October 22, 2025 • 30 mins
Join Physique University and get the IGNITE 4-Day Time-Saving Workout Program (use code FREEPLAN for a custom nutrition plan when you join)
--
Can you cut your gym time by 40 to 50% while still training effectively to build strength and muscle?
Learn 7 research-backed strategies to help you save tons of time with your workouts to reclaim up to 200 hours a year without sacrificing results.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Too much time in the gym?
4:52 - Tip 1: Cut exercise bloat
7:54 - Tip 2: Prioritize compound lifts
10:03 - Tip 3: Antagonist supersets
12:50 - Tip 4: Fewer sets, harder effort
17:42 - Tip 5: Increase training density
21:42 - Tip 6: Rest pause and drop sets
25:16 - Tip 7: Smarter warm-ups
28:10 - The math behind saving up to 200 hours a year
30:14 - Consistency, adherence, and enjoyment
🔥 Take a 2-minute Metabolic Quiz for a personalized fat loss report (strength training & nutrition strategies)
🩸 Book a Performance Bloodwork Analysis to find out what's slowing your metabolism and weight loss (20% off - code VITALITY20)
🎓 Lose fat + build muscle in Physique University with evidence-based nutrition coaching (free custom nutrition plan - code FREEPLAN)
👥 Join our Facebook community for fitness & body recomp strategies
👋 Ask a question or find Philip Pape on Instagram
📱 Try MacroFactor 2 weeks free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS (my favorite nutrition and macros app for lifting weights)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:01):
If you're spending five, six, even seven hours a
week in the gym trying to buildmuscle and lose fat, and you're
starting to wonder if there is asmarter way to get the same
results without sacrificing somuch time away from work,
family, and everything elseyou're trying to prioritize,
this episode is for you.
I'm gonna show you sevenevidence-based strategies to cut
your training time by 40 to 50%while maintaining or even
(00:25):
improving your strength andhypertrophy gains.
We're talking about as much as150 to 200 hours back in your
pocket every year.
And the best part is you'lllearn why more time in the gym
doesn't equal better results.
It is time to engineer yourtraining for maximum stimulus
per minute.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
(00:56):
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering, and
efficiency.
I'm your host, Philip Cape, andtoday we're gonna tackle a
problem that affects just aboutevery lifter I work with, and
that is spending way too muchtime in the gym for the results
that you're getting.
Now, you might have heard thatbuilding muscle requires a
certain amount of volume, andoftentimes more is better,
depending on where you'restarting from.
(01:18):
And for many people, thistranslates to, oh, I need to be
in the gym for 90-minutesessions or potentially more, or
four, five, six days in thegym.
I know people who like to go tothe gym every day of the week.
And if you're not doing that,are you working hard enough to
get the results you want?
But in my opinion, thatapproach is not only
(01:38):
inefficient, and I'm all aboutinefficiency or efficiency, it's
often counterproductive.
Many things in life, you domore, you do get more results.
But when it comes to your bodyand your recovery, uh, there is
this fine balance.
And so today we're gonna breakdown seven time-saving
strategies backed by research,things that I really love that
actually work.
There are a lot of ways to savetime in the gym, but these are
(02:00):
the big hitters.
And they're not reallyshortcuts, they're not hacks,
they're just taking theprinciples and saying, okay, how
can I do this intelligently toget the maximum stimulus, but
minimize time, especially wastedtime.
And by the end of the episode,you'll know how to restructure
your training to save as much astwo to four hours every single
week.
Of course, it depends on whereyou're starting.
(02:20):
And the goal is to still makeall the progress you want to
make.
This is not like just the bareminimum I'm talking about.
This is still making really,really good progress.
Let's say 90, 95% of theresults you could possibly get,
but but still saving time.
And for some of you, it'sactually gonna improve your
results because you're actuallydoing too much.
All right, so let's just jumpright into it and talk about the
(02:40):
time problem, right?
The the typical lifter, ifyou're listening, you're
probably training three to sixdays a week.
But many of you, as you'vegotten into the intermediate,
maybe advanced stages, you'vegone to four-day splits, maybe a
five-day power buildingprogram, maybe a six-day body
part split.
I've I've seen the whole gamut.
And if you're doing fewer daysa week, they're probably 75 to
(03:02):
90 minutes a session.
If you're a new lifter, ifyou've never lifted before and
you're listening to thispodcast, you're like, oh, that
sounds like a lot.
And it's it is a lot for abeginner.
I think a beginner can get awaywith, you know, 30 to 45
minutes three days a week,period.
Um, and right there off thebat, if you're doing way more
than that as a beginner, we canaddress that with today's
episode.
But a lot of you then start tocreep up, you do more and more,
(03:23):
you increase the volume, and allof a sudden you're training
maybe six, seven, eight hours aweek when you add it all up in
the gym, and then you have yourcommute time, and then you have
your warmups and rest time, allthat stuff kind of adds into
that, right?
And there is a point ofdiminishing returns.
And when I look at people'straining logs, I see either
redundant exercises that targetthe same muscles and they can
(03:45):
just kind of strip those down.
I see uh wasted time or notnecessarily see wasted time.
I know people are wasting timelike scrolling on their phones,
for example.
I see way too much warm-upthat's not necessary.
I see a lot of extra accessoryor isolation work that could be
eliminated or combined withother movements.
I see too many sets, like I seea lot of things.
(04:07):
And I think it comes from maybea misunderstanding of what
drives muscle growth, but alsojust a lack of clarity and
confidence of really what to doand like what programs are
appropriate for them, or puttingtogether their own program that
doesn't make sense.
We think of training volume,volume definitely matters.
It definitely matters, butbeyond a threshold, more volume
doesn't mean more growth, andeveryone responds differently.
(04:30):
So there's a sweet spot whereyou get that maximum stimulus
with a minimum time, kind oflike a curve, and we want to
find that point for you.
Because unless you have theextra time or you're retired or
you're a competitor or somethinglike that, and you want to
spend the extra time to get thatlittle extra boost in
optimization, you know, thatthis episode's not for you if
that's the case.
We're actually talking aboutgoing the other direction and
(04:51):
saving time.
So, my first strategy of theseven is to just cut the number
of exercises you're doing persession.
And we're gonna map this out.
I think one of the biggest timewaste wasters is bloat in
exercise selection.
And I see it online.
If you go to, if you justGoogle like strength training
programs, you'll see theseeither full body or body part
(05:11):
split programs that have likenine, 10, 11, sometimes 12
exercises, which is insane in myopinion.
Again, unless you're Arnolddoing two days for two hours a
session and you're enhanced, youknow.
Uh, and I'll see like lots ofoverlapping things, you know,
leg press, leg extension, legcurl, calf raises, flat bench,
incline, decline, cable flies,pec deck, right?
(05:33):
And a lot of redundancy, and itends up eating up like an extra
half hour than you probablyneed for the benefit.
I like I want you to think ofthis in terms of coverage and
efficiency with the movements,meaning the more you can do
movement patterns andincorporate more muscles,
whether it's targeted directlyor indirectly, the more
(05:56):
efficient you're gonna be andget to do fewer exercises to get
the same result.
So the first principle here isthinking of movement patterns,
not muscle isolation or musclegroups.
Even though I talk about that alot in the context of
hypertrophy, the first principlewe need to start from is the
movement patterns, thesquatting, hinging, pushing,
pulling, lunging, carrying,right?
(06:16):
The movement patterns.
And when you structure trainingaround those instead of muscle
groups, you're gonna recruitmore total muscle mass per
exercise.
Eliminate redundancy.
You're gonna find out that it'spretty hard on your body, such
that you need to make sometrade-offs elsewhere, and still
you're gonna get the result,right?
