July 24, 2025 • 20 mins
Ever found yourself thinking "I just don't have time to exercise"? You're not alone—and there's compelling scientific evidence suggesting you might need far less time than you think.
The latest research reveals that with strategic workout structuring, you can achieve nearly identical results to longer sessions in a fraction of the time. Hosts Justin and Ethan dive deep into the science of workout efficiency, exploring how superset training, timed rest periods, and intentional programming can revolutionize your fitness routine without consuming your schedule.
What makes this approach particularly powerful isn't just the time savings—it's the dramatic impact on consistency. As they emphasize throughout the episode, "No amount of time spent working out or intensity matters if you can't stick with it." The most meticulously designed hour-long workout becomes worthless if life constantly prevents you from completing it.
Practical strategies discussed include pairing complementary exercises for continuous activity (like bench press and pull-ups), precisely timing rest periods to maintain intensity, and understanding the stimulus-fatigue ratio that determines optimal workout length. The hosts share personal insights on how these techniques have transformed their own training, allowing complete workouts in as little as 30 minutes while maintaining or even improving results.
Perhaps most compelling is their discussion of longevity research showing that consistent movement—even in short bursts—dramatically improves 10-year survival rates and quality of life. Someone who exercises regularly but has other health challenges often outlives a "healthy" but sedentary individual, underscoring that movement might be the single most important health factor.
Whether you're looking to build muscle, lose fat, or simply maintain health, this episode provides actionable strategies to make fitness fit into your life, not the other way around. What small workout could you complete today? Your future self will thank you.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
how to maximize your results as little time as
possible.
Good news there's actually aton of evidence to support that.
With the right kind ofstructuring, you can get pretty
much all the benefits of alonger workout in a much more
condensed.
No amount of time spent workingout or intensity matters if you
can't stick with it.
(00:20):
Consistency is the number onething.
Welcome to episode 65 of In theGrand Scheme of Fitness.
I'm your host, justin Scallard,and I'm your co-host, ethan
Wolfe, and today, folks, we'retalking about how to maximize
(00:45):
your results with as little timeas possible.
This is kind of a.
It's a little bit like the lastones we were talking about with
food and programming, and nowwe're just going to like talk
about just efficiencies.
Like how do we not everyone hasa luxury of going to the gym
for an hour, because, let's behonest, it's an hour workout.
Then you got to get there,unload your stuff, do a little
warm up, you know, change, workout for the hour and then pack
it up and go home, and thatcould be like over two hours of
(01:06):
your life and like when you're25, you're like, yeah, why
doesn't everyone just do this?
And then like you're 40 andyou're like that's just not
going to happen.
I just can't do that.
Good news it doesn't have to bethat way.
There's actually a ton ofevidence to support that.
With the right kind ofstructuring you structuring you
can get pretty much all thebenefits of a longer workout.
(01:27):
In a much more condensedversion, we're talking about
weight training, different goalsyou might have, whether that be
like putting on muscle or justbeing fit and healthy, or losing
fat or, you know, even down tolike walking.
So that's what we're going tobe talking about today, folks.
Life hacks.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, exercise.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, totally, because, let's be honest, like
it's just, if I don't know, Imean like I'm a fitness person,
but if I can get the sameresults in 30 minutes that it
would normally take me 45 or 60,like I'll do the 30.
That sounds perfect, right?
Absolutely no amount of timespent working out or intensity
matters if you can't stick withit.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Consistency is the number one thing.
I think time is probably one ofthe biggest reasons that people
would name for not being ableto incorporate more fitness yeah
yeah, I just don't got the timefor it I mean, I'll tell you I
love a good superset.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, right now the way I train is it's like mainly
like a push pull day together,and then a legs and arm day, and
then a push pull that day, andthen legs and arm day, so it's
four workouts a week solid andI've just recently stumbled on
this and it's like the perfectsplit for me, right, because I
can just superset chest and back, bench press and pull-ups.
(02:29):
Right, perfect, just do benchpress, rest for 30, 40 seconds,
do pull-ups rest 30, 40 secondsand just do that for three or
four rounds.
Pick another couplet ofexercises like that.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, do it again.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, and within 30 minutes I've gotten you know,
eight to 10 sets per musclegroup down.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
No, it's pretty good volume.
It feels great.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
There's a little aerobic benefit to that as well.
Yeah, just because you'removing so consistently, yeah,
totally.
And so I think that's the ideais like kind of breaking the
mold.
Even if you want to put onmuscle, totally cool, you can do
that and still do what I justdid and like have little
supersets and drop sets andstuff.
It doesn't have to be this likeclassic way of like do a set,
now rest right, yeah, for threeminutes and then do another set
(03:09):
and then rest.
It's like you can train that way.
That's fine, but it comes atthe cost of just your time
absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
It might be the most optimal way to perform for a
single deadlift or something,but yeah, if there's certain
high risk exercises where maybethat makes sense, yeah, but I
think, for the part, it's timeand efficiency is just going to
be the bait or the ability.
It's going to be the grease onthe wheels to get people to be
consistent, like you said, and Ithink it goes to say that it
all comes down to like somestructure and intent and also
(03:36):
just really I think these thingstake so long and becoming part
of a lifestyle.
I think it's almost like for megetting rid of the mountain or
the molehill and just finding away to just like squeak it into
your lifestyle and just look theother way and just let time go
by, with consistency being thesituation, and so it's like I
think it's like having a programis probably going to be one of
the biggest ones.
