If you follow us on Facebook you may have seen our latest live video, where we focused on optimising training when time is limited. If you don’t follow us click here!) It is not uncommon for me to only see clients once a week due to time constraints on both behalves. Therefore it is essential to make every second of the session count.
In the live video I covered a couple of things you can do to optimise your time. The purpose of this blog is to simply remind and highlight the key points.
Your Warm Up is Golden
Typically a warm up is a means to an end, nobody really enjoys it! However, your warm up could be the key to improving your movement, technique and overall performance.
Ideas to optimise your warm up
- Practice movement patterns without resistance to improve understanding and body awareness.
- Practice more complex movements with only a pic pipe to really ingrain the technique.
- Don’t waste time on areas of the body you’re not going to use! If you are shoulder pressing, you don’t need to warm up your ankles or deep him muscles.
Utilise the EMOM
EMOM simply stands for Every Minute On The Minute. The idea being you start a movement with the start of each new minute. An example of this may be:
3 Rounds (9 Minutes)
- Minute 1 – 10 Squats
- Minute 2 – 10 Press Ups
- Minute 3 – 10 Sit Ups
However you can deeper and hit multiple aspects of fitness and performance. I typically work 3 areas. Here is a simple two format I often use:
5 Rounds (15 Minutes)
- Minute 1 – Focus on a large compound movement (e.g. Weighted Squats)
- Minute 2 – Focus on an accessory or stability movement (e.g. Bodyweight Lunges)
- Minute 3 – Focus on an aerobic or cardio quality (e.g. Rowing)
5 Rounds (15 Minutes)
- Minute 1 – Focus on an upper body strength movement (e.g. Bench Press)
- Minute 2 – Focus on a lower body mobility movement (e.g. Glute pigeon stretch)
- Minute 3 – Focus on an upper body muscular endurance exercise (e.g. Battle Ropes)
The idea is to hit multiple areas within limited time. You may argue that this can lead to sub maximal gains in each given area. However as a Leading Personal Training in Twickenham, London I personally feel the above techniques allow me to get the most out of people in the short time we get together.