So instead of, especially ifyou're a beginner, but instead
of like leg press, legextension, leg curl, calf
(06:38):
phrase, you can do a squatvariation and an RDL, for
example.
Squat variation, RDL.
That's gonna hit your quads,your glutes, your core, your
upper back, a whole bunch ofstuff.
The RDL is probably the bestthing to hammer the hamstrings,
the glutes, the lower back, twoexercises right there, complete
lower body coverage and othermuscles as well.
And there's a lot of overlap.
That's just that's just oneexample, right?
(07:00):
All the big movements have asimilar result.
And so when you equate weeklyvolume, we actually find there
is no difference in ahypertrophy as well, muscle
size, when you spread setsacross 10 exercises versus five
exercises, as long as the fiveare efficiently chosen.
But that could save you rightthere 30 to 40 minutes.
(07:22):
So I really want you to look atthe programs you're following.
And if they're these reallylong packed in programs with a
ton of movements, you're gonnasave a lot of time by
consolidating those.
Thinking of the big movementpatterns, the compound lifts.
Very important, right?
And what was the other thingthere?
Oh, and it's gonna save youtime because if you're going to
a commercial gym, you don't haveto worry about fighting for all
those machines and worryingabout their availability.
(07:44):
So that leads me to strategynumber two, which is gonna sound
similar, but it's it'sdifferent in its own way.
And that is to prioritizecompound movements specifically.
Right.
So the first the first strategywas really about consolidating
the exercises.
The second one is prioritizingcompound lifts, squats, bench
press, overhead, deadlifts,rows, pull-ups, actually, rows.
(08:05):
I prefer pull-ups to rows fornewer lifters, but rows can get
in there later on.
Not just uh barbell rows, butT-bar rows and chest supported
and all that.
Um, but anyway, these areefficient because they hit
multiple muscles, muscle groups,as I mentioned already, and
they produce greater totalmuscle activation per rep, and
they improve your work capacityand your tolerance for systemic
(08:27):
fatigue as well, which is goingto translate to your overall
fitness level, your cardiocapacity, and your ability to
lift harder and more with morequality with the accessory and
isolation work.
Right?
Just think about when you benchpress, you're recruiting your
chest, your shoulders, yourtriceps, your lats, your core,
and you can change the grip andthe width and target different
(08:47):
things more effectively, likeyour triceps with a close grip.
You know, compare that to likea chest fly.
I mean, I I love a chest fly asmuch as the next guy, um,
especially when it's done bottomto top, and you really, you
know, tighten that uhcontraction, right?
We're thinking of bodybuilding,but not if you're not doing
bigger pressing movements.
(09:07):
And it doesn't have to be abench press with a barbell, it
could be with dumbbells, itcould be an incline, you know,
there's lots of compound lifts.
So, and it doesn't mean younever do isolation work.
It means you prioritizecompounds first, build your
program around that, then addisolation.
And that is also gonna save youa lot of time.
So you're consolidating yourlifts and then you're
prioritizing the compoundmovements and doing them first,
(09:30):
most likely, most likely doingthem first, okay, to get high
effectiveness.
All right, strategy numberthree is to use antagonist or
non-competing supersets.
I do love supersets these days.
I used to kind of poo-poo themand file them under circuit
training, but that's because Icame from a world of either
(09:53):
CrossFit or the gym machineswhere you're doing five
exercises in a circuit and it'skind of random and you know rest
periods and things like that.
I think done correctly,supersets can still maintain
your performance, but cut a lotof time because you're cutting
rest time.
And we know in the research,there's been some recent
meta-analysis and season studiesthat show comparable results,
(10:14):
whether you're using supersetsor not, but you actually save a
lot of time.
And the best way to do this isto pair exercises that don't
compete for the same muscles orthe same, let's say, stabilizer
groups, like benching androwing.
That's that's pushing, pushingand pulling, or uh squats and I
don't know, calf raises, let'ssay.
(10:35):
Let's say, and that came tomind because I was thinking if
you have a squat safety bar andyou're doing a version of a
front squat, let's say with asquat safety bar, and then you
can immediately go into calfraises.
You can do the same thing witha leg press machine and calf
raises, right?
Things like that.
Um, pull-ups and leg curls.
Like if you're doing a fullbody day, doing upper body and
lower body, those are definitelynon-competing muscles.
(10:57):
But even biceps and triceps,those are antagonists, right?
Because while one thing isresting, the other muscles are
recovered, ready to go, all out.
You might need to take, say,20, 30 seconds.
You don't have to do itimmediately.
This is the point isn't to getyour heart rate up, although
there is that side benefit.
The point really is to just cuttime, right?
And you're using the rest timenow productively in between, you
(11:20):
don't have to have as long resttime.
But the effective rest periodbetween the same exercise still
ends up being longer becauseyou're doing something else in
between.
So again, the research showsthat antagonist supersets do
maintain strength andhypertrophy and cut rest time by
about 40%.
So if you did that for yourwhole workout, which I'm not
necessarily recommending, butlet's say you did, a 60-minute
(11:41):
workout would be as short as,say, 35 minutes, same results.
Now, I think a mistake peoplemake here is pairing exercises
that are competing with the samemuscle groups.
Like, don't do squats anddeadlifts as supersets.
Don't do, you know, overheadpress and well, I was gonna say
(12:01):
overhead press and pull-ups.
Um, I don't know.
You could try those, but youget what I'm saying.
Like, don't the second exerciseis going to suffer quite a bit.
And you'll know what, you'llknow what that is when you feel
it.
So it's okay to experiment.
Now, you might want to do thaton purpose to fatigue the
muscles.
That's a different strategy.
That's not a time-savingmaintained performance strategy.
(12:22):
That's more of a bodybuildinglike fatigue, you know, get
closer to failure more quicklystrategy, which is perfectly
viable, but it's not reallyabout saving time per se.
So I would, if you dosupersets, I would still have
some rest period in there, like30 to 60 seconds, so that your
output, your reps are aseffective as possible and you
can, you know, bang them out.
(12:42):
So this could save you, like Isaid, 20 to 30 minutes a
session.
All right, strategy number fouris to reduce the number of
sets.
And I'm gonna combine this withanother strategy, and that's
training closer to failure,which you should be doing
anyway, but I'm gonna explainwhy.
Most of your muscle growth isgoing to occur when you have
that high level of mechanicaltension.
(13:03):
Now, there's a huge debateraging right now about whether
anything beyond mechanicaltension causes hypertrophy.
Like, does the metabolic stresscause hypertrophy?
And there's some camps that arelike, absolutely not, it's all
about mechanical tension.
And others say that, well, wesee studies that show when you
have higher metabolic stress,like a higher pump, you know,
you see greater hypertrophy.
And you know what?
(13:23):
They're probably both right toan extent.
It probably comes down to thefirst principle of the
mechanical tension.
Anyway, there's probably a lotof overlap or correlation, is
what I'm saying.
And honestly, you don't have toworry about it.
All you have to, all you cancontrol is how hard you train
and getting close to failure.
Now, how close depends on thelift, the safety of the whole
setup, what your goals are.
(13:44):
But everything beyond that isgonna contribute diminishing
return, diminishing returns.
And what I mean by on that isbeyond that is I'd rather you do
two really hard sets close tofailure than three, four, or
five, or you're half-assing it,or you're not getting close to
failure, right?
That that's where we're gonnasave time.
Because we do see similarhypertrophy with, let's say, two
(14:06):
or three hard sets compared tofour or five.
There's like this fine balance.
And there are arguments, youknow, some people say, look,
getting that third set in, ifyou are training really hard and
you have the capacity, you'reeating enough, you're sleeping
enough, does give you thatlittle extra volume that can
help.