It's like just knowing whatyou're going to do, knowing
(03:58):
what's ahead, and then that towhat you were kind of just
saying, that your program has alot of malleability, and so,
whether you're just working outin your living room at home or
you're going to a planet fitnessworking at a home gym, even
someone who's had the same homegym set up for a long time,
who's been exercising for a longtime you know even now there's
like oh, there's the slighttweaks to how I do my exercise.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
For sure it's all this time efficiency happen
makes it more digestible.
It's constantly you ebb and youflow.
You're constantly just likemoving through different things
that either catch your attentionor your interest at certain
points or just practically makesense at that stage of your life
.
Like, maybe ideally you wouldlike to, you know, three or four
one hour workouts, but maybe itjust makes most sense right now
(04:39):
in your life to break that upinto like five or six 20 minute
workouts every morning.
Right, and I think that's whywhy, like programs like P90X and
Beachbody get so popular In thebeginning.
Maybe CrossFit was like thattoo, because it was like oh, we
can just like maximize youroutput and efficiency in this
like really short window of time.
Yeah, of course, trade-off ofthat is it's explosive, there's
(05:01):
skill that's required, and thenwhat ends up happening is like
the universal law, where thingstend to expand, to fill in their
container, so to speak.
And so, even though, like aCrossFit WOD, for example, is
only 15 minutes, but you'rethere for an hour, and so you
end up working out for an hourbecause all of a sudden, oh well
, we can throw in some strengthafterwards and then after that,
after the WOD, we can then dosome abs and some mobility and
(05:22):
it ends up being an hour.
So you know it's like when yougo to these classes or you do
these kind of like PNDX typeprograms that sell you on this,
you know quicker thing it canwork.
But I'm just a big believer inbuilding the skill set,
understanding movements, so thatyou can have that autonomy to
build your own programmingaround, so you're not just
(05:43):
beholden on a you know videoseries of workouts or a class
schedule, because then it's likewell, what if I've run out of
these workouts, I get sick ofthem, or what if the gym closes
down and I can't go anymore?
It's like having the autonomyto like build your own domain
out with exercise and thenunderstanding how it goes is
just going to really just setyou up in the long run to like
(06:05):
be nimble and consistentultimately for sure.
So another great hack that wewere talking about getting ready
for the show is like restperiods.
I think the benefit of going tolike a class is that your rest
is typically timed.
Yeah, the structure is therestructure is there, even if that
class ends up being the hourwhich we just don't have time to
allocate towards anyways.
But we, but I think that, likethe lesson is, if you're working
(06:27):
out at home, which a lot offolks are these days especially,
I think, the pandemic justreally, you know, revolutionized
home workouts, absolutely.
But one of the traps islingering between sets, and so
if the goal is maximumefficiency and result for at
least my time then it stands toreason you better start timing
those rests.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, and it's you know.
And so you know there'sobviously like a gradient to the
rest the heavier, the morerecovery, the longer the rest,
you know.
So if you want strengthendurance, maybe you do 30
seconds to a minute.
If you want like hypertrophy,it's like 90 seconds to two
minutes, and then if it's likereally heavy strength training,
you could say like two to fiveminutes depending, but
ultimately even at like a two orthree minute rest.
(07:06):
I think people would besurprised at how quickly that
goes by and eat, whether you'realone or you have a training
partner, just how easy it is tolet three to five minutes happen
between a set, just evenkeeping a good pace.
And so it's like, let me tellyou, if you actually put 90
seconds on the clock, it ain'tlong, it is really not long.
And so even if you're justdoing a singular exercise, like
(07:30):
even if you're just doing benchpress and honoring a 90 second
rest period, it's going to go bypretty quick.
And then if you're doinganother exercise in there,
you're going to be hustling,like you know.
So if you do a bench press andthen you want to do some like
quote, active rest and you dosome type of abdominal exercise
while your chest is resting, butyour chest truly only gets 90
seconds.
You could really only get 45seconds of downtime where you're
doing nothing, which reallyisn't that long.
And so all of a sudden there'sno time to like check your texts
(07:53):
.
You're really kind of on the onthe focus, and I think that it
applies whether you actually goto the gym or a home gym,
because if you have a workoutthat takes you an hour normally
and you have to change andshower and do everything, and
that leads to the gym experiencebeing an hour and a half,
whereas if you could solidifythe workout time to 40 minutes
and then have 20 minutes toshower and get out of there, now
(08:14):
your whole gym experience is anhour and it means it's more,
you're able to get to the actualgym or whether it's a home gym.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
But I think, like the timed rest is a very humbling
experience, totally because Ialso think they find that, like
I know for me that because therest is shorter, my recovery is
like my being more challengedand or the fatigue in my muscle
is much more present, like Itend to go into that second,
third, fourth set in a state offatigue where I'm like I will
not not perform as well, likeI'm self-aware versus I think
(08:40):
back to when I don't time myrest and I tend to hit my sets
feeling pretty good you know, ina sense, and I think like
there's a couple of things cometo mind just from like a
strategy standpoint, so likenumber one is like, even though
studies do show that, likeshorter rest periods do tend to
result in more hypertrophy,because, at the end of of the
day, it's time under tension,yeah, and so, and on the muscle,
(09:01):
yeah, so it's like I'm givingmy muscle three minutes.
You know I'm kind of catchingthe downside of that bell curve,
yeah, but if I give it like 90seconds it's like I'm like peak
in the recovery process.
