Thread by @Rob_NBF

HOW TO SAVE A HELL OF A LOT OF TIME IN THE GYM (seriously, a HELL of a lot) and get BETTER results for building muscle.

Backed up by science.

Thread 👇

1. Number of exercises

Most people are doing WAY too many exercises.

All you need is:

- A squat pattern
- A hip hinge
- Vertical push
- Vertical pull
- Horizontal push
- Horizontal pull

There's also some benefit to adding some calf work and ab work.

Some people do 3 or 4 different exercises for each of the above, all for multiple sets.

This is unnecessary.

Your body has no idea what exercise it is doing.

All you need to do is reach failure with good form.

Once you reach failure, you have created the stimulus for adaptation.

Adding more work does not create a bigger stimulus, it's just adding muscle damage that needs to be recovered from.

Resources for producing an adaptation now must go towards just recovering back to baseline.

Here's a study:

researchgate.net/publication/13…

This study looked at a load of other studies and saw that researchers consistently found there was no difference in muscle size or strength gains based on 1 set vs. multiple sets.

Want to save time?

Cut sets & work to failure for 1 set

That's already going to make a huge difference.

6 main movements for 1 set each plus some calves and abs is going to DRASTICALLY reduce your gym time.

"But what about working in different rep ranges, how do you do that with just 1 set?"

Again, it makes no difference 👇

This study found no difference in strength or size gains for resistance trained men, based on the load used, as long as they worked to failure:

journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.11…

Many other studies have found the same.

This one from @bradschoenfeld analysed 21 others and found that hypertrophy gains were similar across a huge range of rep ranges.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28834797/

That's already going to save you a ton of time.

The other big one is the number of workouts.

Most people are doing too many.

It generally requires AT LEAST 48 hours for muscles to be recovered - and for many people this could actually be more.

The science supports that 3x full body workouts on non consecutive days is enough, possibly leaving 72 hours between workouts, like this:

Day 1: Full body
Day 2: Rest
Day 3: Rest:
Day 4: Full body
Day 5: Rest
Day 6: Rest
Day 7: Full body

This study found that only 20% of people had fully recovered after 48 hours:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28195973/

Even after 72 hours 63% of the subjects (trained men) were not recovered but the test had involved 12 sets to failure (strengthening the point about lots of sets being overkill)

In this study, 40% of the subjects (trained men between 18-30) were recovered after 48 hours and 80% after 72 hours.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12741861/

When the test was increased from 3 sets to 7 sets, recovery was increased to 96 hours.

The above study also tested older men (50-65) and even after 96 hours 70% of these men were not fully recovered. If you're older, recovery becomes even more important.

Here's another study where 40% were recovered after 48 hours and 80% after 72 hours:

researchgate.net/publication/27…

An upper lower split may be preferable if you want to work out on consecutive days:

Day 1: Upper
Day 2: Lower
Day 3: Rest
Day 4: Upper
Day 5: Lower
Day 6: Rest
Day 7: Upper (or rest to make a 7 day cycle)

So the movements you need are:

Vertical pull
Vertical push
Horizontal pull
Horizontal push
Squat
Hip hinge

This will train pretty much everything.

1 set of 1 exercise to failure, every 72 hours.

BUT whichever push/pull you train second will suffer from being worked when muscles have already been fatigued by a set to failure.

E.g. Upper body session

1 set bench press
1 set overhead press (shoulders can't be worked as effectively as triceps & others already fatigued)

What you should do:

Session 1:

- 1 set bench press
- 1 set shoulder isolation (e.g. Lateral raise)

Session 2:

- Train shoulders first x1 set (e.g. Overhead press)
- 1 set chest isolation (e.g. Dumbbell fly)

And the same kind of set up for your pulling exercises.

However, there is no need isolation for muscles worked to failure by compound exercises - e.g. Biceps after chinups or triceps after overhead press.

Here's a study showing that adding this isolation work after compounds made NO DIFFERENCE.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23537028/

Caveats:

If your goal is simply hypertrophy and health benefits, this thread is all relevant.

If your goal is to get move as much weight as possible in specific lifts, you need to train those lifts with a high load.

I know people will be VERY adamant that they need 5 sets of 5 exercises 5 days a week or whatever... after all "that's what Jay Cutler/Kai Greene/whoever did, and they're beasts!"

Well SOME people are outliers, others are extreme outliers...

In all the studies looking at recovery time, there were a couple of people who recovered much quicker, and a couple who took much longer.

Also, just because something works, doesn't mean it's the BEST approach...

I know you made progress with lots of sets, but how do you know 1 set wouldn't have worked just as well, or better?

Most people have only ever done multiple exercises for multiple sets. They learned it from X person, who learned it from Y person, who copied Arnold's routine.

Give 1 set to failure a try, then let me know how it feels.

You'll need to go slow.

4 seconds up and 4 seconds down on every rep (don't dismiss this).

USE A LOT LESS WEIGHT (Like 50% less).

Guarantee you'll find that one set a lot harder than any of your usual sets.

My n=1 experience is that all of this works.

When my son was born and my job was busy, I was determined not to give up on working out.

I did the minimum, thinking I'd just slow the rate of my DEtraining....

What actually happened was my results got better!

At first I maintained my muscle while getting lean. This took around 6 months.

And then I continued to gain muscle once I started eating more food.

My training routine didn't change for a year. I was doing 3 or 4 workouts per week of 20 minutes each.

This has totally transformed my approach to training.

I now don't stress about missing workouts and I generally tend to work out for 60-80 minutes per week (instead of 4-5x that amount!)

This has given me far more time to spend with my family and focus on my business.

If you found this thread useful or interesting, give it a RT!

Credit to @weightology - I found many of these studies through their website.

P.S. I'm offering a new program with the full blueprint of what I did to get lean and build muscle with 20 minute workouts.

This is a pre-sale - release on 21st of June. If you order now you'll get it for 50% off 👇

learn.nothingbarredfitness.com/20-minute-musc…