Sure.
But if we're trying to savetime, is it worth it?
Is the trade-off worth it?
So by hard sets, we are mean,we are talking about, I'm gonna
(14:29):
say uh one to three reps shy offailure, reps in reserve, also
called seven to nine RPE, uhrated perceived exertion, right?
I mean, some people would argueand go as far as four reps from
failure, but if we're onlygonna do two sets, I want you to
get, you know, in that reallystressful regime, stressful in a
good way, as in mechanicaltension, close to failure.
(14:50):
So a lot of people are doingworkout programs that have like
four or five sets sometimes,right?
And then, and that's not a badthing necessarily, but then
they're not really pushing thefirst three sets, and only the
last two are challenging.
And so then the first three areeffectively becoming warm-up
sets.
Well, you should already bewarming up anyway with a few
sets, unless you're alreadywarmed up, and then go after it
(15:10):
really hard with the workingsets.
And so if you could do two orthree sets instead of three or
four, that's gonna save time,obviously, right?
As long as you make it count.
And I really love the two setidea in what's called top set
back off set.
I originally learned this frommy coach Andy Baker.
In fact, he was on the podcasttalking about exactly this
thing.
We did an episode onbodybuilding a while back.
(15:30):
Uh, but I've seen others useJeffrey Verdi, Jeffrey Verity
Schofield has uh a good programthat uses that structure.
And I've seen it done with lotsof different bodybuilders.
And all it is is, you know, youyou warm up and then you do
your working weight at some reprange, let's say four to six for
(15:51):
one set, and then you drop theweight, say 10 or 15%, and
perform one more high effortset, probably at a lower rep
range or a higher rep range, ifthat makes sense.
So your first set might be fourto six, you drop the weight 10
to 15 percent, your second setmight be eight to 10.
That's just an example, right?
And doing those two sets reallyhard not only covers the two
(16:13):
different rep ranges, but alsoreduces the volume, but still
gets you some good work andsaves time.
And this might save 15, 20, 25minutes a session if you do if
you normally have all three setsand now you do all two sets.
And you know what?
Try it out.
See if your results don'tchange or even improve because
you're training with maybe evenmore intensity now, because
you're so focused on gettingthose two sets to mean
(16:35):
something, and you're notgetting as much systemic
fatigue.
So it could be a win-win.
All right, so that's the fourthstrategy.
All right, if you're if you'rethinking, like, how do I
structure all of this into acomplete program?
Because that is where peopleget tripped up is okay, now I
need to execute this.
Um, we've got you coveredinside physique university, just
to let you know, we have awhole bunch of training
(16:56):
templates there.
I call them training templates.
I don't call them workoutprograms.
They are training templatesbecause they are flexible and we
give you substitutions so thatif your gym or your home gym
doesn't have certain equipment,you can swap something out.
We also tell help youunderstand how to do that and
reprogram it for you.
And we have a new templatecalled Ignite.
Coach Carroll came up withthis.
(17:18):
It is a time-saving templatethat is based on some of these
principles.
It's a four-day upper-lowersplit, so it prioritizes
compound lifts, but it also usessupersets, drop sets, strategic
selection of your exercises.
And you shouldn't require morethan a half an hour if you're
doing it efficiently for thosefour sessions.
And it's still considered moreof an intermediate program, so
(17:40):
it's still gonna get you greatresults.
If you want access to Igniteplus all my other training
templates, we've got powerbuilding templates, we've got
volume and set-based templates,we've got beginner templates,
we've got gluten leg templates,and then all the nutrition
coaching, community supportcourses that go with that.
Just go to witsandweights.comslash physique.
The link is in the show notes.
That's witsandweights.com slashphysique for the Ignite
(18:04):
training template, and you'llsee a special code in the show
notes to get you another bonusalong for the ride.
All right, we've got three morestrategies.
So strategies five, six, seven.
Strategy number five to savetime in the gym is to increase
your training density.
Now we talked about supersets.
That is kind of a way toincrease training density.
You're not actually doing moretraining, but you're doing it in
(18:25):
less time.
So I'm gonna expand on thatwith this one with some other
ideas.
Training density is effectivelyyour work divided by time,
right?
How much volume are you movingper minute?
The higher your density, themore efficient your training,
with the caveat that theefficiency isn't offset by a
lack of performance becauseyou're moving too quickly and
not resting enough.
Get it?
(18:45):
So we got to make sure we'renot becoming a YouTube workout
here or an F-45 or a CrossFitworkout.
We're not trying to do that.
We're not trying to do that.
All right.
No, no offense to YouTubeworkouts because I know that's a
catch-all, but you know what Imean by that.
So, what do I mean here?
Well, you could shorten yourrest periods on your accessory
movements.
(19:05):
I am a big fan of restingenough on the bigger movements
of like say three to fiveminutes.
Some of the, I'll say quasi-bigmovements, like an RDL, you
could probably get away with twoto three.
And then the accessorymovements, you can get away with
a minute, maybe two, and beokay.
And sometimes that actually ishelpful, right?
Because it keeps you close tothat failure point.
(19:26):
Like, let's say you're doingthree sets of maximum pull-ups.
Take no more than two minutesbetween them and just go really
hard.
And you'll probably not be ableto get as many reps on sets two
or three, but you're stillgonna get that uh those
effective reps, right?
And again, there's there'sarguments about this.
Should I take a full two and ahalf, three minutes here to be
(19:47):
able to get what my maximum repswould have been?
Again, it's a time versusoutcome trade-off.
I don't think it's worth it foreverybody if you're trying to
save time because all that restperiod adds up.
Okay, so that uh putting thatout there, but the other piece
here is put that damn phoneaway.
And, you know, I'm talking tomyself here.
This is critical because a lotof people think they're resting
(20:09):
a certain amount of time.
Maybe they do have a resttimer, but then they're
scrolling Instagram, they'rechecking their email, they're
trying to do work, whatever.
Maybe it's productive stuff onyour phone.
I don't know.
But then you end up restinganother minute or two and it
kind of adds up.
I would rather you just pacearound and get some steps in and
just be mindful and ready tojump in, which by the way, could
be more effective for yourtraining anyway when your
(20:30):
headspace is into the workoutrather than constantly getting
distracted, right?
Because that is not the pointof training.
And again, I'm talking tomyself here too.
I do this a lot, and I know I'mhere to train.
And really the way to do thiscompletely is abstinence,
meaning leave your phone in yourbag.
However, if you're using it totrack your workout, I know you
have to have it out.
(20:50):
So just put it down betweensets.
So that's one thought as far astraining density.
Another thought is to expandthe superset concept to three or
four non-competing exercises,if that's possible, and then
rotating them together.
Again, this is you're like,well, isn't that more like
circuit training?
Yeah, kind of.
But again, if they'renon-competing, you can still
(21:12):
expand that same concept.
You know, if you're gonna doleg press, then hamstring curls,
then calf raises, and then someloaded ab crunches on a cable,
right?
And if you're doing cable work,for example, that could be an
efficient way to do it as well,because you have the machine and
you can just change thepositions and stuff like that,
change the attachments.
So three, maybe four.
(21:32):
Don't go beyond that, becausethen it truly becomes more of
just like a circuit that youwhere you may lose performance
and get too winded during theprocess.
But again, hypertrophy isn'tgonna get sacrificed very much
at all.
If anything, you might getcloser to failure in some of
these movements because you're alittle bit fatigued.
So really think aboutorganizing your workouts.
Just because a program doesn'tsay to do it as a superset
(21:55):
doesn't mean you can't, or youcan't move the lifts around to
get more work done in less time.
