Intensity and time are related. The more intense a workout is, the shorter it will last. Two weeks ago, I presented to you guys a template on how to design an effective bodyweight training program. And all this week, I have been giving you guys tips on how to make your workouts even quicker.

If you have used even one of the suggestions, then you should have not only been able to decrease the time of you workout, but should have seen an increase in it’s level of intensity. In this post, I will take the body weight workout we created earlier, and find ways of making more intense.

The following is one of the three body weight workouts we created in the article “3 Bodyweight Training Routines to Get You Back into Shape.”

• Squat Jump - 5×10
• Hindu Pushups - 5×10
• Chinups - 5×10

This workout should last you 40 minutes long.

Option One: Create a Circuit

What we’ll do is simply form a circuit with these exercises, performing them back to back. Instead of 2 minutes rest after each exercise, we’ll rest 3 minutes at the end of the circuit. This will cut 3 minutes time per round, or a total 15 minutes for all five rounds. Here is what it looks like:

Perform 5 rounds of:

• Squat Jumps - 10 reps
• Hindu Pushups - 10 reps
• Chinups - 10 reps
• Rest 3 minutes

Option Two: Combine Lifts

These exercises can be easily combined to form a hybrid. Simply perform 1 rep of each exercise back to back 10 times for one set. This style may actually give you a slight rest between muscle groups, thus boosting your performance and making the workout faster.

Perform 5 rounds of:

• Squat Jumps + Hindu Pushups + Chinups - 10 reps
• Rest 3 minutes

Option Three: Set a time period

If you are really strapped for time, you can set a particular time period, such as 15 minutes and just try to complete as much of the workout as possible. Record your total number of rounds performed in the following workout. Strive to perform one more round in the next workout. Perhaps you will surprise yourself and be able to perform 5 rounds in 15 minutes.

Maximum rounds in 15 minutes of:

• Squat Jumps - 10 reps
• Hindu Pushups - 10 reps
• Chinups - 10 reps

Option Four: Go 300 Style

In the “300″ workout, they performed a handful of exercises at high reps. Many times when we write “10 reps” we feel that we can perform more than 10 reps at a time, but we rest because we have written the workout in that manner. By eliminating the concept of sets and reps, we may be able to finish the workout at a faster pace then we thought we could.

For time:

• Squat Jumps - 50 reps
• Hindu Pushups - 50 reps
• Chinups - 50 reps

Option Five: Break up Your Weaknesses

Lets say that we are unable to perform 10 straight repetitions of chinups. We can split the chinups up into 2 subsets of 5 reps. This will rest your back and biceps while you focus on another exercise.

5 rounds of:

• Squat Jumps - 10 reps
• Chinups - 5 reps
• Hindu Pushups - 10 reps
• Chinups - 5 reps
• Rest 3 minutes

Another option is:

5 rounds of:

• Squat Jump - 10 reps
• Chinups 5 reps
• Rest 90 seconds
• Hindu Pushups - 10 reps
• Chinups 5 reps
• Rest90 seconds

Option Six: Decreasing Repetitions

When you gradually decrease the repetitions, it makes the set seem mentally easier. Overall, you are still performing the same amount of repetitions.

25-15-10 reps of:

• Squat Jumps
• Hindu Pushups
• Chinups

My suggestion is to try all six methods during the course of your training.

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Also Check Out:

• Silence for Intense Workouts
• 12-Month Advanced Strength Program - Month Two (With Free Printable Workout Logs)
• 3 Bodyweight Training Routines to Help You Get Back Into Shape
• How To Design an Effective Bodyweight Training Program, Part 3
• How To Design an Effective Bodyweight Training Program, Part 1

• I have found that I had to work incredibly hard, just for a three or four second improvement. Keep working on this workout one a week until you reach your goal.

Here is a sample workout I have done in the past:

My best time was 8:43.49. See if you can beat it.

If you enjoyed this tip, then please subscribe to Shah Training for free. Click here for more info.

