Using Time to Your Training Advantage

Time.

We always seem to have so little of it and yet are so bad at managing it. How many workouts were cut short on time? How often does our workout seem to take longer than we anticipated? How often have we stressed about being on the clock in a contest?

One instant remedy is to make the clock your friend and incorporate it more frequently into your training. Below are some easy suggestions for you to use the clock and increase your training intensity:

1. Time rest periods

Every time I begin taking short rest periods in training I realize that my conditioning was not as good as I thought it was. I am informed of this because I end up on the floor gasping for air. 

Try keeping rest between heavier sets to a minimum of three minutes and cut it to 60 seconds for most everything else and note how your strength and conditioning both improve.

2. Time events

In strongman, you generally have a minute to do as much as possible or you must complete a task faster than your competitors. Therefore, timing events in training is critical to your progress and should be mandatory for every event you do from yoke and farmers to tire flips and stones. 

3. Time your entire session

I followed a Franco Columbo bodybuilding routine years ago and he said it had to be performed in one hour and fifteen minutes. This was a lot of work and the guys at school would ask me why I was lifting such light weights. Well, there were so many exercises I couldn't finish it all any other way but to reduce the weights and cut rest periods short. This was effective for getting lean, but the point is if you cut yourself off you will work harder to get everything done that you need to.

4. Perform X amount of work with a time goal.

I used to love this for dips and chin-ups. I would set a timer for 10 minutes and try to do as many of one or both as I could. Each week I would try to get more reps in during that time and when I failed to do so I would change the time determination, either going up as high as 15 minutes or as low as 5 minutes.

There you go. Grab a stopwatch next time you're training and note your progress with every passing second.