The next time you go to the gym, before you start your workout, I want you to look around you at the other people and answer one question: are these people into their workouts? Granted, it is a subjective question and you may not be correct in your guess, but I will bet that you can easily spot the people going through the motions. I think they have the one or more of the following characteristics:

1. Glazed over look in their eyes
2. Barely sweating
3. Doing the same old, same old day after day
4. 10 seconds work, 2 minutes rest
5. Their mouth is the only thing that seems to be getting any real exercise
6. They never really get in shape, lose weight or look better

I have seen it time and time again. In fact, I have seen people paying trainers upwards of $100/session to give them the same workout over and over. The clients never progress and they never seem to care. I seriously doubt they are even getting any of the supposed benefits of regular exercise.

Here’s the deal: Read any of the latest research and you will find that you can get more done in less time and enjoy your workout so much more simply by engaging your brain in your workout. The mindless workout is a waste of time. Have a plan for each workout and execute your plan. And stop wasting so much time. My weight workout takes me 20 minutes and I do more in that 20 minutes than I think 90% of gym members do in 1 hour. And I enjoy it because I am actively engaging multiple muscle groups in synergistic motion. You rarely see me doing a single range of motion exercise. You also rarely see me rest for more than 20-30 seconds. Actually, you will see me rest one muscle group while working others. For instance, after doing a bench press, I will immediately schooch down the bench and do crunches, or get up and do lunges. While my chest and arms rest, I work my legs. The side benefit of this superset approach is I also get a nice 20 minute aerobic workout in as well.

Here is a typical workout (with virtually no rest between steps):

1. Ride bike to the Y (4 miles one way.) Nice easy warm up.
2. Bench Press/Crunches
3. Lunges with weights. Do Arm curls and Shoulder presses in one fluid motion as you complete each lunge
4. Swiss Ball crunches or 45 seconds of dynamic balance on swiss ball (try kneeling on the ball and keeping your balance)
5. Lat. pull downs
6. Cable pull cross body wood chop
7. Squats with 50 lb dumbells. Do shoulder shrugs as you come out of the squat
8. Swiss Ball V raises and/or knee raises. Place your feet on the ball and assume the push-up position. Raise your butt in the air into an upside down V while keeping your feet on the ball. Lower yourself back down to push-up position. Now bring your knees to your chest and back out to push-up position. That is one repitition. Do 8-10 reps.
9. One legged bent over rows. Take two dumbells, bend at the waist while balancing on one leg. Lower the weights toward the ground and pull back up, in a rowing motion. Do 8 reps. Do another exercise and then come back and do the other leg
10. Wall sits for 30-60 seconds
11. Repeat any of these steps that you desire

Please post how you banish the mindless workout.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 11th, 2006 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Training, Triathlon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.