How much time do you spend each week in the gym? Most train at least 3 days a week and sometimes up to 6 and even 7 days a week. How long does each workout last? Most people train for at least 1 hour and as crazy as it seems, many spend 2, 3 or more hours.

Your time is very valuable and if you’re spending anywhere from 3 to 7 days in the gym and each workout typically lasts between an hour and more, that’s certainly adds up to a lot of your precious time.

Let me now ask you a question – What do you expect from all that workout time investment. In other words, what is your return on investment? Have you ever even thought about a workout return on time investment? When it comes to business and investments, any savvy business man wants to know how much money they’re going to get back after making a financial investment. Why in the world should it be any different for your workouts - You should expect the same from your fitness investment? After all time is money, isn’t it?  

You obviously recognize how important fitness is and hopefully realize how it enriches virtually all aspects of your life. Listen, I totally commend you for taking charge of your health and for not allowing yourself to become complacent. Unfortunately most people don’t invest any of their time into taking care of them selves and won’t ever consider a fitness lifestyle. That’s a real shame!

If you’ve made a fitness investment and continue to invest your time, blood sweat & tears into your weekly workouts, the least you should expect are some great aesthetic results, shouldn’t you? Damn Skippy! Don't get me wrong, the aesthetics and the health benefits go hand in hand - It's just that improving aesthetics are what often motivate a person to train in the first place.  

Now let me ask you a VERY important question and please be brutally honest with yourself when you answer. Do you wing your workouts? In other words, when you go to the gym to train, do you just make up your workout as you go? Do you pick and choose exercises randomly and mindlessly spend your time in the gym? If you're winging your workouts, get ready for terrible results!

Unless you’re following a pre-planned workout regimen or take the time to plan out every aspect of your workout before you actually begin working out, your return on workout investment will be minimal at best. Yes, a randomly winged workout may sometimes produce a decent workout here and there, but not for the long haul, my little wing nuts.

Think about a business plan. A business plan is created to help you make that business a success. It is often a step-by-step plan of action that you are supposed to carry out whenever you’re conducting business. That business plan was written to provide you with a map. You know where you want to go in your business and you follow precise directions so that you get to your intended destination with minimal detours. You are supposed to use that plan to achieve success and if you deviate from that business plan, what do you suppose will occur? By deviating from your business plan of action you’re setting yourself up for business failure. Now think about your workouts again – If you’re working out without a plan, you’re also setting yourself up for failure.   

Your workout plan should map out many training variables, including:

• A pre chosen muscle groups/groups
• Specific exercises
• Specific order/sequence of exercises
• Precise number of sets
• Precise number of repetitions
• Specific rest time between sets
• Workout tempo – How fast or slow you lift the weights - *Not common to most workouts
• Time Under Tension – How long each set or workout lasts - *Not common to most workouts
• Accurate total workout duration

The training variables listed above may seem a bit overwhelming, but they should overwhelm you, they should comfort you. Your proper pre-planned workout is designed to make your time in the gym as productive as possible. When you map out or have someone map out these details for you, there are no guessing games. Your direct workout plan of action is designed to get you the highest degree of results.

A winged workout is more about luck; you hope it works to your advantage and if it does, you were lucky. A pre-planned workout on the other hand, is all about a no fail plan that guarantees you workout success.

So now the difficult part – Now you know what you need, but where do you get a workout that has such a detailed plan and accounts for all of the training variables listed above? The answer is, you have to do your due diligence and find one. First, you need to decide what type of results you want to achieve (goal setting) and then you need to decide how many days you want to allocate to your workouts each week. As far as your individual workout time, less time with more exercise intensity tends to work best, hands down!  

Here are a few things that you can do to find the perfect workout for you:

I recommend that you search for a great workout program on the Internet, visit your local bookstore or visit with a highly qualified fitness trainer and have them devise such a workout for you. Make sure that they’ve done this before, as you don’t need to be a guinea pig.

If you are struggling with your workouts and want some help designing a custom workout, shout out and I’ll be there.

Keep Going!

James Villepigue CSCS