Yes, just cresting it, justopening the door to recovery and
I'm going again, and then I'mdoing it again.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, just the systemic demand.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Systemic demand, just the overload of the muscle,
yeah, and so it makes sense thenthat, like your, your reps per
set would decline at that pace.
So then another.
So a strategy if, like,preserving strength is important
, then strategy in that scenariowhere you do time, your rest
for time efficiency, yet youstill want to maintain strength
and not just like, barely ekeout three reps from your last
(09:41):
set is reverse pyramiding.
So your heaviest after you doyour warm-ups, your heavy.
You start your first set withthe heaviest weight, right.
Then you precipitously drop theweight down with each
successive set.
So if you're doing, let's justsay, four sets for a certain
exercise, right, keep it simple.
Let's say, like back squats andyour max rep, or the way you're
going to start this set, is forthis rep range.
(10:02):
Let's say it's 150 pounds.
So you start after your firstset 150 pounds, and then second
set maybe 135, and the third setmaybe 115 and the fourth set
maybe like 95, so you can try tomaintain higher reps as you get
more fatigue because your, yourrest time is shorter, and so
that's a good strategy in thatscenario as well.
But yeah, I mean, I think themain thing here is that, like,
(10:24):
what is your goal?
Like, what are we trying to door do you?
Yes, I know we all wanna lookour best and feel our best and
be strong and all these things.
But like, what's most important?
Is it like just general fitness?
Like, are we just trying to behealthy?
Yeah, move more and stay offdisease.
In that case, like it reallydoesn't matter, like don't
overthink it, like it could beresistance bands, it could just
(10:45):
be like a few light dumbbellsand calisthenics and resistance
bands and you can just createendless little 20-minute
circuits that you can just clipoff every single morning.
Super low barrier of entry andjust focus on consistency and
naturally you'll get better overtime.
But if your goal is like youwant to put on some muscle, okay
, then maybe the full body stylemight not be optimal.
(11:06):
I'm going to have to break thatinto muscle groups and I might
just be like all right, this isgoing to be like a 20, 30 minute
push workout where it's justlike chest, shoulders and arms
in a circuit for 20 minutes andthe next day it could be a pull,
you know.
And so you have to kind of, Ithink, decide first and foremost
like what your goal is and thenyou can reverse engineer your
(11:27):
plan based around where you haveaccess to your fitness level
and you know the realities ofyour time, absolutely yeah
absolutely.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I mean I think because, like, no matter what
again, our best lives are goingto be lived if we're moving and
just incorporating it in someway.
You know I was.
It was interesting I saw thisguy arguing, arguing that
exercise is the most importantthing to longevity.
He's like some nine-year-oldand he's like you know, the
person that has high bloodpressure, you know, high
cholesterol and smokes, butexercises every day will outlive
(11:52):
.
The person that has none ofthose afflictions but is
sedentary every day.
You know, obviously that's justan anecdote of this individual,
but I do think there's sometruth in it that if you're
moving and exercising it's justgoing to mean such a higher
quality of life, and so itreally is just about finding a
way to fit it in and justthinking realistically about
what's going on.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah, I mean I, I totally agree with that.
I think that, like when youlook, when we look at like
10-year survival rates, meaninglike what's the percentage or
what's the percentile that acohort of people will fall into
based off of their health,current health state, what's the
percentage likelihood they'regoing to survive the next 10
years.
So they call it like the10-year survival rate, right,
and like the number one.
(12:32):
Things are like what's your VO2max?
You know, like if you're in thered, you have like a coin toss.
You know, you know, like if you, if you're in the red, you have
like a coin toss, you know,figure, if you're a 50 year old
man and your vo2 max is soterrible.
I don't really know the exactlike metrics for vo2 max at the
top of my head, I can't rememberexactly, but you know you can
imagine it's a, it's a, it's a,it's a range like the higher the
better, and yeah, of courselike 50 is pretty like.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
50 is like approaching and like an athlete
and like I think, above 50 isoff the top of my head or above
54,.
60 is pretty exceptionally high.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
But you'd be surprised.
But, it's diminishing returns.
Once you reach solid VO2 max,you go from a 90% survival rate
likelihood to a 92.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, yeah, but if you have an extremely low VO2.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
But if you have a low one, it could be like 60, 55,
60% survival rate, and there'slike some easy ways to test it,
like you know, like how far youcan walk, or how quickly you can
walk a mile, or how far you canget at a certain pace in 20
minutes.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah, and that thing with heart rates too.
It's like you can just like getlike a stationary step or just
use a step in a staircase andlike go up and down the step a
hundred times each side and youput in how long that took you,
and then you measure your heartrate and then you like, measure
it again after a recovery period.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah, it's worth checking out.
You can just Google, like, howto test VO2 max, but it's worth
kind of just seeing what cohortyou fall into If you train, even
with just weights.
This is, this is like one of mypremises of like why I'm not
huge into doing a ton of cardio,specifically because, like I do
supersets and I do circuitweights and like my heart rate
is probably never above like 110, let's be honest but, like,
(14:08):
surprisingly though, thatdoesn't seem to have as big of a
impact in your long-term healththat you would think.
Like people are so obsessedwith, like high, intense cardio
because they think that theyneed this like crazy high heart
rate zone three yeah for thislike extended period of time in
order to like and but like.
What we're trying to say here isis that like the fitter you get
a, the harder it is to get morefit, because it's just like
(14:29):
such diminishing returns and belike it's such a precipitous
like amount of improvement thathappens the fitter you get.
