I was listening to Gary Vaynerchuk the other day. He was talking about companies that save people time. It hit me. As a trainer that is what I am doing for my clients is saving them time.
My clients come to me to save them time. They go to the gym to make the quality of there life better. They are not in the gym to reach an athletic goal. They are accountants, housewives, tech people, professionals and retirees who are looking for a better quality of life that can be measured through losing fat, getting stronger, staving off osteoporosis, decreasing coronary heart disease risk factors.
For these people the question is how do I get in the gym and out. How do I get the most bang for my buck? Efficiency in the gym is what they are about. What is the ROI for this rep, this set, this workout? Time is king how do I spend the least to get the most. Well that is what this article is all about.
I found in my forty four years of working out and twenty years as a personal trainer that most people are leaving a lot on the table. What do I mean by that? Well most people are not getting what they could get out of there workouts. Most reps are done in inefficient manner. We do resistance exercise and try to avoid the resistance by accelerating the weight when it gets difficult to do. We bring in muscles that we are not trying to emphasize to get to some magical rep number that is suppose to give us results. In a typical 3 sets of twelve reps we only get maybe four reps that really matter because the rest were spread out over every muscle except the one we were working.
What is the answer ? Become more mindful. Okay, I know. Another mindfulness article. Mindfulness is going to save the world. Well if you don’t want to call it mindful how about just saying PAY ATTENTION. Pay attention to the muscle tightening against gravity. Pay attention to the shortening and lengthening of the muscle against gravity. When the muscle starts to fatigue let it fatigue. That is the goal any way isn’t it. Take the muscle to fatigue and than stop. There is no magic in getting to a certain amount of reps. The magic is in fatigue. When the muscle can’t shorten any more. When that happens you have stimulated the muscle for change. Do that several times for different muscles and go home. Go live your life.
Jon Murray
Owner Fitness Solution
Fort Worth Texas



