Five Reasons Your Workout Is Too Long
One of the biggest problems I hear about from busy people is that they can’t do their whole workout because it takes too long. I have no doubt that you’re pressed for time. You’re a parent, husband (or wife,) and executive all rolled into one. If there’s one thing you’re perpetually lacking, it’s time. However, before you resign yourself to a lifetime of incomplete and low-quality workouts, see if you’re making any of these mistakes in the gym and try the fixes for them.
You don’t time your rest. This is probably the biggest offender. So many people will do a set of whatever exercise, then pull out their phones to answer e-mails, check the status of some project, or just plain goof off on social media. Yes, I understand that the project is important or that the pictures of the cat are really cute. However, by spending the extra minute or two on the phone between each set, you’re basically doubling the time it takes to get your workout done. Instead, use the phone wisely. You finish the set, then set an alarm for an exact amount of time. When that alarm goes off, you lift. No bargaining, no exceptions. How long? If you’re doing very heavy exercises like squats and bench press, then two minutes. If you’re doing lighter ones or more isolation stuff like curls or tricep extensions, then one minute. In the beginning, you’ll be tired because you’re not used to the pace. However, after a few workouts, you’ll catch up and wonder why you were wasting so much time in the first place.
You do too many exercises. We’ve all seen him or been him. You know who I’m talking about. It’s the guy who does about 18 variations of a biceps curl. Or the guy who has to do one exercise for literally every muscle in his body every workout. You don’t need all that. All that does is eat up your precious time. Champion bodybuilders don’t even do six variations of a curl in a workout, so do you honestly think you need that? Instead, pick half a dozen exercises that, between all of them, hit the whole body. What might that look like? An example workout would have squats, bench press, rows, curls, triceps, and calves. Done. There’s your whole body taken care of in six exercises. What this means, though, is that you have to actually hit these movements hard. No playing around with baby weights or putting in half effort on your sets. Take each movement and go hard for three to four sets of eight to twelve reps, then move on.
No, you don’t. You also don’t look like a guy who’s made one iota of progress in the last five years.
You don’t have a plan. This one is more insidious. You walk into the gym, not knowing what you’re going to do. So you think for a bit and decide you’re going to do bench press. You do that, then wonder what’s next. Squats sound good. Then you think about hitting abs. But what ab exercise? After mulling over a couple of variations, you decide on crunches. You see what’s happening here? You’re wasting precious time sitting there thinking about what to do next instead of just walking in and just doing the workout. What would help you is if you followed a program. I’ve already put up three free programs on this website (one for overall fitness, one for pure size, and one for pure strength.) Just pick one of them and run that for several weeks. This is invaluable because all of the thinking has been done for you by a very intelligent, meticulous, funny, handsome, and utterly humble professional. All you have to do is follow the plan and reap the rewards.
You take too long to warm up. I used to be guilty of this one. I’d do five to ten minutes of cardio, then roll out every major muscle group in my body, then stretch all of those muscle groups, then do some activation drills. By the time I finished, I had used up a half hour and hadn’t even started my first set of my first exercise. You’ve probably done something similar. You don’t need a half hour of cardio to warm up for the bench press. Just think of what you’re doing that day. If it’s a bench press day, do five minutes of cardio, then roll your upper back and pecs. Then stretch and activate your shoulders. Then go bench. It’s really that simple. Of course, if you’ve got injuries or are an older lifter, it might take a bit longer to warm up. But if you’re taking more than fifteen minutes to get warm, you’re almost certainly wasting time.
You don’t have a routine. This is related to not having a plan, but it centers around the bigger picture than just one work out. Whenever you don’t have a routine, you probably tend to just make decisions on the fly and they’re rarely the best decisions. Should I go to the gym today or not? You start thinking about how many times you’ve gone this week or haven’t gone. You look at your calendar and start guessing if you can make the time or not. By the time you’ve actually decided, half your brain power has been wasted. You finally walk into the gym and you’re demotivated or tired. You start to slack a bit, you’re not in the mood, and you just don’t move at the pace you had intended. And if you’re going at all different times of the day, then you have no idea what the gym will be like. It might be crowded and now you can’t use the equipment you planned on. Now you have to improvise, wasting more time and brain power. All this can be avoided if you pick a few days a week and make sure you go to the gym at a certain time on those days. All the thinking is now done for you and the environment becomes quite predictable. Are you going to the gym today? It’s Monday and it’s 5pm, so yes. Done. No further thinking involved. Now you can use that brain power to do other things, like decide where to take the lady for date night.
Before you write off going to the gym due to a lack of time, first see if you’re doing any of these things. If so, try the fixes above and watch how you suddenly buy back more time for the rest of your life. Granted, life will still manage to interfere, especially if you’re a new parent. However, by following the tips above, you can still get great workouts in a timely manner. You physique and your strength will improve and you’ll be telling everybody (and rightly so) how that Eric guy is a bloody genius.