So as long as you're just liketraining relatively consistently
, even if it's just weighttraining, you're not even doing
a ton of like cardio, like bootcamps or hit or running, you'd
be surprised at how well you canmaintain a really solid vo2 max
.
That then bring this back fullcircle just increases your
(14:51):
10-year survival rate, which isa a huge health marker, 100%
Versus somebody who doesn'tdrink, doesn't smoke, but is
just like morbidly obese anddoesn't exercise.
It's like I would bet money onthe person who drinks and smokes
but trains.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, I mean, I think even somebody who's not
morbidly obese, like just youknow it's there was.
I saw that recently like anx-ray of a cross section of a
40-year-old triathlete.
Oh yeah, A 70-year-old man and a70-year-old triathlete and
basically, you know it's likethe 70-year-old man had
tremendous amount of fat, veryminimal muscle mass, very thin
(15:26):
bone of the femur, and then thetwo triathlete images were
almost identical.
And you know, the whole ideawas like you know somebody, if
these, If these two 70-year-oldsfell, which one's more likely
to break a bone?
Which one's more likely tocatch themselves from a fall?
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Have the strength in their legs to decelerate their
body and the amount of muscletissue on them.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah if they had to have surgery.
To survive a surgery or tosurvive a disease or an illness
or anything.
So you know, I think yeah, it'sjust the efficiency and there's
things I mean I think ingeneral there and there's things
(16:06):
I mean I think in generalthere's like an intensity
trade-off for time.
Efficiency that kind of happensthat will allow for most
results in most avenues, withoutgetting too specific or niche
or goal-oriented, meaning thatwhether you're doing walking, a
boot camp, you're doing straightbodybuilding or even
powerlifting, that if you kindof play your cards right,
there's a way to kind of shortenthe time and at the exchange of
that is some intensity.
And then obviously you're goingto have to like break protocol.
If you're getting reallyspecific, like if you really
want to be a true power lifter,you're going to have to kind of
(16:27):
let this efficiency game go outthe window and just do what you
got to do yeah, with the longand that's like super goal
specific.
That's very goal specific andand very niche, but for the most
part any avenue you choose, ifyou just kind of like put the
gas on a little bit more and arewilling to be a little more
uncomfortable in one way oranother, you'll be able to
probably get the same resultswith a minimal margin of loss,
(16:47):
as long as you're willing to gothere with it.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, I think it's just that it's like the stimulus
fatigue ratio, yeah, fatigueratio, yeah, like strength
fatigue slash stimulus fatigueratio, where it's like you know
you could get probably a hundredrepetitions of a couple of like
two or three exercises inwithin 10 minutes if you just
like cranked a circuit, butyou're just not gonna be able to
go that heavy and you're gonnabe gassed and that's okay.
Yeah, you know, like if you'relike I got 10 minutes, I'm just
(17:11):
gonna do like as many rounds aspossible of 15 jump squats and
15 push-ups in 10 minutes you'llbe gassed.
Oh yeah, you're gonna be gassed, and by the end of that 10
minutes you're probably gonnabear, you won't even be able to
finish.
You'll be doing like sets offive and then having to rest,
especially, but you're fatiguingbecause of, like, the
cardiovascular aspect of it,which is again, for general
health and fitness, wonderful.
(17:32):
If that's all you ever did wasjust some version of that yeah,
you are light years beyond mostpeople.
Yeah, but for those who maybeare willing to stretch that out
to 30 minutes, slow things down,that means that you have a
little bit more time to recovernow and that means the the
stimulus to fatigue ratio is alittle bit more on the stimulus
side and not so much the fatigueside, which means you could
probably go a little heavier.
You could focus, you could takea solid minute break in between
(17:55):
each set and still get a goodamount of volume in.
Oh yeah, but be able to like,load up the weights a little bit
more to build morerecomposition, more aesthetics,
and then you could go like afull hour where it's like, okay,
I'm not going to circuitanything, it's all stimulus and
there's no fatigue, and I'mgoing to do a set of a bench
press or a back squat orwhatever, and I'm going to a
bench press or a back squat orwhatever and I'm gonna rest a
full ass two and a half minutesfor my next one.
(18:15):
So you just kind of figure likewhere you fall on that spectrum
and like what your goals are andwhat's realistic for your life
right now, and understand thatlike nothing matters if we can't
be consistent, and so if, like,even if, where I'm at right now
, if that just meant I got 10minutes every day because maybe
I got like two young kids athome and dogs to walk and I work
a full-time job and wife's outof the house as well, and oh
(18:36):
yeah, and like, literally I got10 minutes, it's okay, just do
that then like it's fine yeahbecause, you know, when this,
when the dust settles in one,two, five years from now, you
could pick it up wherever youwant.
You'd be right, you'd be readyto roll because you, at least
you kept a toe hold on, and justdid little 10 or 15 minute
things when you could, versuswhere so many people fall into
this trap of being like, wow,you know, I just couldn't.
I couldn't find any time for my, my workout routine, so I just
(19:00):
stopped doing it.
It's like, well, okay, but youknow does that mean exactly?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
what does that mean Exactly?
Where's that?
Speaker 1 (19:05):
going to be.
Where are they going to landyou in five years?
You're going to have it.
Had you just done the 10 or 15minutes a few times a week, you
would have maintained a baselevel of fitness.
That would have made, when thatdust inevitably settles and
your life inevitably moves inthe next chapter and you're not
so busy anymore, you could pickit back up again right where you
left off, basically, and justbe that much more fit because of
it.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
You know yeah so anything's better than nothing
is the real takeaway, I think Ithink, yeah, it's truly just get
it, get, find a way to get itin, find ways to make it
efficient.
