Sometimes, less is more

Image from Flickr, by sierrafit

I said I needed to kick my training into high gear, and as I woke up this morning, I hit on exactly how to do just that.

You see, it's like the old saying goes, "less is more" sometimes.

Let me explain.

I had been doing all my exercises for one minute at a time, then transitioning to the next exercise.  I was becoming flustered because it seemed like I was getting less reps in during that minute.  What I realized was that I was pushing for to long at a time.  My muscles were giving up, and I was probably depleting glycogen stores rather quickly, so I was getting less done.

So, I decided to change things up.


The workout itself is the same.  The exercises themselves weren't the issue so much as the duration.  No, the change up was now long I did each exercise.

Instead of a minute each, I went down to 30 seconds.  That's 30 seconds going balls to the wall, as hard as I can. 

It worked.

First, there is the fact that I got two sets done, instead of just the one.  This is a big win for me.  Why?  Because I did the exact same amount of exercise by time, but I also did more reps during that duration!

By cutting down on the time at a single shot, I was able to actually get more real work done. 

I'm tired, and my arms are still feeling the burn of the workout, but the frustrations are gone.  I don't feel like I came up short.  Obviously, this is a good thing.

We'll see how this translates to tomorrow or Friday, but personally?  I'm looking forward to it.