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Quick Wits: Maximize Upper Body Gains in Minimal Time (Intensity Techniques) · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: If you're pressed for time in the gym but you still want to make massive upper body gains or, frankly, gains of any kind.
• 0:06
  Philip Pape: Learn how in today's Quick Wits, where we talk about time-efficient training to supercharge your upper body workouts.
• 0:13
  Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits and Weights podcast.
• 0:18
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, philip Pape, and this twice-a-week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition.
• 0:29
  Philip Pape: We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset, with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best.
• 0:40
  Philip Pape: Let's dive right in.
• 0:41
  Philip Pape: Let's dive right in.
• 0:45
  Philip Pape: Recently, eric Helms and Mark Zordos published a special massive training guide Time-Efficient Training Techniques for Upper Body in the Mass Research Review.
• 0:55
  Philip Pape: So credit where credit is due, and I wanted to make a quick wits about this because I also love this topic.
• 1:01
  Philip Pape: I talked with Brian Borstein about it as well, and some of the other folks that have been on the show and on today's Quick Wits we're talking about upper body specifically based on this article, but, honestly, these methods can apply to anything.
• 1:14
  Philip Pape: I would say they are not earth shattering, they're not cutting edge.
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  Philip Pape: They've been around for a long time.
• 1:19
  Philip Pape: The bros have been using them forever, arnold, the guys like that.
• 1:23
  Philip Pape: I've used them, my coach, andy Baker, uses them, and I'm coming more around to the idea that these don't necessarily have to compromise your training or performance and they can be an excellent way to solve one very thorny problem many of us have, and that is just potentially not enough time.
• 1:41
  Philip Pape: And the cool thing in this mass article or this PDF that they put out is they compared a traditional workout to a workout where everything was updated with these time efficient techniques and you save like 50% in your time without necessarily any loss in performance when it comes to hypertrophy.
• 2:01
  Philip Pape: Now there are some caveats, like if you're going for maximal strength, powerlifting, you know big movements, compound lifts, low rep ranges, where you need a lot of rest periods.
• 2:09
  Philip Pape: You can't be using these for everything.
• 2:12
  Philip Pape: So they also suggest that you might want a hybrid approach.
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  Philip Pape: You're not doing this for every movement, but you might have one or two movements.
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  Philip Pape: You do the traditional way, with plenty of rest between sets and then two or three movements at the end.
• 2:26
  Philip Pape: That you're doing with these time intensity techniques.
• 2:29
  Philip Pape: And the other caveat is don't use this to get in massively more volume.
• 2:35
  Philip Pape: That's not really the point.
• 2:37
  Philip Pape: The point is simply to save time in the existing effective amount of volume you have.
• 2:41
  Philip Pape: So the three methods they allow you to basically maintain or increase your you know workout intensity we'll call it and your volume, but in a fraction of the time.
• 2:52
  Philip Pape: So the first one is rest pause sets, and all this is is you perform a set to failure or near failure, and then you only take about 30 seconds, or some people say 10 to 15 breaths, and then you only take about 30 seconds, or some people say 10 to 15 breaths, and then you go to the next set.
• 3:05
  Philip Pape: You you could probably only get about half the reps, and then you take 30 seconds and then you do the last set and only about half the reps.
• 3:13
  Philip Pape: Obviously that's an example of doing three sets, but you can do it with, say, four, with two, and the idea here is you're keeping the muscles under tension, basically for longer and and not letting them recover as quickly, so you're closer to failure when you get to sets two and three.
• 3:29
  Philip Pape: So that's called rest-pause sets Super effective, I use them all the time Great, especially for isolation type work.
• 3:36
  Philip Pape: The second technique is supersets, which is just alternating between two exercises with no rest in between.
• 3:42
  Philip Pape: I mean, sometimes you might have like 30 seconds of rest, but this would be doing, say, a set of bench press and then a set of rows.
• 3:49
  Philip Pape: Or even in my starting strength days I might do a set of squats and then, during the rest period, I would warm up the press or the deadlift right, whatever the next movement is.
• 4:02
  Philip Pape: And you can do these with opposite muscle groups, the same muscle groups, or kind of halfway in between.
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  Philip Pape: The closer the muscle groups are to being the same, the more you're going to fatigue them and so the more it can affect your performance.
• 4:16
  Philip Pape: And this is where I like antagonist sets, like biceps and triceps right, or leg curls, leg extensions, things like that.
• 4:23
  Philip Pape: And, by the way, all of these intensity techniques have a little extra.
• 4:26
  Philip Pape: It's either a bonus or a curse, and that is they get your heart rate up, and this is a work capacity issue which could be a benefit if you're trying to improve your conditioning.
• 4:37
  Philip Pape: The third technique is called drop sets.
• 4:38
  Philip Pape: Just very classic.
• 4:40
  Philip Pape: After you lift a set to failure, you then just drop the weight a little bit and you do more reps to hit failure and drop it again.
• 4:47
  Philip Pape: Now you could do it in a very controlled way, like you do a set of, you know, 12, and then you drop 10%.
• 4:53
  Philip Pape: And then you do as many as you can, you drop 10%.
• 4:55
  Philip Pape: Or you could just say, look, I'm going to go until I hit 50 reps, or I hit 75 reps, and you just keep dropping.
• 5:01
  Philip Pape: You do a bunch, you drop, you do a bunch, you drop, and each time you're going to failure Again, a very effective technique.
• 5:07
  Philip Pape: So you could complete a traditional session that takes 90 minutes in maybe an hour or maybe even 45 minutes by swapping out some of your you know, your dumbbell flies and your tricep pushdowns and your barbell curls and things like that with these movements and also get a little extra work capacity and conditioning in there as well, and it gives you a little more variety, makes your workouts some more dynamic, intense, sometimes more productive, because they force you to focus.
• 5:36
  Philip Pape: You're not kind of sitting around or in your rest sets or getting on your phone or checking email, and you're just focused and you get it done.
• 5:43
  Philip Pape: So there are a lot of reasons to do this.
• 5:49
  Philip Pape: Always keep pushing the limits of what you think you can achieve or what you're able to do.
• 5:51
  Philip Pape: Get creative, train smart, stay strong and maximize that time in the gym.
• 5:54
  Philip Pape: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits and Weights.
• 6:00
  Philip Pape: If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up their wits or weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them and make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode.
• 6:15
  Philip Pape: Until then, stay strong.