How to pack a 90 minute workout in 18 minutes

I have been training at the gym for many years now, 11 years in fact. In my early years, especially when I was a beginner, I used to spend well over an hour at the gym, slogging away thinking this is the best way to do it. Work hard and long and you’ll see results. This was until I spoke to a relative of mine who is a former professional body builder and elite personal trainer. When I went to him with my training schedule I expected him to tell me I’m not working hard enough, or I need to do more exercises.  What came as a surprise was that he told me the exact opposite of what I expected to hear. The feedback was simple, I do too much. I never got my head around it but thought I would give it a go regardless and the results were outstanding. Plus I only spent 20 minutes in the gym per session, then I was gone.

I never understood the reasoning behind it until  I discovered the 80:20 principle. Officially known as the Pareto Principle, the 80:20 principle states that roughly 80% of the effect is based on 20% of the cause. So for example a sales force may make 80% of its income from 20% of its clients (example courtesy of Wikipedia… but its a standard one!). Or 80% of a countries wealth is made up from 20% of the population. 20% of your bills make up 80% of your total expenses (rent, mortgage, car etc). You get the gist.

Back to the gym workouts. It’s a well known fact that 20% of your workout actually leads to 80% of the results. So what if you channel this knowledge and focus on only 20% of your workout? It would be so much easier if you could transform a 90 minute workout into an 18 minute session yet see the same results.

So how do you do this? Lets be specific, if you are doing 10 repetitions for a particular exercise, the final 2 repetitions (the 20%) are the ones that lead to 80% of the gain. Of course you can’t just do 2 reps and that’s it, you need to build up to the final 2 reps. Well how about decreasing your resting time between sets by 80%? So say you take a 1 minute break, try taking a 15 second (not exactly 80% less but close) break instead. By doing this your muscles will be put in the situation that they need to be in to get maximum results, the final few reps, the coveted 20% And they will get to this stage 80% faster. So not only are you shortening the time resting between sets by 80%, your also getting your muscles to their optimal results stage 80% faster! This means shorter and more concentrated workouts and therefore better results, yet spending 80% less time in the gym. Don’t underestimate the cardiovascular effects the minimal rest time will have. My only other advice, be prepared to go down a few kgs on that dumbbell!

I suggest trying it for 30 days (Steve Pavlina style) and see how you feel after your trial period is over. Or just try it for 1 day, whatever you do, I strongly recommend giving it a go and see what happens. I know that once you try it and see the results you would never want to go back to your old training ways.