That's my thought there.
All right, strategy number sixis to use rest pause or mile
reps or drop sets, basically anytype of set where you're
shortening the time it takes youto do the reps, or you make it
(22:18):
where you can't just can't do asmany reps, but you're close to
failure.
So this is again expanding onsome of the concepts we're
already talking about.
So, what are these?
Well, rest pause is where youperform a set, it gets close to
failure, and then you only rest15 to 30 seconds.
That's all it is.
And then you do it again, thenyou do it again.
And so the general drop-off issomething like 50%.
(22:38):
So if you're able to do 12 repson set one, you'll probably get
around like five to seven onset two, and then maybe a little
more than half of that on thethird set, really depends.
What I like about these,besides saving time, they
actually teach you what traininghard feels like.
They're actually a really goodtechnique for that.
Because once you get to thatsecond and third set, your brain
(23:01):
is like, wow, I'm surprised I'malready tired, but I'm only
getting, you know, five or up sofar.
Come on, I gotta get anotherone.
Almost it's almost like yourego helps you out a little bit
there because you're like, Ishould be able to get more,
right?
And then you realize the howmuch things get fatigued when
you don't take enough rest.
And in this case, you'reintentionally not taking enough
rest.
So this is great for accessorywork.
Like if you're gonna do, Idon't know, let's say uh incline
(23:24):
dumbbell curls with dumbbells.
By the way, little tip onincline curls.
They're one of the best barbellcurls if you do them right.
If you're back at like a30-degree angle, kind of like
when you do an incline benchpress and you hold dumbbells,
you you curl them out at anangle, right?
Just keep your keep your palmup and curl them out at you,
kind of like wings, just out andall the way down, get that full
(23:46):
stretch and then and take ashort pause and then up from the
bottom.
Anyway, so something like that,you'll see how tired you get on
sets two and three, but that'sthe point, and it also saves you
time.
Another example of this is dropsets.
Drop sets are where again yougo to failure and then you
immediately drop some weight,continue, repeat a few times
until you're done.
(24:07):
Uh, another example of this isdensity sets, where you just try
to get, you know, 50 reps asquickly as you can, whatever
rest you can, whatever rest youcan fit in there.
Another way to do this istime-based.
You're like, okay, I have threeminutes and I'm gonna go back
and forth between these two, orI'm gonna do just this one
thing.
I'm gonna do neck curls or Idon't know.
I'm thinking of that because Iactually just tried some of
(24:28):
those um ab crunches, you know,like I said, something really
small and isolating, and you'rejust gonna bang out like as many
reps as you can in X number ofminutes, right?
In AMRAP.
There's nothing wrong withthese for the isolation
movements as ways to save time,and you're probably gonna get
similar, if not better, resultsdoing them while saving time.
I would how I would, however,limit them to maybe a couple
(24:50):
exercises per session.
Don't do it with everything.
Do them with machine work, withisolation work.
Do not do these with heavybarbell movements or your form
is gonna break down.
Now, obviously, if you're usinga barbell for bicep curls and
you just want to drop do dropsets there, that's fine.
That's not what I'm talkingabout.
So this might save you 10 to 15minutes just gloming a couple
exercises together and usingthese density techniques, uh,
(25:11):
rest pause, drop sets, etc.
All right, strategy numberseven is really about your
warm-up.
I think a lot of people arespending way too much time
warming up before they theylift.
20, 30 minutes, you know, foamrolling, stretching, activation
drills, um, way too many ramp upsets.
They're not sure where theirworking set is, so they do too
many warm-up sets.
Generally, five to 10 minutesof general warm-up max, which
(25:35):
might include a little cardio,dynamic work, maybe you need to
stretch and loosen up, whatever.
I'm I'm cool with all that.
I'm not gonna criticize any ofthat.
I think it's great, but maximumfive to ten minutes.
I mean, five minutes probably.
And then your first lift,you're gonna have three to five
warm-up sets, most likely.
That is how you warm up becauseyou're warming up the movement
(25:55):
pattern.
I've done entire episodes aboutthis, and we actually teach
about this in physics physiqueuniversity.
We have a whole series calledLifting Lessons, and we give you
how to the warm-up ladder.
You know, we teach about allthe different things like
bracing and breathing, etcetera.
But effectively just get warmedup if it's cold, raise your
core temperature, and then youknow, one to one to two sets,
(26:16):
um, or not one to two sets, uh,three three to five ramp up sets
leading to your working weight,where you're increasing the
weight, you're dropping thereps, and then you hit your
working set.
Right.
So if your working weight is225 pounds, you might do, you
know, five at 135, four, uh fiveat 135.
(26:38):
Let's see, let me let me thinkof this the right way.
No, let's start with 95.
You might do five at 95, youmight do three at 135, you might
boot two at 185, maybe one at205, but probably not, then you
jump to 225, right?
Something like that.
So that's definitely gonna savetime if you're not doing that
already.
All right.
So if we add all this up, Iactually did some math here.
If you're spending five to sixsessions in the week, 75 to 90
(27:02):
minutes, right?
That's like seven and a halfhours a week, that's 390 hours a
year.
If you did all of thesestrategies and you reduce the
number of sessions, you reducethe time, four to five sessions,
45 minutes to an hour, thenthat's like three, three and a
half to four and a half hours aweek.
So that's around 200 hours ayear.
So you just reclaimed like 150to 200 hours a year, which is up
(27:24):
to four full weeks of your lifeback.
Again, that's that's theextreme, but you get the idea.
And that's without sacrificingthe result with your muscle,
your strength.
And a lot of people improvewhen they do things like this
because they're training withmore focus and with more
intensity and better recovery.
And sometimes this increasesyour metabolism because you're
not as stressed.
(27:45):
You're able to get more sleep.
You get it?
It kind of compounds on itself.
So it's not about training moreor training longer, it's
training more intelligently,more efficiently, building that
system that works for your life.
Now, there's one huge sidebenefit I haven't mentioned yet.
When you train moreefficiently, your consistency
goes up.
Because when your workouts areshorter, you have a little bit
(28:08):
more motivation to go, you havemore time to go, you're less
tired and fatigued, so you havemore energy to go, right?
And so you've just reduced abunch of friction.
And that just naturally makesyou show up more, look forward
to it more.
It's exciting, it's fun, it'snot this huge commitment, right?
Some people love working out 90minutes, six days a week.
(28:29):
That's fine.
We're not, I'm not talking toyou.
Talking about people want tosave time and still get the
result.
And so there's this compoundeffect of efficiency like this.
Shorter workouts lead to betteradherence, that leads to more
total training volume over time.
And that is where the resultscome from is that that volume
over time applied consistently.
So I do see this a lot.
We have a lot of clients, thismight be you, that come in,
(28:51):
they're kind of burned out fromquote unquote working out so
much.
And they're like, but how do I,you know, that's not working?
Do I have to do more to getmore muscle and and more fat
loss?
No, sometimes you have to cutthat sucker in half and get rid
of all the cardio.
And all of a sudden, now youstart going to the gym more
often because it's fun.
It doesn't take that much time.
(29:11):
You're walking in between in aflexible way, and now in six
months, 12 months, you've madehuge progress, way more progress
you've made in the last three,five, twenty years or your whole
life, possibly.
Most likely.
Consistency beats intensityevery time.
Remember that.
The intensity can ramp upslowly over time once the
consistency is in place.
And being efficient like thisincreases your consistency.
(29:34):
And then again, the otherbenefit is you enjoy training
again.
It becomes energizing.
You look forward to it.
So, really, it's not justsaving time, it's building a
sustainable, consistent systemfor training.