Also Check Out:

• 12-Month Advanced Strength Program - Month Two (With Free Printable Workout Logs)
• If It’s Not Measurable, Then It’s Not Manageable
• How to Chooose the Best Exercises for your Goal
• Time Interval Training
• 6 Methods to Design an Intense Body Weight Workout

The Japanese show on the channel G4 titled “Ninja Warrior” is the perfect example of setting up obstacle courses to test strength, speed, and endurance.

• You don’t need complicated equipment to set up your own obstacle course. What I’ve done in the past is to take all the equipment I have and place it out in my back yard.
• Then, I’ve just tried to create something intense and difficult.

Here is a sample workout:

Round One:
5 Kettlebell Clean and Press each hand
5 Burpees
10 Resistance Band Punches each hand
Sprint

Round Two:
10 Kettlebell Clean and Press each hand
10 Burpees
20 Resistance Band Punches each hand
Sprint

Round Three:
20 Kettlebell Clean and Press each hand
20 Burpees
40 Resistance Band Punches each hand
Sprint


Check out the video of round three:

If you enjoyed this tip, please subscribe to Shah Training for free. Click here for more info.

Also Check Out:

• Make your Quick Workout even Quicker Using Whole-Body and Hybrid Lifts
• The “Punisher” Workout
• Make your Quick Workout even Quicker by Timing your Workouts
• How to Design an Effective Quick Workout
• How To Design an Effective Bodyweight Training Program, Part 3

Image by stationstudinyc

A whole-body exercise is an exercise that works a majority of the body in one movement. Here a few examples of such exercises:

• Burpees
• Muscle Ups
• Thrusters
• Clean + Press
• Snatch
• Sumo Deadlift High Pull

A hybrid exercise is when you combine two or more exercise to create a “hybrid.” Here are a few examples of such exercises:

• Burpees + Pullups
• Power Snatch + Overhead Squat
• Power Clean + Front Squat
• Chinup + Leg Raise
• Pushups + Power Clean

Incorporating whole-body and hybrid lifts saves a lot of time because you can work your entire body with one or two exercises. For example, performing Burpees work your legs, chest, shoulder, and triceps. Pullups work your back and biceps. Put them together, and you’ll be working your entire body.

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Also Check Out:

• What Exactly is Dom’s Training?
• How can I get a quick workout at the gym? - Choose Whole-Body Movements
• Make your Quick Workout even Quicker by Setting up an Obstacle Course
• How to Design an Effective Quick Workout
• How To Design an Effective Bodyweight Training Program, Part 3

If you enjoyed this article, then please subscribe to Shah Training for free. Click here for more info.

Also Check Out:

• Simplify Your Fitness With The 50-Burpee Challenge
• What are the Core Principles Shah Training is Based On?
• The Shah Training Rainy Day Workout
• 6 Methods to Design an Intense Body Weight Workout
• You’re Not Too Busy for Fitness

I spend a lot of time on this website talking about quick workouts. It’s time to give you guys a primer on how to design such a workout:

Step One: How long will the workout last?

• Determine how long you want the workout to last and make that your time period or TP. You can choose a TP of 20 minutes, 10 minutes, or even 5 minutes. But be careful. The shorter the TP, the more intense the workout will be.

Step Two: Choose your Exercises

• Use the following video to decide which exercises you wish to use.

Step Three: Organize your Exercises

• Use the following table to determine how many repetitions you should perform per workout:

Table 1:

Step Four: Put it all together

Here is a sample 10 minute workout with the goal of General Fitness:

Maximum rounds in 10 minutes of:

Pullups 8 reps
Pushups 14 reps
Bodyweight Squat 20 Reps

Wait a sec, how did you come up with that workout?

The truth is, there is a certain amount of creativity and experience involved in designing quick workouts. What I did in the above workout was put together a triset, or three exercises back to back without rest.

• The goal is to perform as many rounds, or sets of the workout as possible in 10 minutes, without rest. If your goal was to increase strength, then you would still use a 10 minute time frame (or any other time frame, depending on your schedule).
• The exercises you choose will need to be difficult. Remember, for strength you need to be working in the 1-8 rep range. It is suggested you use some for of exterior resistance if you are unable to or do not wish to perform more difficult bodyweight exercises.
• It is also suggested that you take some rest, at least 60 seconds, between each set.

