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I was talking to a new friend the other day about men’s over 40 fitness.
He’s a white-collar corporate guy with 5 kids.
He hates strength training and only does cardio.
We were talking about the importance of strength training for guys our age, most of which he didn’t know.
I’ll get to that in a moment, but first, his biggest reason for not strength training?
“He didn’t have the time.”
Like most guys, he thought workouts had to be long and grueling like they were when we were in our late teens and early 20s in order to be effective.
I told him that was not necessary.
In fact, I told him that most of my clients and customers workout / train about 1/3 of what they thought they needed.
20 to 30 minute sessions, 3x a week is about average for most.
And that shocked him.
That's because 60 to 90 minutes a week is about one-third of the work that most guys think they need to do, which is 60 to 90 minutes a day - at least 3x a week.
I’ve coined this the “One-Third Rule.”
You probably only need to strength train 1/3 of the time you think you need to.
In fact, many guys are still under the false assumption that they have to train like Arnold recommended - 2 hours a day, 6-days a week.
We just don’t have time for that.
And more importantly, it’s just not necessary.
One of my favorite studies in the past 15 years is by Heden, et al. in the March 2011, European Journal of Applied Physiology.
(One-set resistance training elevates energy expenditure for 72 h similar to three sets. Heden, et al. European Journal of Applied Physiology. Mar. 2011.Vol.111. Number 3:477-484.)
In it, subjects were put on a simple resistance training protocol – 10 exercises (full body) for either 1 or 3 sets.
The researchers measured post-exercise energy expenditure 24, 48, and 72 hours post-workout. Both groups showed an elevated metabolism of around 100 calories per day.
Take a look at that again.
One group did one third of the work of the other group and still burned the same amount of calories burned post-workout.
So, it’s not necessarily how LONG you train - it’s what you do when you train and how you do it. Again… The “One-Third Rule.”
I was also telling my friend that men lose 10% of their lean muscle mass per decade.
Which means that technically, if you weighed 190 pounds at 30, you could lose 40 pounds of muscle by 70 and still weigh the same.
Which is why many “old men” look like Christmas trees.
They lose muscle, and replace it with fat.
I was telling my friend you could simply set up an easy circuit - something like the following — Upper Push — Upper Pull — Legs and rest about 60 seconds between them, and you can train your muscles and your heart and lungs.
And yes, I’m aware that traditional strength training is the best cardiovascular exercise.
But short duration KB ballistic repeats can be great CV exercise as well as a decent muscle-builder:
Sprint hard, then rest.
Your heart rate elevates than decreases during your rest periods, without the strain of traditional strength training.
Build muscle using the correct ballistics: Snatch, Clean + Push Press, Clean + Jerk.
(Swings are OK, but they have a shorter range of motion, so they don’t elicit as much of a muscle-building response as the ones I just mentioned.)
So, look, the point is, you don’t have to carve out huge swaths of time from your overstuffed schedule to get back in shape… get in good shape… and stay in shape.
You can strip off fat.
You can get stronger.
And you can even build a fair amount of muscle in “just” 3x 20 to 30 minute sessions a week.
(Yes, you can use 40-45 minute sessions if you want to and have the time.)
And, better yet, these shorter sessions really are “all you need” to stimulate the change your looking for simply because your ability to recover isn’t the same as it was in your 20s.
At the end of the day, remember the “One-Third Rule” so you can eliminate any excuses for not taking care of yourself.
I’ll leave a link in the description below for kettlebell workout programs that follow the “One-Third Rule”.
Stay Strong,
Geoff
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