All right, so if you want theexact training template that
puts some of these intopractice, check out the Ignite
program inside PhysiqueUniversity.
Go to witsonweights.comslashphysique.
(29:55):
It's a four day upper lowersplit.
We have a full library of othertemplates.
We teach you how to.
Do it.
We give you substitutions.
We give you training videos.
We give you, of course,support.
Lots and lots of ways for youto succeed.
Make this consistent, get theresult you want, build that
muscle, lose that fat.
Go to witsandweights.com slashphysique or click the link in
the show notes and make sure tolook for the code in the show
(30:18):
notes for an extra bonus.
All right, until next time,keep using your wits, lifting
those weights.
And remember, efficiency isn'tabout doing less, it's about
doing what matters the most.
I'm Philip Pape and I'll talkto you next time.
If you're spending five, six, even seven hours a
week in the gym trying to buildmuscle and lose fat, and you're
starting to wonder if there is asmarter way to get the same
results without sacrificing somuch time away from work,
family, and everything elseyou're trying to prioritize,
this episode is for you.
I'm gonna show you sevenevidence-based strategies to cut
your training time by 40 to 50%while maintaining or even
(00:25):
improving your strength andhypertrophy gains.
We're talking about as much as150 to 200 hours back in your
pocket every year.
And the best part is you'lllearn why more time in the gym
doesn't equal better results.
It is time to engineer yourtraining for maximum stimulus
per minute.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that helps you build a
(00:56):
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering, and
efficiency.
I'm your host, Philip Cape, andtoday we're gonna tackle a
problem that affects just aboutevery lifter I work with, and
that is spending way too muchtime in the gym for the results
that you're getting.
Now, you might have heard thatbuilding muscle requires a
certain amount of volume, andoftentimes more is better,
depending on where you'restarting from.
(01:18):
And for many people, thistranslates to, oh, I need to be
in the gym for 90-minutesessions or potentially more, or
four, five, six days in thegym.
I know people who like to go tothe gym every day of the week.
And if you're not doing that,are you working hard enough to
get the results you want?
But in my opinion, thatapproach is not only
(01:38):
inefficient, and I'm all aboutinefficiency or efficiency, it's
often counterproductive.
Many things in life, you domore, you do get more results.
But when it comes to your bodyand your recovery, uh, there is
this fine balance.
And so today we're gonna breakdown seven time-saving
strategies backed by research,things that I really love that
actually work.
There are a lot of ways to savetime in the gym, but these are
(02:00):
the big hitters.
And they're not reallyshortcuts, they're not hacks,
they're just taking theprinciples and saying, okay, how
can I do this intelligently toget the maximum stimulus, but
minimize time, especially wastedtime.
And by the end of the episode,you'll know how to restructure
your training to save as much astwo to four hours every single
week.
Of course, it depends on whereyou're starting.
(02:20):
And the goal is to still makeall the progress you want to
make.
This is not like just the bareminimum I'm talking about.
This is still making really,really good progress.
Let's say 90, 95% of theresults you could possibly get,
but but still saving time.
And for some of you, it'sactually gonna improve your
results because you're actuallydoing too much.
All right, so let's just jumpright into it and talk about the
(02:40):
time problem, right?
The the typical lifter, ifyou're listening, you're
probably training three to sixdays a week.
But many of you, as you'vegotten into the intermediate,
maybe advanced stages, you'vegone to four-day splits, maybe a
five-day power buildingprogram, maybe a six-day body
part split.
I've I've seen the whole gamut.
And if you're doing fewer daysa week, they're probably 75 to
(03:02):
90 minutes a session.
If you're a new lifter, ifyou've never lifted before and
you're listening to thispodcast, you're like, oh, that
sounds like a lot.
And it's it is a lot for abeginner.
I think a beginner can get awaywith, you know, 30 to 45
minutes three days a week,period.
Um, and right there off thebat, if you're doing way more
than that as a beginner, we canaddress that with today's
episode.
But a lot of you then start tocreep up, you do more and more,
(03:23):
you increase the volume, and allof a sudden you're training
maybe six, seven, eight hours aweek when you add it all up in
the gym, and then you have yourcommute time, and then you have
your warmups and rest time, allthat stuff kind of adds into
that, right?
And there is a point ofdiminishing returns.
And when I look at people'straining logs, I see either
redundant exercises that targetthe same muscles and they can
(03:45):
just kind of strip those down.
I see uh wasted time or notnecessarily see wasted time.
I know people are wasting timelike scrolling on their phones,
for example.
I see way too much warm-upthat's not necessary.
I see a lot of extra accessoryor isolation work that could be
eliminated or combined withother movements.
I see too many sets, like I seea lot of things.
(04:07):
And I think it comes from maybea misunderstanding of what
drives muscle growth, but alsojust a lack of clarity and
confidence of really what to doand like what programs are
appropriate for them, or puttingtogether their own program that
doesn't make sense.
We think of training volume,volume definitely matters.
It definitely matters, butbeyond a threshold, more volume
doesn't mean more growth, andeveryone responds differently.
(04:30):
So there's a sweet spot whereyou get that maximum stimulus
with a minimum time, kind oflike a curve, and we want to
find that point for you.
Because unless you have theextra time or you're retired or
you're a competitor or somethinglike that, and you want to
spend the extra time to get thatlittle extra boost in
optimization, you know, thatthis episode's not for you if
that's the case.
We're actually talking aboutgoing the other direction and
(04:51):
saving time.
So, my first strategy of theseven is to just cut the number
of exercises you're doing persession.
And we're gonna map this out.
I think one of the biggest timewaste wasters is bloat in
exercise selection.
And I see it online.
If you go to, if you justGoogle like strength training
programs, you'll see theseeither full body or body part
(05:11):
split programs that have likenine, 10, 11, sometimes 12
exercises, which is insane in myopinion.
Again, unless you're Arnolddoing two days for two hours a
session and you're enhanced, youknow.
Uh, and I'll see like lots ofoverlapping things, you know,
leg press, leg extension, legcurl, calf raises, flat bench,
incline, decline, cable flies,pec deck, right?
(05:33):
And a lot of redundancy, and itends up eating up like an extra
half hour than you probablyneed for the benefit.
I like I want you to think ofthis in terms of coverage and
efficiency with the movements,meaning the more you can do
movement patterns andincorporate more muscles,
whether it's targeted directlyor indirectly, the more
(05:56):
efficient you're gonna be andget to do fewer exercises to get
the same result.
So the first principle here isthinking of movement patterns,
not muscle isolation or musclegroups.
Even though I talk about that alot in the context of
hypertrophy, the first principlewe need to start from is the
movement patterns, thesquatting, hinging, pushing,
pulling, lunging, carrying,right?
(06:16):
The movement patterns.
And when you structure trainingaround those instead of muscle
groups, you're gonna recruitmore total muscle mass per
exercise.
Eliminate redundancy.
You're gonna find out that it'spretty hard on your body, such
that you need to make sometrade-offs elsewhere, and still
you're gonna get the result,right?
So instead of, especially ifyou're a beginner, but instead
of like leg press, legextension, leg curl, calf
(06:38):
phrase, you can do a squatvariation and an RDL, for
example.
Squat variation, RDL.
That's gonna hit your quads,your glutes, your core, your
upper back, a whole bunch ofstuff.
The RDL is probably the bestthing to hammer the hamstrings,
the glutes, the lower back, twoexercises right there, complete
lower body coverage and othermuscles as well.
And there's a lot of overlap.
That's just that's just oneexample, right?
(07:00):
All the big movements have asimilar result.
And so when you equate weeklyvolume, we actually find there
is no difference in ahypertrophy as well, muscle
size, when you spread setsacross 10 exercises versus five
exercises, as long as the fiveare efficiently chosen.
