If you want to learn more about this topic, you can watch Nick Tumminello's lecture here:

Click here

When we hit the gym we always want our workouts to be 100 % efficient by getting the best out of every rep and minute we spend there.

Here are 6 things to remember during workouts that can help you to achieve this:

1. Make your training more effective and  potent by maximizing work and minimizing time

We can make our training more effective by using paired sets, tri–sets and quad sets in our workout routine. 

2. Approx. 3 min rest in between sets of a specific given exercise is optimal for strength and hypertrophy 

Longer rests tend to work better than shorter rests. Now, how do we get longer rest periods but stay busy? Instead of just doing the bent-over row and then resting three minutes and then another set of bent-over rows, What if after doing the bent-over row, we rested a minute, then did lower body exercise, rested a minute, and then went back to the bent-over row? By the time I got about that minute between the bent-over row to the lower body exercise, we'd gotten a lot of work done in the same amount of time.

3. Paired set training may be more effective than traditional set training

The reason why paired set training is good is that it allows you to maximize the density, and you can get good work done within a session. It also helps keeps the pace up and you start to build a little bit better conditioning as well, so you get more done without necessarily sacrificing any sort of gains.

4. Group exercise requiring immobile equipment with exercise using mobile equipment 

Sometimes when we are at the gym during a busy time and we want to use the squat rack after a lateral pull-down, someone might already be using it. The practical thing to do is to group exercises with immobile equipment like the lateral pull down with exercises using mobile equipment like dumbbells. In this way, after doing a lateral pull down we can move on to doing reverse lunges without wasting any time.

5. Group non-interfering exercises together

For example, if I am doing a bent-over row, I don’t want to pair that up with a Romanian deadlift. Because both of them are hard on the lower back. A bent-over row is basically an isometric Romanian deadlift so those two exercises are stacked together, the low back is getting double the work and it’s going to fatigue out quicker than anything else.

6. Design exercise groupings that work in a semi-private workout setting

Patients are not always going to be with you at your facility so you have to prepare them to deal with any environment and be as successful as possible using this system of pairing local, meaning something that doesn’t move like a leg press, lat pull down, the squat rack with other exercises that they can bring over to it using equipment they can bring over to it, significantly enhancing the efficiency of the workouts and have them stressing less about having to put the workout together. We can do this by incorporating the ‘Killer Bs’ which are bands, bodyweight, bells i.e. dumbbells or kettlebells, and balls (medicine balls, stability balls). This can also help in case they need to work out at home or on vacation.

If you want to learn more about this topic, you can watch Nick Tumminello's lecture here:

Click here

Sources:
1. Lecture ‘Practical Program Design for Physios’ by Nick Tumminello on Trust me-Ed