You know, like drop sets dropset, you do a weight and then,
as you fatigue, you do aslightly less weight of the same
exact exercise and you do itimmediately.
Like cables are great for it,but dumbbells, you know, drop
sets are really effective andthey don't take a lot of time.
Again, they're really intenseif you do them right.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, but you can get a tremendous amount of ways to
do it.
Find the tools yeah, make itefficient, get over the time,
excuse anything is better thannothing and be ready.
Yeah, all right, folks, episode65 in the bag, that's a lot of
episodes.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
I'm surprised.
Yeah, it's chugging along, yeahwe'll catch y'all next time.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Another episode of in the grand scheme of fitness
peace, out y'all, peace.
how to maximize your results as little time as
possible.
Good news there's actually aton of evidence to support that.
With the right kind ofstructuring, you can get pretty
much all the benefits of alonger workout in a much more
condensed.
No amount of time spent workingout or intensity matters if you
can't stick with it.
(00:20):
Consistency is the number onething.
Welcome to episode 65 of In theGrand Scheme of Fitness.
I'm your host, justin Scallard,and I'm your co-host, ethan
Wolfe, and today, folks, we'retalking about how to maximize
(00:45):
your results with as little timeas possible.
This is kind of a.
It's a little bit like the lastones we were talking about with
food and programming, and nowwe're just going to like talk
about just efficiencies.
Like how do we not everyone hasa luxury of going to the gym
for an hour, because, let's behonest, it's an hour workout.
Then you got to get there,unload your stuff, do a little
warm up, you know, change, workout for the hour and then pack
it up and go home, and thatcould be like over two hours of
(01:06):
your life and like when you're25, you're like, yeah, why
doesn't everyone just do this?
And then like you're 40 andyou're like that's just not
going to happen.
I just can't do that.
Good news it doesn't have to bethat way.
There's actually a ton ofevidence to support that.
With the right kind ofstructuring you structuring you
can get pretty much all thebenefits of a longer workout.
(01:27):
In a much more condensedversion, we're talking about
weight training, different goalsyou might have, whether that be
like putting on muscle or justbeing fit and healthy, or losing
fat or, you know, even down tolike walking.
So that's what we're going tobe talking about today, folks.
Life hacks.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, exercise.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, totally, because, let's be honest, like
it's just, if I don't know, Imean like I'm a fitness person,
but if I can get the sameresults in 30 minutes that it
would normally take me 45 or 60,like I'll do the 30.
That sounds perfect, right?
Absolutely no amount of timespent working out or intensity
matters if you can't stick withit.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Consistency is the number one thing.
I think time is probably one ofthe biggest reasons that people
would name for not being ableto incorporate more fitness yeah
yeah, I just don't got the timefor it I mean, I'll tell you I
love a good superset.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, right now the way I train is it's like mainly
like a push pull day together,and then a legs and arm day, and
then a push pull that day, andthen legs and arm day, so it's
four workouts a week solid andI've just recently stumbled on
this and it's like the perfectsplit for me, right, because I
can just superset chest and back, bench press and pull-ups.
(02:29):
Right, perfect, just do benchpress, rest for 30, 40 seconds,
do pull-ups rest 30, 40 secondsand just do that for three or
four rounds.
Pick another couplet ofexercises like that.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, do it again.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, and within 30 minutes I've gotten you know,
eight to 10 sets per musclegroup down.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
No, it's pretty good volume.
It feels great.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
There's a little aerobic benefit to that as well.
Yeah, just because you'removing so consistently, yeah,
totally.
And so I think that's the ideais like kind of breaking the
mold.
Even if you want to put onmuscle, totally cool, you can do
that and still do what I justdid and like have little
supersets and drop sets andstuff.
It doesn't have to be this likeclassic way of like do a set,
now rest right, yeah, for threeminutes and then do another set
(03:09):
and then rest.
It's like you can train that way.
That's fine, but it comes atthe cost of just your time
absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
It might be the most optimal way to perform for a
single deadlift or something,but yeah, if there's certain
high risk exercises where maybethat makes sense, yeah, but I
think, for the part, it's timeand efficiency is just going to
be the bait or the ability.
It's going to be the grease onthe wheels to get people to be
consistent, like you said, and Ithink it goes to say that it
all comes down to like somestructure and intent and also
(03:36):
just really I think these thingstake so long and becoming part
of a lifestyle.
I think it's almost like for megetting rid of the mountain or
the molehill and just finding away to just like squeak it into
your lifestyle and just look theother way and just let time go
by, with consistency being thesituation, and so it's like I
think it's like having a programis probably going to be one of
the biggest ones.
It's like just knowing whatyou're going to do, knowing
(03:58):
what's ahead, and then that towhat you were kind of just
saying, that your program has alot of malleability, and so,
whether you're just working outin your living room at home or
you're going to a planet fitnessworking at a home gym, even
someone who's had the same homegym set up for a long time,
who's been exercising for a longtime you know even now there's
like oh, there's the slighttweaks to how I do my exercise.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
For sure it's all this time efficiency happen
makes it more digestible.
It's constantly you ebb and youflow.
You're constantly just likemoving through different things
that either catch your attentionor your interest at certain
points or just practically makesense at that stage of your life
.
Like, maybe ideally you wouldlike to, you know, three or four
one hour workouts, but maybe itjust makes most sense right now
(04:39):
in your life to break that upinto like five or six 20 minute
workouts every morning.