But that could save you rightthere 30 to 40 minutes.
(07:22):
So I really want you to look atthe programs you're following.
And if they're these reallylong packed in programs with a
ton of movements, you're gonnasave a lot of time by
consolidating those.
Thinking of the big movementpatterns, the compound lifts.
Very important, right?
And what was the other thingthere?
Oh, and it's gonna save youtime because if you're going to
a commercial gym, you don't haveto worry about fighting for all
those machines and worryingabout their availability.
(07:44):
So that leads me to strategynumber two, which is gonna sound
similar, but it's it'sdifferent in its own way.
And that is to prioritizecompound movements specifically.
Right.
So the first the first strategywas really about consolidating
the exercises.
The second one is prioritizingcompound lifts, squats, bench
press, overhead, deadlifts,rows, pull-ups, actually, rows.
(08:05):
I prefer pull-ups to rows fornewer lifters, but rows can get
in there later on.
Not just uh barbell rows, butT-bar rows and chest supported
and all that.
Um, but anyway, these areefficient because they hit
multiple muscles, muscle groups,as I mentioned already, and
they produce greater totalmuscle activation per rep, and
they improve your work capacityand your tolerance for systemic
(08:27):
fatigue as well, which is goingto translate to your overall
fitness level, your cardiocapacity, and your ability to
lift harder and more with morequality with the accessory and
isolation work.
Right?
Just think about when you benchpress, you're recruiting your
chest, your shoulders, yourtriceps, your lats, your core,
and you can change the grip andthe width and target different
(08:47):
things more effectively, likeyour triceps with a close grip.
You know, compare that to likea chest fly.
I mean, I I love a chest fly asmuch as the next guy, um,
especially when it's done bottomto top, and you really, you
know, tighten that uhcontraction, right?
We're thinking of bodybuilding,but not if you're not doing
bigger pressing movements.
(09:07):
And it doesn't have to be abench press with a barbell, it
could be with dumbbells, itcould be an incline, you know,
there's lots of compound lifts.
So, and it doesn't mean younever do isolation work.
It means you prioritizecompounds first, build your
program around that, then addisolation.
And that is also gonna save youa lot of time.
So you're consolidating yourlifts and then you're
prioritizing the compoundmovements and doing them first,
(09:30):
most likely, most likely doingthem first, okay, to get high
effectiveness.
All right, strategy numberthree is to use antagonist or
non-competing supersets.
I do love supersets these days.
I used to kind of poo-poo themand file them under circuit
training, but that's because Icame from a world of either
(09:53):
CrossFit or the gym machineswhere you're doing five
exercises in a circuit and it'skind of random and you know rest
periods and things like that.
I think done correctly,supersets can still maintain
your performance, but cut a lotof time because you're cutting
rest time.
And we know in the research,there's been some recent
meta-analysis and season studiesthat show comparable results,
(10:14):
whether you're using supersetsor not, but you actually save a
lot of time.
And the best way to do this isto pair exercises that don't
compete for the same muscles orthe same, let's say, stabilizer
groups, like benching androwing.
That's that's pushing, pushingand pulling, or uh squats and I
don't know, calf raises, let'ssay.
(10:35):
Let's say, and that came tomind because I was thinking if
you have a squat safety bar andyou're doing a version of a
front squat, let's say with asquat safety bar, and then you
can immediately go into calfraises.
You can do the same thing witha leg press machine and calf
raises, right?
Things like that.
Um, pull-ups and leg curls.
Like if you're doing a fullbody day, doing upper body and
lower body, those are definitelynon-competing muscles.
(10:57):
But even biceps and triceps,those are antagonists, right?
Because while one thing isresting, the other muscles are
recovered, ready to go, all out.
You might need to take, say,20, 30 seconds.
You don't have to do itimmediately.
This is the point isn't to getyour heart rate up, although
there is that side benefit.
The point really is to just cuttime, right?
And you're using the rest timenow productively in between, you
(11:20):
don't have to have as long resttime.
But the effective rest periodbetween the same exercise still
ends up being longer becauseyou're doing something else in
between.
So again, the research showsthat antagonist supersets do
maintain strength andhypertrophy and cut rest time by
about 40%.
So if you did that for yourwhole workout, which I'm not
necessarily recommending, butlet's say you did, a 60-minute
(11:41):
workout would be as short as,say, 35 minutes, same results.
Now, I think a mistake peoplemake here is pairing exercises
that are competing with the samemuscle groups.
Like, don't do squats anddeadlifts as supersets.
Don't do, you know, overheadpress and well, I was gonna say
(12:01):
overhead press and pull-ups.
Um, I don't know.
You could try those, but youget what I'm saying.
Like, don't the second exerciseis going to suffer quite a bit.
And you'll know what, you'llknow what that is when you feel
it.
So it's okay to experiment.
Now, you might want to do thaton purpose to fatigue the
muscles.
That's a different strategy.
That's not a time-savingmaintained performance strategy.
(12:22):
That's more of a bodybuildinglike fatigue, you know, get
closer to failure more quicklystrategy, which is perfectly
viable, but it's not reallyabout saving time per se.
So I would, if you dosupersets, I would still have
some rest period in there, like30 to 60 seconds, so that your
output, your reps are aseffective as possible and you
can, you know, bang them out.
(12:42):
So this could save you, like Isaid, 20 to 30 minutes a
session.
All right, strategy number fouris to reduce the number of
sets.
And I'm gonna combine this withanother strategy, and that's
training closer to failure,which you should be doing
anyway, but I'm gonna explainwhy.
Most of your muscle growth isgoing to occur when you have
that high level of mechanicaltension.
(13:03):
Now, there's a huge debateraging right now about whether
anything beyond mechanicaltension causes hypertrophy.
Like, does the metabolic stresscause hypertrophy?
And there's some camps that arelike, absolutely not, it's all
about mechanical tension.
And others say that, well, wesee studies that show when you
have higher metabolic stress,like a higher pump, you know,
you see greater hypertrophy.
And you know what?
(13:23):
They're probably both right toan extent.
It probably comes down to thefirst principle of the
mechanical tension.
Anyway, there's probably a lotof overlap or correlation, is
what I'm saying.
And honestly, you don't have toworry about it.
All you have to, all you cancontrol is how hard you train
and getting close to failure.
Now, how close depends on thelift, the safety of the whole
setup, what your goals are.
(13:44):
But everything beyond that isgonna contribute diminishing
return, diminishing returns.
And what I mean by on that isbeyond that is I'd rather you do
two really hard sets close tofailure than three, four, or
five, or you're half-assing it,or you're not getting close to
failure, right?
That that's where we're gonnasave time.
Because we do see similarhypertrophy with, let's say, two
(14:06):
or three hard sets compared tofour or five.
There's like this fine balance.
And there are arguments, youknow, some people say, look,
getting that third set in, ifyou are training really hard and
you have the capacity, you'reeating enough, you're sleeping
enough, does give you thatlittle extra volume that can
help.
Sure.
But if we're trying to savetime, is it worth it?
Is the trade-off worth it?
So by hard sets, we are mean,we are talking about, I'm gonna
(14:29):
say uh one to three reps shy offailure, reps in reserve, also
called seven to nine RPE, uhrated perceived exertion, right?
I mean, some people would argueand go as far as four reps from
failure, but if we're onlygonna do two sets, I want you to
get, you know, in that reallystressful regime, stressful in a
good way, as in mechanicaltension, close to failure.
(14:50):
So a lot of people are doingworkout programs that have like
four or five sets sometimes,right?
And then, and that's not a badthing necessarily, but then
they're not really pushing thefirst three sets, and only the
last two are challenging.
