some muscles, but by missing out the other stages you’ll be hampering your performance.
Warming up correctly will guarantee the right muscles are firing at the correct times during your workout. For example, a RAMP-style lower-body warm-up like the one in the box, right, will ensure your glutes, quads, hamstrings and calves are all firing when you squat. A minimal or poorly constructed warm-up that results in these muscles failing to fire puts pressure on your lower back. A proper warm-up will let you make marginal adaptations in as many muscles as possible and improve your metabolic response, allowing you to maximise your strength and fat loss gains.
So next time you see some guy straining and sweating his way through his eighth set of 12, don’t be tempted to emulate him. Focus on an effective warm-up and making small additions to your previous workouts. That’s how you win at the gym.