Chances are, you probably figure that you, too, could have a body like one of the athletes and models in this magazine if all you had to do each day was work out and show up for an occasional photo shoot. But, hey, life's busy! Most of us have jobs outside the home that keep us going at high speed, or we're busy juggling kids' schedules, trying to get them to soccer practice and still find time to prepare a good dinner.
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Focus on your workout for proper execution. | Dont get sloppy: correct posture will help. |
Lack of time is the most common deterrent to exercise. So how can I be so naive as to suggest that you should find two hours to spend in the gym each day? The good news is that you can still get the results you want if you work out smarter, training both more efficiently and effectively in a shorter period.
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Take the time to stretch. |
The 20-minute program I present here is fast and thorough, and you can do it in the comfort of your own home with minimal equipment - no precious time wasted traveling to the gym or money spent on high-tech exercise gadgets. All you need to get started are an exercise tube with handles, a set of hand weights and an exercise bench (optional).
What makes the program so effective is a technique called pre-exhaust training, which pairs exercises in a way that exhausts the target muscle group so you have to perform only one set of each exercise. You first do a single-joint exercise to target a particular muscle group, let's say kickback for triceps. This restricts action to the elbow joint to specifically target the triceps. After doing a single set of the exercise to fatigue, immediately and without any rest perform a second exercise for the triceps, but this one should be a compound (or multijoint) exercise. This means activity is taking place at two or more joints, so additional muscles besides the triceps are involved in the movement. A good second exercise for triceps would be a dips or close-grip push-ups. The theory is that in the first set, you'll fully fatigue the triceps, and then in the second set, the muscle will continue to work but it'll be assisted by other muscles.
The seven exercise combinations presented here work all the major muscle groups, but I've skipped specific exercises for biceps, triceps, and inner and outer thighs because these muscles are involved as secondary and supporting muscle groups in many of the exercises listed. So even though you won't perform a set to isolate any of these particular muscles, you'll experience a training effect by performing the other movements.