And so then the first three areeffectively becoming warm-up
sets.
Well, you should already bewarming up anyway with a few
sets, unless you're alreadywarmed up, and then go after it
(15:10):
really hard with the workingsets.
And so if you could do two orthree sets instead of three or
four, that's gonna save time,obviously, right?
As long as you make it count.
And I really love the two setidea in what's called top set
back off set.
I originally learned this frommy coach Andy Baker.
In fact, he was on the podcasttalking about exactly this
thing.
We did an episode onbodybuilding a while back.
(15:30):
Uh, but I've seen others useJeffrey Verdi, Jeffrey Verity
Schofield has uh a good programthat uses that structure.
And I've seen it done with lotsof different bodybuilders.
And all it is is, you know, youyou warm up and then you do
your working weight at some reprange, let's say four to six for
(15:51):
one set, and then you drop theweight, say 10 or 15%, and
perform one more high effortset, probably at a lower rep
range or a higher rep range, ifthat makes sense.
So your first set might be fourto six, you drop the weight 10
to 15 percent, your second setmight be eight to 10.
That's just an example, right?
And doing those two sets reallyhard not only covers the two
(16:13):
different rep ranges, but alsoreduces the volume, but still
gets you some good work andsaves time.
And this might save 15, 20, 25minutes a session if you do if
you normally have all three setsand now you do all two sets.
And you know what?
Try it out.
See if your results don'tchange or even improve because
you're training with maybe evenmore intensity now, because
you're so focused on gettingthose two sets to mean
(16:35):
something, and you're notgetting as much systemic
fatigue.
So it could be a win-win.
All right, so that's the fourthstrategy.
All right, if you're if you'rethinking, like, how do I
structure all of this into acomplete program?
Because that is where peopleget tripped up is okay, now I
need to execute this.
Um, we've got you coveredinside physique university, just
to let you know, we have awhole bunch of training
(16:56):
templates there.
I call them training templates.
I don't call them workoutprograms.
They are training templatesbecause they are flexible and we
give you substitutions so thatif your gym or your home gym
doesn't have certain equipment,you can swap something out.
We also tell help youunderstand how to do that and
reprogram it for you.
And we have a new templatecalled Ignite.
Coach Carroll came up withthis.
(17:18):
It is a time-saving templatethat is based on some of these
principles.
It's a four-day upper-lowersplit, so it prioritizes
compound lifts, but it also usessupersets, drop sets, strategic
selection of your exercises.
And you shouldn't require morethan a half an hour if you're
doing it efficiently for thosefour sessions.
And it's still considered moreof an intermediate program, so
(17:40):
it's still gonna get you greatresults.
If you want access to Igniteplus all my other training
templates, we've got powerbuilding templates, we've got
volume and set-based templates,we've got beginner templates,
we've got gluten leg templates,and then all the nutrition
coaching, community supportcourses that go with that.
Just go to witsandweights.comslash physique.
The link is in the show notes.
That's witsandweights.com slashphysique for the Ignite
(18:04):
training template, and you'llsee a special code in the show
notes to get you another bonusalong for the ride.
All right, we've got three morestrategies.
So strategies five, six, seven.
Strategy number five to savetime in the gym is to increase
your training density.
Now we talked about supersets.
That is kind of a way toincrease training density.
You're not actually doing moretraining, but you're doing it in
(18:25):
less time.
So I'm gonna expand on thatwith this one with some other
ideas.
Training density is effectivelyyour work divided by time,
right?
How much volume are you movingper minute?
The higher your density, themore efficient your training,
with the caveat that theefficiency isn't offset by a
lack of performance becauseyou're moving too quickly and
not resting enough.
Get it?
(18:45):
So we got to make sure we'renot becoming a YouTube workout
here or an F-45 or a CrossFitworkout.
We're not trying to do that.
We're not trying to do that.
All right.
No, no offense to YouTubeworkouts because I know that's a
catch-all, but you know what Imean by that.
So, what do I mean here?
Well, you could shorten yourrest periods on your accessory
movements.
(19:05):
I am a big fan of restingenough on the bigger movements
of like say three to fiveminutes.
Some of the, I'll say quasi-bigmovements, like an RDL, you
could probably get away with twoto three.
And then the accessorymovements, you can get away with
a minute, maybe two, and beokay.
And sometimes that actually ishelpful, right?
Because it keeps you close tothat failure point.
(19:26):
Like, let's say you're doingthree sets of maximum pull-ups.
Take no more than two minutesbetween them and just go really
hard.
And you'll probably not be ableto get as many reps on sets two
or three, but you're stillgonna get that uh those
effective reps, right?
And again, there's there'sarguments about this.
Should I take a full two and ahalf, three minutes here to be
(19:47):
able to get what my maximum repswould have been?
Again, it's a time versusoutcome trade-off.
I don't think it's worth it foreverybody if you're trying to
save time because all that restperiod adds up.
Okay, so that uh putting thatout there, but the other piece
here is put that damn phoneaway.
And, you know, I'm talking tomyself here.
This is critical because a lotof people think they're resting
(20:09):
a certain amount of time.
Maybe they do have a resttimer, but then they're
scrolling Instagram, they'rechecking their email, they're
trying to do work, whatever.
Maybe it's productive stuff onyour phone.
I don't know.
But then you end up restinganother minute or two and it
kind of adds up.
I would rather you just pacearound and get some steps in and
just be mindful and ready tojump in, which by the way, could
be more effective for yourtraining anyway when your
(20:30):
headspace is into the workoutrather than constantly getting
distracted, right?
Because that is not the pointof training.
And again, I'm talking tomyself here too.
I do this a lot, and I know I'mhere to train.
And really the way to do thiscompletely is abstinence,
meaning leave your phone in yourbag.
However, if you're using it totrack your workout, I know you
have to have it out.
(20:50):
So just put it down betweensets.
So that's one thought as far astraining density.
Another thought is to expandthe superset concept to three or
four non-competing exercises,if that's possible, and then
rotating them together.
Again, this is you're like,well, isn't that more like
circuit training?
Yeah, kind of.
But again, if they'renon-competing, you can still
(21:12):
expand that same concept.
You know, if you're gonna doleg press, then hamstring curls,
then calf raises, and then someloaded ab crunches on a cable,
right?
And if you're doing cable work,for example, that could be an
efficient way to do it as well,because you have the machine and
you can just change thepositions and stuff like that,
change the attachments.
So three, maybe four.
(21:32):
Don't go beyond that, becausethen it truly becomes more of
just like a circuit that youwhere you may lose performance
and get too winded during theprocess.
But again, hypertrophy isn'tgonna get sacrificed very much
at all.
If anything, you might getcloser to failure in some of
these movements because you're alittle bit fatigued.
So really think aboutorganizing your workouts.
Just because a program doesn'tsay to do it as a superset
(21:55):
doesn't mean you can't, or youcan't move the lifts around to
get more work done in less time.
That's my thought there.
All right, strategy number sixis to use rest pause or mile
reps or drop sets, basically anytype of set where you're
shortening the time it takes youto do the reps, or you make it
(22:18):
where you can't just can't do asmany reps, but you're close to
failure.
So this is again expanding onsome of the concepts we're
already talking about.
So, what are these?
Well, rest pause is where youperform a set, it gets close to
failure, and then you only rest15 to 30 seconds.
That's all it is.
And then you do it again, thenyou do it again.
And so the general drop-off issomething like 50%.
(22:38):
So if you're able to do 12 repson set one, you'll probably get
around like five to seven onset two, and then maybe a little
more than half of that on thethird set, really depends.
What I like about these,besides saving time, they
actually teach you what traininghard feels like.
