All over it

Damien Kelly introduces us to a more holistic approach to working out.

One recent Sunday a mate and I decided to hit the gym – nothing like a competitive mate to get you working harder. We worked out for only 45 minutes but managed to get through a good 24 sets of exercise. We sweated, we puffed, and we maxed out every set until our muscles burned. We worked damn hard.

We did supersets (check out my recent superset blog if you are unsure what these are). We chose two whole body exercises (barbell squats and dumbbell Swiss presses) did three sets of ten reps of each with no rest. We followed with two more whole body exercises (dead lifts and bodyweight pull-ups), and again did three sets of ten of each. We then moved to chin-ups and dumbbell lunges, performing the same reps and sets. We then finished with two abs exercises.

No I’m not telling you all this to big note myself – I have my reasons.

While we were busting a gut for those 45 minutes everyone else in the gym may have well been at church. Some of them would have been lucky to get through half as many sets. There was definitely no sign of sweat and they puffed more walking up the stairs to the front door than they did during their workout.

So why did they perform so poorly? They were all doing body part training. One guy was training his chest; one guy was training his legs and another, his arms. Top trainers don’t train like this. This is outdated training and really ineffectual.

You need to get intensity and volume into your training. Importantly, you need to be choosing the correct exercises. Stationary arms exercises or training your chest all afternoon won’t get results. They simply don’t train the body in a way that encourages good movement.

Whole body exercises give you a three-fold benefit:
– They get your heart rate up due to the amount of muscle tissue being used which gives you a cardiovascular benefit and fitness gain.
– They train real life movements so you’ll move better in all athletic endeavors.
– This style of training will have you looking super strong.

So see what you can pack into your next workout.