With the rise of social media and the never ending “fitness influencers”, it’s no wonder smarter workouts are a lost art. It’s a big shame to see seen as if people are going to go to the trouble of getting themselves in the gym (the hard part), they may as well make sure they optimise their time there and workout smarter.
If you don’t have access to a personal trainer, or an online coach and just want the science of smarter exercise made simple, this post will prove useful. You don’t need to go forking out for expensive equipment either.
Let’s dive in.
1 Schedule it using the implementation technique.
First and foremost, if you don’t plan your workouts ahead of time, you risk relying on “self motivation”. This is not a good long term strategy because it will be easy to talk yourself out of it when you haven’t got intentional about things. A science-backed way to do this is to use implementation intentions. Put simply, implementation intentions are about writing down a specific plan of what you will do and when you will do it.
Research shows that when we get things out of our heads and write down clear intentions, we significantly improve our chances of following through.
In an exercise study where researchers wanted to help 248 adults build better exercise habits. They had them split into three groups. The first group was asked to track how often they exercised. The second group, the “motivation group,” was asked to follow the exercise and read material about the benefits of exercise. Finally, the third group tracked and read motivational material but also explicitly asked to write down the following sentence:
During the next week, I will partake in at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise on [DAY] at [TIME] in [PLACE].
Not a bad return for simply writing down what you’re going to do and when you’re going to do it. So write your plan specifically using the above formula.
You can create an added protective layer by putting your workouts into a calendar. For example, go to https://calendar.google.com/ and then “create new calendar”, and you can start scheduling them ahead of time.
2 Have a workout plan to follow
The use of effective workout programs is few and far between, if you’re not following one, you’re just guessing and hoping things will improve. Also, it should be a plan that follows the important fundamentals of a proper exercise program and carryovers functionally to what you need to do in everyday life.
1. Squat: Think of sitting down and up off a chair
2. Hinge: Bending at the hips to get up out of bed
3. Lunge: Getting down to tie your shoelaces
4. Push: Opening a heavy door to walk through
5. Pull: Starting the lawnmower
6. Carry: Carrying shopping bags to the car in either hand
7. Rotation: Reaching across your body to get something off the table
The caveats of programme design can be seen in my previous post here, but the point still stands, if you’re going to the gym, you should be following a programme that’s designed around making you fitter and stronger.
3 Go in fully hydrated
Being fully hydrated is an obvious one yes, but many people are still going to the gym not fully hydrated. Exercise performance is compensated when someone is dehydrated by as little as 2% of body weight. Another 3% can decrease the capacity to perform by as much as 30%. Keeping these percentages in mind, you get the point of how much gain from just making sure your urine is crystal clear before attending the gym. A small cost for such a great return.
4 Autoregulate your training
Autoregulation means paying attention to how you feel during a workout and making real time adjustments based on your body’s signals. It simply allows you to modify the weights, reps, or sets based on factors like energy levels, fatigue, and overall performance. Research shows by doing so, you can optimise your training, and avoid overexertion and injury.
There are many ways you can use it, but an example could be its leg day, and you have planned to do three sets of squats with a heavy weight. However, during your warm up sets, you notice that your legs feel fatigued or weaker than usual, and your energy feels low. Instead of pushing through with the original plan, autoregulation would prompt you to adjust your workout.
In this case, you might decide to decrease the weight or the number of sets to prevent overexertion or potential injury.
By adapting your workout in real time based on how your body feels, you ensure better balance, a safer training session that aligns with your current physical condition, thereby “autoregulating”.
5 Leverage supersets
Supersets have been helping people streamline their workouts for years ensuring people optimise their precious time when then don’t have a lot of time. They are a workout technique where you perform two different exercises back to back without resting in between. In simple terms, it means doing one exercise immediately followed by another exercise before taking a break.
The two exercises in a superset can target the same muscle group or different muscle groups.
In a busy gym or if you just like getting in and out as fast as you can, they are a godsend. You will usually see them programmed into a card like the following:
- A1: Barbell Squats
- A2: Dumbbell Lunges
- B1: Bench Press
- B2: Bent-Over Rows
- B3: Shoulder Press
- B3: Lateral Raises
In the above example, you would do A1 + A2 back to back, then rest and then the same for all the rest. Free weights work well as you can move them around the gym and set up your superset accordingly. Something you can’t do with machines.
Summary
The above tips can get save you time as well as optimise your time in working out. Make sure anyone you’re not doing you start doing to reap the benefits in your next workout.