They're actually a really goodtechnique for that.
Because once you get to thatsecond and third set, your brain
(23:01):
is like, wow, I'm surprised I'malready tired, but I'm only
getting, you know, five or up sofar.
Come on, I gotta get anotherone.
Almost it's almost like yourego helps you out a little bit
there because you're like, Ishould be able to get more,
right?
And then you realize the howmuch things get fatigued when
you don't take enough rest.
And in this case, you'reintentionally not taking enough
rest.
So this is great for accessorywork.
Like if you're gonna do, Idon't know, let's say uh incline
(23:24):
dumbbell curls with dumbbells.
By the way, little tip onincline curls.
They're one of the best barbellcurls if you do them right.
If you're back at like a30-degree angle, kind of like
when you do an incline benchpress and you hold dumbbells,
you you curl them out at anangle, right?
Just keep your keep your palmup and curl them out at you,
kind of like wings, just out andall the way down, get that full
(23:46):
stretch and then and take ashort pause and then up from the
bottom.
Anyway, so something like that,you'll see how tired you get on
sets two and three, but that'sthe point, and it also saves you
time.
Another example of this is dropsets.
Drop sets are where again yougo to failure and then you
immediately drop some weight,continue, repeat a few times
until you're done.
(24:07):
Uh, another example of this isdensity sets, where you just try
to get, you know, 50 reps asquickly as you can, whatever
rest you can, whatever rest youcan fit in there.
Another way to do this istime-based.
You're like, okay, I have threeminutes and I'm gonna go back
and forth between these two, orI'm gonna do just this one
thing.
I'm gonna do neck curls or Idon't know.
I'm thinking of that because Iactually just tried some of
(24:28):
those um ab crunches, you know,like I said, something really
small and isolating, and you'rejust gonna bang out like as many
reps as you can in X number ofminutes, right?
In AMRAP.
There's nothing wrong withthese for the isolation
movements as ways to save time,and you're probably gonna get
similar, if not better, resultsdoing them while saving time.
I would how I would, however,limit them to maybe a couple
(24:50):
exercises per session.
Don't do it with everything.
Do them with machine work, withisolation work.
Do not do these with heavybarbell movements or your form
is gonna break down.
Now, obviously, if you're usinga barbell for bicep curls and
you just want to drop do dropsets there, that's fine.
That's not what I'm talkingabout.
So this might save you 10 to 15minutes just gloming a couple
exercises together and usingthese density techniques, uh,
(25:11):
rest pause, drop sets, etc.
All right, strategy numberseven is really about your
warm-up.
I think a lot of people arespending way too much time
warming up before they theylift.
20, 30 minutes, you know, foamrolling, stretching, activation
drills, um, way too many ramp upsets.
They're not sure where theirworking set is, so they do too
many warm-up sets.
Generally, five to 10 minutesof general warm-up max, which
(25:35):
might include a little cardio,dynamic work, maybe you need to
stretch and loosen up, whatever.
I'm I'm cool with all that.
I'm not gonna criticize any ofthat.
I think it's great, but maximumfive to ten minutes.
I mean, five minutes probably.
And then your first lift,you're gonna have three to five
warm-up sets, most likely.
That is how you warm up becauseyou're warming up the movement
(25:55):
pattern.
I've done entire episodes aboutthis, and we actually teach
about this in physics physiqueuniversity.
We have a whole series calledLifting Lessons, and we give you
how to the warm-up ladder.
You know, we teach about allthe different things like
bracing and breathing, etcetera.
But effectively just get warmedup if it's cold, raise your
core temperature, and then youknow, one to one to two sets,
(26:16):
um, or not one to two sets, uh,three three to five ramp up sets
leading to your working weight,where you're increasing the
weight, you're dropping thereps, and then you hit your
working set.
Right.
So if your working weight is225 pounds, you might do, you
know, five at 135, four, uh fiveat 135.
(26:38):
Let's see, let me let me thinkof this the right way.
No, let's start with 95.
You might do five at 95, youmight do three at 135, you might
boot two at 185, maybe one at205, but probably not, then you
jump to 225, right?
Something like that.
So that's definitely gonna savetime if you're not doing that
already.
All right.
So if we add all this up, Iactually did some math here.
If you're spending five to sixsessions in the week, 75 to 90
(27:02):
minutes, right?
That's like seven and a halfhours a week, that's 390 hours a
year.
If you did all of thesestrategies and you reduce the
number of sessions, you reducethe time, four to five sessions,
45 minutes to an hour, thenthat's like three, three and a
half to four and a half hours aweek.
So that's around 200 hours ayear.
So you just reclaimed like 150to 200 hours a year, which is up
(27:24):
to four full weeks of your lifeback.
Again, that's that's theextreme, but you get the idea.
And that's without sacrificingthe result with your muscle,
your strength.
And a lot of people improvewhen they do things like this
because they're training withmore focus and with more
intensity and better recovery.
And sometimes this increasesyour metabolism because you're
not as stressed.
(27:45):
You're able to get more sleep.
You get it?
It kind of compounds on itself.
So it's not about training moreor training longer, it's
training more intelligently,more efficiently, building that
system that works for your life.
Now, there's one huge sidebenefit I haven't mentioned yet.
When you train moreefficiently, your consistency
goes up.
Because when your workouts areshorter, you have a little bit
(28:08):
more motivation to go, you havemore time to go, you're less
tired and fatigued, so you havemore energy to go, right?
And so you've just reduced abunch of friction.
And that just naturally makesyou show up more, look forward
to it more.
It's exciting, it's fun, it'snot this huge commitment, right?
Some people love working out 90minutes, six days a week.
(28:29):
That's fine.
We're not, I'm not talking toyou.
Talking about people want tosave time and still get the
result.
And so there's this compoundeffect of efficiency like this.
Shorter workouts lead to betteradherence, that leads to more
total training volume over time.
And that is where the resultscome from is that that volume
over time applied consistently.
So I do see this a lot.
We have a lot of clients, thismight be you, that come in,
(28:51):
they're kind of burned out fromquote unquote working out so
much.
And they're like, but how do I,you know, that's not working?
Do I have to do more to getmore muscle and and more fat
loss?
No, sometimes you have to cutthat sucker in half and get rid
of all the cardio.
And all of a sudden, now youstart going to the gym more
often because it's fun.
It doesn't take that much time.
(29:11):
You're walking in between in aflexible way, and now in six
months, 12 months, you've madehuge progress, way more progress
you've made in the last three,five, twenty years or your whole
life, possibly.
Most likely.
Consistency beats intensityevery time.
Remember that.
The intensity can ramp upslowly over time once the
consistency is in place.
And being efficient like thisincreases your consistency.
(29:34):
And then again, the otherbenefit is you enjoy training
again.
It becomes energizing.
You look forward to it.
So, really, it's not justsaving time, it's building a
sustainable, consistent systemfor training.
All right, so if you want theexact training template that
puts some of these intopractice, check out the Ignite
program inside PhysiqueUniversity.
Go to witsonweights.comslashphysique.
(29:55):
It's a four day upper lowersplit.
We have a full library of othertemplates.
We teach you how to.
Do it.
We give you substitutions.
We give you training videos.
We give you, of course,support.
Lots and lots of ways for youto succeed.
Make this consistent, get theresult you want, build that
muscle, lose that fat.
Go to witsandweights.com slashphysique or click the link in
the show notes and make sure tolook for the code in the show
(30:18):
notes for an extra bonus.
All right, until next time,keep using your wits, lifting
those weights.
And remember, efficiency isn'tabout doing less, it's about
doing what matters the most.
I'm Philip Pape and I'll talkto you next time.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!