Right, and I think that's whywhy, like programs like P90X and
Beachbody get so popular In thebeginning.
Maybe CrossFit was like thattoo, because it was like oh, we
can just like maximize youroutput and efficiency in this
like really short window of time.
Yeah, of course, trade-off ofthat is it's explosive, there's
(05:01):
skill that's required, and thenwhat ends up happening is like
the universal law, where thingstend to expand, to fill in their
container, so to speak.
And so, even though, like aCrossFit WOD, for example, is
only 15 minutes, but you'rethere for an hour, and so you
end up working out for an hourbecause all of a sudden, oh well
, we can throw in some strengthafterwards and then after that,
after the WOD, we can then dosome abs and some mobility and
(05:22):
it ends up being an hour.
So you know it's like when yougo to these classes or you do
these kind of like PNDX typeprograms that sell you on this,
you know quicker thing it canwork.
But I'm just a big believer inbuilding the skill set,
understanding movements, so thatyou can have that autonomy to
build your own programmingaround, so you're not just
(05:43):
beholden on a you know videoseries of workouts or a class
schedule, because then it's likewell, what if I've run out of
these workouts, I get sick ofthem, or what if the gym closes
down and I can't go anymore?
It's like having the autonomyto like build your own domain
out with exercise and thenunderstanding how it goes is
just going to really just setyou up in the long run to like
(06:05):
be nimble and consistentultimately for sure.
So another great hack that wewere talking about getting ready
for the show is like restperiods.
I think the benefit of going tolike a class is that your rest
is typically timed.
Yeah, the structure is therestructure is there, even if that
class ends up being the hourwhich we just don't have time to
allocate towards anyways.
But we, but I think that, likethe lesson is, if you're working
(06:27):
out at home, which a lot offolks are these days especially,
I think, the pandemic justreally, you know, revolutionized
home workouts, absolutely.
But one of the traps islingering between sets, and so
if the goal is maximumefficiency and result for at
least my time then it stands toreason you better start timing
those rests.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, and it's you know.
And so you know there'sobviously like a gradient to the
rest the heavier, the morerecovery, the longer the rest,
you know.
So if you want strengthendurance, maybe you do 30
seconds to a minute.
If you want like hypertrophy,it's like 90 seconds to two
minutes, and then if it's likereally heavy strength training,
you could say like two to fiveminutes depending, but
ultimately even at like a two orthree minute rest.
(07:06):
I think people would besurprised at how quickly that
goes by and eat, whether you'realone or you have a training
partner, just how easy it is tolet three to five minutes happen
between a set, just evenkeeping a good pace.
And so it's like, let me tellyou, if you actually put 90
seconds on the clock, it ain'tlong, it is really not long.
And so even if you're justdoing a singular exercise, like
(07:30):
even if you're just doing benchpress and honoring a 90 second
rest period, it's going to go bypretty quick.
And then if you're doinganother exercise in there,
you're going to be hustling,like you know.
So if you do a bench press andthen you want to do some like
quote, active rest and you dosome type of abdominal exercise
while your chest is resting, butyour chest truly only gets 90
seconds.
You could really only get 45seconds of downtime where you're
doing nothing, which reallyisn't that long.
And so all of a sudden there'sno time to like check your texts
(07:53):
.
You're really kind of on the onthe focus, and I think that it
applies whether you actually goto the gym or a home gym,
because if you have a workoutthat takes you an hour normally
and you have to change andshower and do everything, and
that leads to the gym experiencebeing an hour and a half,
whereas if you could solidifythe workout time to 40 minutes
and then have 20 minutes toshower and get out of there, now
(08:14):
your whole gym experience is anhour and it means it's more,
you're able to get to the actualgym or whether it's a home gym.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
But I think, like the timed rest is a very humbling
experience, totally because Ialso think they find that, like
I know for me that because therest is shorter, my recovery is
like my being more challengedand or the fatigue in my muscle
is much more present, like Itend to go into that second,
third, fourth set in a state offatigue where I'm like I will
not not perform as well, likeI'm self-aware versus I think
(08:40):
back to when I don't time myrest and I tend to hit my sets
feeling pretty good you know, ina sense, and I think like
there's a couple of things cometo mind just from like a
strategy standpoint, so likenumber one is like, even though
studies do show that, likeshorter rest periods do tend to
result in more hypertrophy,because, at the end of of the
day, it's time under tension,yeah, and so, and on the muscle,
(09:01):
yeah, so it's like I'm givingmy muscle three minutes.
You know I'm kind of catchingthe downside of that bell curve,
yeah, but if I give it like 90seconds it's like I'm like peak
in the recovery process.
Yes, just cresting it, justopening the door to recovery and
I'm going again, and then I'mdoing it again.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, just the systemic demand.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Systemic demand, just the overload of the muscle,
yeah, and so it makes sense thenthat, like your, your reps per
set would decline at that pace.
So then another.
So a strategy if, like,preserving strength is important
, then strategy in that scenariowhere you do time, your rest
for time efficiency, yet youstill want to maintain strength
and not just like, barely ekeout three reps from your last
(09:41):
set is reverse pyramiding.
So your heaviest after you doyour warm-ups, your heavy.
You start your first set withthe heaviest weight, right.
Then you precipitously drop theweight down with each
successive set.
So if you're doing, let's justsay, four sets for a certain
exercise, right, keep it simple.
Let's say, like back squats andyour max rep, or the way you're
going to start this set, is forthis rep range.
(10:02):
Let's say it's 150 pounds.
