Strength and muscle gains in 30 minutes at He's Fit

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Strength and muscle gains in 30 minutes

Posted November 14, 2007 at 12:00 PM by Stephen Antel

Section: His Fitness, Strength Training

man lifting weights When you think of a strength building routine, you probably think of low reps, lots of sets, and lots of rest time. If you look at a professional powerlifter’s or a strongman’s routine, that’s typically what you will find. Most strength athletes will say this is the way to go, and for the most part, I agree. But what if you don’t have 2 hours to train? Well, I’ve got a 30 minute strength building routine that will have you lifting bigger weights in no time.

The first thing you have to determine is what lift you want to add pounds to. Do you want a bigger deadlift? Is your bench weaker than your 12 year old neice? Do you squat diddly squat? Figure out what lift needs improvement, and work on strengthening that particular lift.

After you figure out what lift you want to improve, next you need to have a plan. Since we’re running on limited time, planning is extremely important to reaching your goal. Your plan should include nutrition planning, a workout plan, and a recovery plan. You can bust your butt in the gym, but if you don’t eat right and recover between workouts, you’ll actually end up LOSING strength instead of gaining. To keep things short and sweet, I’ll focus on the workouts, and will talk about nutrition and recovery at another time.

In order to get stronger, you have to lift heavy. There’s just no getting around that. And lifting heavy requires longer rest periods. No getting around that either. So we know we need to lift near maximal loads and get plenty of rest between sets. How can we do that in 30 minutes? Below is a 1 week sample workout to bring up your benchpress.

Day 1
5 minutes warmup

Benchpress

5 reps @ 60% - rest 1 minute

4 reps @ 75% - rest 1 minute

3 reps @ 85% - rest 1 minute

1 rep @ 90% - rest 2 minutes

1 rep @ 95% - rest 3 minutes

1 rep @ 95% - rest 3 minutes

Inverted rows supersetted with pushups
3 sets of 8 – rest 1 minute between supersets

Wide grip lat pull downs supersetted with dips
3 sets of 5@85%- rest 1 minute between supersets

5 minutes cool down
(Total estimated time, 27 minutes)

Day 2 – off

Day 3

5 minutes warmup

Barbell bent over rows
5x5 @ 80% - 90 seconds rest between sets

Superset benchpress with lunges – perform benchpress explosively
5 sets of 6 @ 60% with 90 seconds rest between sets

Front and side planks

2 minute front plank

1 minute each side

3 minutes cooldown
(Total estimated time – 28 minutes)

Day 4 – off

Day 5

5 minutes warmup

Benchpress

5 reps @ 60% - rest 1 minute

4 reps @ 75% - rest 1 minute

3 reps @ 85% - rest 1 minute

1 rep @ 90% - rest 2 minutes

1 rep @ 95% - rest 3 minutes

1 rep @ 95% - rest 3 minutes

Inverted rows supersetted with pushups
3 sets of 8 – rest 1 minute between supersets

Wide grip lat pull downs supersetted with dips
3 sets of 5 @ 85- rest 1 minute between supersets

5 minutes cool down
(Total estimated time, 27 minutes)

Days 6 and 7 – off

Now that we’ve got something to look at, let’s break it down. First, let’s take a look at exercise selection. Since we’re looking to add pounds to the benchpress, days 1 and 5 start with bench. The first superset includes 1 exercise that works the back (our bench antagonist) and 1 exercise to help ‘flush’ the chest. Pushups were selected because they’re not terribly demanding on our prime movers (pecs and triceps), they help flush waste products (lactate), and get your seratus firing which helps in mobilizing your shoulder blade and stabilizing your shoulder girdle. The second superset includes a heavy back movement and a tricep targeting movement. These are important because you want to develop the prime movers as well as their antagonists.

Day 3 starts with a heavy back movement. If you want a strong chest, you need a strong back. I’ve seen plenty of guys who do tons of chest work and very little back work. Sure, they can benchpress a small car, but they’re just setting themselves up for joint problems and reinforcing muscle imbalances. Not the best thing for strength in the long run. The superset starts with a light bench moved as fast as possible. When using sub-maximal loads, moving a weight fast recruits more muscle fibers than moving it slowly. And since we’re keeping the reps at a medium range, we’re not getting fatigued, which helps in recover. For the 2nd exercise, I chose lunges because they involve an entirely different muscle group, further enhancing our upper body’s recovery since it allows for some added rest between exercises. And I finished up with planks to strengthen up and stabilize our deep core musculature. Anytime you lift something heavy, a strong ‘core’ will help keep you from getting injured.

During week 2, you would flip the workouts, so that you only bench heavy once, and bench dynamically twice to mix things up. Week 3 would be the same as week 1, and week 4 would be a deload week to give yourself a break. During the deload week, a few sets of pushups and pull-ups each day wouldn’t hurt, but the main goal is to take it easy to let your muscles and ligaments recover.

The above plan, coupled with a well rounded diet and plenty of sleep, WILL add pounds to your bench. You can tweak that plan to increase your deadlift, squat, military press or any other lift you wish to bring up. Just remember, create a plan and stick to it!

Happy lifting!

Research sources and for more information: [picture]