3 Exercises When You Are Pressed For Time
When you are pressed for time at the gym and you want to get a good calorie burn in as well as some strength training let me suggest 3 exercises. The first 2 using a particular technique. And all in a particular order: 1) Lat pulldown, 2) Leg press, or Squat, 3) Elliptical, or Treadclimber.
The specific technique is sometimes called the “slow burn” or “power of 10″. Lifting weights this way will burn your muscles out fast and is done on a machine rather than free weights. The principle is simple, you keep a moderate amount of weight in perpetual motion until your muscles can’t take it any more. You want to spend about 10 seconds lifting the weight and then another 10 seconds lowering the weight. So, that means it takes up to 20 seconds to one complete rep. You can use a wall clock or a stop watch to hit your targets. Your muscles are under the load of the weight for approximately 2.5-3 minutes total! That’s it.
The important parts of this is that it’s perpetual motion, you’re only using moderate resistance, and its done slowly. You start in the normal position and you lift the weight to your end range of motion. You then lower it down back to the starting point. But, you don’t let the weight rest! You start right back again into the concentric contraction nice and slow. Then lower the weight back to the starting point. Imagine that your just a machine that goes up and down very slowly.
So, why the lat pulldown and leg press, you ask? Well, it’s because these two exercises are compound movements, for one. With these you hit more muscle groups with the two exercises than you would with single motion exercises like the knee extension or triceps push down. An additional reason for these two exercises is that these two movements will give you what you need to counteract the harmful effects that are caused from too much sitting. A third reason is that these movements are what we refer to in the business as “functional” movements. Every time we stand up from a sitting position or from a squatting position, we are doing a leg press or squat.
Now, we may not do a lot of hanging from trees these days, but the pulldown is still a functional movement that balances out the everyday activity of lifting things up to our bodies or over head. The fourth reason that these two exercises are important is because they target the largest muscle groups in the body. When your largest muscle groups are working hard, that means you’re burning more calories which is why most people go to the gym in the first place.
I would do the Lats first just to get some arm exercises in and then I would move on to the leg press. You will want to do the leg press before you do your elliptical because you will want your legs to be fatigued at this point. If you have used up all your carb stores on the first two exercises and fatigued your legs on the second, you will be able to mobilize some fat calories for your last bout of aerobics.
In all, when you get your weights and timing right you will be spending 3 minutes on the lat pull down and 3 minutes on the leg press. That’s 6 minutes and a couple of minutes to walk around, and then you will have 20 minutes to get your cardio in. Once you get this routine down you will be able to get in a rigorous workout in about 30 minutes and actually feel as if you had spent an hour at the gym. You will have burn a ton of calories if you have been honest and aggressive with your workout, and you will still be able to get home to help your daughter with her homework and not feel rushed!. It’s a win-win!!