So you start after your firstset 150 pounds, and then second
set maybe 135, and the third setmaybe 115 and the fourth set
maybe like 95, so you can try tomaintain higher reps as you get
more fatigue because your, yourrest time is shorter, and so
that's a good strategy in thatscenario as well.
But yeah, I mean, I think themain thing here is that, like,
(10:24):
what is your goal?
Like, what are we trying to door do you?
Yes, I know we all wanna lookour best and feel our best and
be strong and all these things.
But like, what's most important?
Is it like just general fitness?
Like, are we just trying to behealthy?
Yeah, move more and stay offdisease.
In that case, like it reallydoesn't matter, like don't
overthink it, like it could beresistance bands, it could just
(10:45):
be like a few light dumbbellsand calisthenics and resistance
bands and you can just createendless little 20-minute
circuits that you can just clipoff every single morning.
Super low barrier of entry andjust focus on consistency and
naturally you'll get better overtime.
But if your goal is like youwant to put on some muscle, okay
, then maybe the full body stylemight not be optimal.
(11:06):
I'm going to have to break thatinto muscle groups and I might
just be like all right, this isgoing to be like a 20, 30 minute
push workout where it's justlike chest, shoulders and arms
in a circuit for 20 minutes andthe next day it could be a pull,
you know.
And so you have to kind of, Ithink, decide first and foremost
like what your goal is and thenyou can reverse engineer your
(11:27):
plan based around where you haveaccess to your fitness level
and you know the realities ofyour time, absolutely yeah
absolutely.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I mean I think because, like, no matter what
again, our best lives are goingto be lived if we're moving and
just incorporating it in someway.
You know I was.
It was interesting I saw thisguy arguing, arguing that
exercise is the most importantthing to longevity.
He's like some nine-year-oldand he's like you know, the
person that has high bloodpressure, you know, high
cholesterol and smokes, butexercises every day will outlive
(11:52):
.
The person that has none ofthose afflictions but is
sedentary every day.
You know, obviously that's justan anecdote of this individual,
but I do think there's sometruth in it that if you're
moving and exercising it's justgoing to mean such a higher
quality of life, and so itreally is just about finding a
way to fit it in and justthinking realistically about
what's going on.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah, I mean I, I totally agree with that.
I think that, like when youlook, when we look at like
10-year survival rates, meaninglike what's the percentage or
what's the percentile that acohort of people will fall into
based off of their health,current health state, what's the
percentage likelihood they'regoing to survive the next 10
years.
So they call it like the10-year survival rate, right,
and like the number one.
(12:32):
Things are like what's your VO2max?
You know, like if you're in thered, you have like a coin toss.
You know, you know, like if you, if you're in the red, you have
like a coin toss, you know,figure, if you're a 50 year old
man and your vo2 max is soterrible.
I don't really know the exactlike metrics for vo2 max at the
top of my head, I can't rememberexactly, but you know you can
imagine it's a, it's a, it's a,it's a range like the higher the
better, and yeah, of courselike 50 is pretty like.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
50 is like approaching and like an athlete
and like I think, above 50 isoff the top of my head or above
54,.
60 is pretty exceptionally high.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
But you'd be surprised.
But, it's diminishing returns.
Once you reach solid VO2 max,you go from a 90% survival rate
likelihood to a 92.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, yeah, but if you have an extremely low VO2.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
But if you have a low one, it could be like 60, 55,
60% survival rate, and there'slike some easy ways to test it,
like you know, like how far youcan walk, or how quickly you can
walk a mile, or how far you canget at a certain pace in 20
minutes.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah, and that thing with heart rates too.
It's like you can just like getlike a stationary step or just
use a step in a staircase andlike go up and down the step a
hundred times each side and youput in how long that took you,
and then you measure your heartrate and then you like, measure
it again after a recovery period.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah, it's worth checking out.
You can just Google, like, howto test VO2 max, but it's worth
kind of just seeing what cohortyou fall into If you train, even
with just weights.
This is, this is like one of mypremises of like why I'm not
huge into doing a ton of cardio,specifically because, like I do
supersets and I do circuitweights and like my heart rate
is probably never above like 110, let's be honest but, like,
(14:08):
surprisingly though, thatdoesn't seem to have as big of a
impact in your long-term healththat you would think.
Like people are so obsessedwith, like high, intense cardio
because they think that theyneed this like crazy high heart
rate zone three yeah for thislike extended period of time in
order to like and but like.
What we're trying to say here isis that like the fitter you get
a, the harder it is to get morefit, because it's just like
(14:29):
such diminishing returns and belike it's such a precipitous
like amount of improvement thathappens the fitter you get.
So as long as you're just liketraining relatively consistently
, even if it's just weighttraining, you're not even doing
a ton of like cardio, like bootcamps or hit or running, you'd
be surprised at how well you canmaintain a really solid vo2 max
.
That then bring this back fullcircle just increases your
(14:51):
10-year survival rate, which isa a huge health marker, 100%
Versus somebody who doesn'tdrink, doesn't smoke, but is
just like morbidly obese anddoesn't exercise.
It's like I would bet money onthe person who drinks and smokes
but trains.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, I mean, I think even somebody who's not
morbidly obese, like just youknow it's there was.
I saw that recently like anx-ray of a cross section of a
40-year-old triathlete.
Oh yeah, A 70-year-old man and a70-year-old triathlete and
basically, you know it's likethe 70-year-old man had
tremendous amount of fat, veryminimal muscle mass, very thin
(15:26):
bone of the femur, and then thetwo triathlete images were
almost identical.
