Increasing The Effectiveness of Your Training

Program hopping is a huge detriment to seeing progress from your workouts. Committing to a training regiment is becoming difficult as most expect to see progress immediately. This is not the case, consistency is the common denominator for program success. Before you jump programs, make sure you are doing the following to ensure you maximize your results.

Decrease Rest Time

You may have a very effective program but you're resting through it instead of working. I conducted my own study at my current work facility to measure rest times of those who are not doing the big three exercises (squat, deadlift, and bench). The average rest times were 3.5 minutes between each set. This is entirely too long. Instead, take your timer on your cell phone  and set a 1.5 minute timer between each set to ensure you are not over resting. This will save you time and get a more intense workout session.

Increase Your Resistance

Our bodies have the ability to adapt to physical stress rather quickly. If you are using a set resistance of 50 pounds for 3 set of 10 and it becomes rather easy, go up 5 to 10 pounds the following week. An easy way to check is use an RPE scale (Rate of Perceived Exertion) from a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being a walk in the park and 10 being completely unbearable, you will want to be at around a 7 for the last 3 reps. If not, the resistance is too easy. Bump the weight up and feel some discomfort.

Do Both

This will be a game changer if utilized safely. Decreasing your rest time and increasing your resistance will allow you to burn more calories and get out of the gym faster. This is a complete intensifier of your training that will blaze your way to the results that you are looking for. You will be uncomfortable but it is worth it. Again, only utilize this in a safe fashion and never let your ego get in your way to cheat proper form and mechanics. Only increase where you can handle.

Check Yourself

We all need to self-audit ourselves at times to ensure we are really working towards our goal. We can get into this mindset that we think we are working hard when we really aren't.  It comes a time we have to be honest with ourselves and let it be known that we really are not giving our best effort in the gym.

To Conclude

All of these efforts do not have to be explored at once, just adding one of the above should increase the effectiveness of your training. Remember, you cannot out train a bad diet and lack of sleep. Utilize these tools to improve your results.