And you know, the whole ideawas like you know somebody, if
these, If these two 70-year-oldsfell, which one's more likely
to break a bone?
Which one's more likely tocatch themselves from a fall?
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Have the strength in their legs to decelerate their
body and the amount of muscletissue on them.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah if they had to have surgery.
To survive a surgery or tosurvive a disease or an illness
or anything.
So you know, I think yeah, it'sjust the efficiency and there's
things I mean I think ingeneral there and there's things
(16:06):
I mean I think in generalthere's like an intensity
trade-off for time.
Efficiency that kind of happensthat will allow for most
results in most avenues, withoutgetting too specific or niche
or goal-oriented, meaning thatwhether you're doing walking, a
boot camp, you're doing straightbodybuilding or even
powerlifting, that if you kindof play your cards right,
there's a way to kind of shortenthe time and at the exchange of
that is some intensity.
And then obviously you're goingto have to like break protocol.
If you're getting reallyspecific, like if you really
want to be a true power lifter,you're going to have to kind of
(16:27):
let this efficiency game go outthe window and just do what you
got to do yeah, with the longand that's like super goal
specific.
That's very goal specific andand very niche, but for the most
part any avenue you choose, ifyou just kind of like put the
gas on a little bit more and arewilling to be a little more
uncomfortable in one way oranother, you'll be able to
probably get the same resultswith a minimal margin of loss,
(16:47):
as long as you're willing to gothere with it.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, I think it's just that it's like the stimulus
fatigue ratio, yeah, fatigueratio, yeah, like strength
fatigue slash stimulus fatigueratio, where it's like you know
you could get probably a hundredrepetitions of a couple of like
two or three exercises inwithin 10 minutes if you just
like cranked a circuit, butyou're just not gonna be able to
go that heavy and you're gonnabe gassed and that's okay.
Yeah, you know, like if you'relike I got 10 minutes, I'm just
(17:11):
gonna do like as many rounds aspossible of 15 jump squats and
15 push-ups in 10 minutes you'llbe gassed.
Oh yeah, you're gonna be gassed, and by the end of that 10
minutes you're probably gonnabear, you won't even be able to
finish.
You'll be doing like sets offive and then having to rest,
especially, but you're fatiguingbecause of, like, the
cardiovascular aspect of it,which is again, for general
health and fitness, wonderful.
(17:32):
If that's all you ever did wasjust some version of that yeah,
you are light years beyond mostpeople.
Yeah, but for those who maybeare willing to stretch that out
to 30 minutes, slow things down,that means that you have a
little bit more time to recovernow and that means the the
stimulus to fatigue ratio is alittle bit more on the stimulus
side and not so much the fatigueside, which means you could
probably go a little heavier.
You could focus, you could takea solid minute break in between
(17:55):
each set and still get a goodamount of volume in.
Oh yeah, but be able to like,load up the weights a little bit
more to build morerecomposition, more aesthetics,
and then you could go like afull hour where it's like, okay,
I'm not going to circuitanything, it's all stimulus and
there's no fatigue, and I'mgoing to do a set of a bench
press or a back squat orwhatever, and I'm going to a
bench press or a back squat orwhatever and I'm gonna rest a
full ass two and a half minutesfor my next one.
(18:15):
So you just kind of figure likewhere you fall on that spectrum
and like what your goals are andwhat's realistic for your life
right now, and understand thatlike nothing matters if we can't
be consistent, and so if, like,even if, where I'm at right now
, if that just meant I got 10minutes every day because maybe
I got like two young kids athome and dogs to walk and I work
a full-time job and wife's outof the house as well, and oh
(18:36):
yeah, and like, literally I got10 minutes, it's okay, just do
that then like it's fine yeahbecause, you know, when this,
when the dust settles in one,two, five years from now, you
could pick it up wherever youwant.
You'd be right, you'd be readyto roll because you, at least
you kept a toe hold on, and justdid little 10 or 15 minute
things when you could, versuswhere so many people fall into
this trap of being like, wow,you know, I just couldn't.
I couldn't find any time for my, my workout routine, so I just
(19:00):
stopped doing it.
It's like, well, okay, but youknow does that mean exactly?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
what does that mean Exactly?
Where's that?
Speaker 1 (19:05):
going to be.
Where are they going to landyou in five years?
You're going to have it.
Had you just done the 10 or 15minutes a few times a week, you
would have maintained a baselevel of fitness.
That would have made, when thatdust inevitably settles and
your life inevitably moves inthe next chapter and you're not
so busy anymore, you could pickit back up again right where you
left off, basically, and justbe that much more fit because of
it.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
You know yeah so anything's better than nothing
is the real takeaway, I think Ithink, yeah, it's truly just get
it, get, find a way to get itin, find ways to make it
efficient.
You know, like drop sets dropset, you do a weight and then,
as you fatigue, you do aslightly less weight of the same
exact exercise and you do itimmediately.
Like cables are great for it,but dumbbells, you know, drop
sets are really effective andthey don't take a lot of time.
Again, they're really intenseif you do them right.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, but you can get a tremendous amount of ways to
do it.
Find the tools yeah, make itefficient, get over the time,
excuse anything is better thannothing and be ready.
Yeah, all right, folks, episode65 in the bag, that's a lot of
episodes.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
I'm surprised.
Yeah, it's chugging along, yeahwe'll catch y'all next time.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Another episode of in the grand scheme of fitness
peace, out y'all, peace.
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