BONUS TIP:

Forget the Cardio

Most trainees spend too much time on distance or steady state cardio, especially while trying to lose fat. Cardio is just one tool in the battle against fat, but not a necessary one. If you replace your hour-long cardio sessions with short 10-15 minutes of intense exercise, you will save an enormous amount of time and may even achieve better and faster results. Here are some articles for more info on this topic:

• Fat Loss without Cardio
• Three Methods to Help End your Cardio Rut!

If you enjoyed this article, then please subscribe to Shah Training for free. Click here for more info.

Also Check Out:

• How To Design an Effective Bodyweight Training Program, Part 3
• Make your Quick Workout even Quicker Using Whole-Body and Hybrid Lifts
• How to Chooose the Best Exercises for your Goal
• Fat Loss is a Battle - Workout Three
• Fat Loss is a Battle - Workout Two

Image by d_vdm

Last Month, I presented the first month of the 12-week Advanced Strength Program. This month, the first change we will be making is in the movements. The Front Squat will be replaced with the Back Squat, and the Bent Over Row will be replaced with the Bench Press. There will also be a bit of rearranging of exercises.

• The Deadlift will move to Workout A along with the Back Squat and Bench Press
• The Push Press will move into Workout B along with the Overhead Squat and Power Clean

The purpose of these movement is to:

1. Train different parts of your body
2. Provide a slightly different stimulus, but not enough to completely confuse and shock your body (the goal is gradual, but consistent progress).

Just as last month, you will be steadily dropping reps and increasing the sets as the weights become heavier. But the shock factor will come on week eight when you drop your rest periods to 45 seconds. If you have been following the workout for 7 weeks straight using 60 seconds rest periods, then you should have built up enough conditioning to train with 45 seconds rest periods.

NOTE: Pay careful attention to what it does to your strength levels in the present, and in the future.

Here is the full program in detail:

Workout A:

• Back Squat
• Bench Press
• Deadlift

Workout B:

• Push Press
• Overhead Squat
• Power Clean

Week Five

Sets: 6
Reps: 4
Rest: 60 seconds

Week Six

Sets: 7
Reps: 4
Rest: 60 seconds

Week Seven

Sets: 7
Reps: 3
Rest: 60 seconds

Week Eight

Sets: 7
Reps: 3
Rest: 45 seconds

Download the free printable workout logs here.
If you enjoy this program, please subscribe to Shah Training for free. Click here for more info.

Also Check Out:

• Journey of a Warrior: The Fitness Diary of Parth Shah - Entry Two
• If It’s Not Measurable, Then It’s Not Manageable
• Intense Workouts for Busy People
• 6 Methods to Design an Intense Body Weight Workout
• Make your Quick Workout even Quicker by Timing your Workouts

Yesterday was the last installment of the “How to Design an Effective Bodyweight Training Program” series. I hope that you guys have learned something from the series. I want you guys to keep commenting and emailing me your questions.

I want to put what I presented in the series into practice. The goal is show you guys a practical example of how to use my method of program design.

Theory into Practice

• So lets say we have a busy professional who is looking to get back into shape. The means he was once in shape but fell off the wagon, perhaps due to a new busy lifestyle. This may mean that our hypothetical trainee is an intermediate.
• With 2 hours to train, our trainee will be exercising 3 days a week and taking 2 minutes rest between each set. Each session will last 40 minutes with a rep-range of 8-12 repetitions per set.

Here is how I organized each workout:

Workout #1:

• Squat Jump
• Hindu Pushups
• Chinups

Workout #2

• Heel Stompers
• Close-Grip Pushups
• Mixed-Grip Chinups

Workout #3

• One Legged Deadlift
• T-Pushups
• Inverted Rows

I tried to use movements that a trainee with at least a few years of experience would be able to perform 8-12 repetitions with some difficulty. Remember, the idea with choosing movements is that you will be in pain while working in your rep-range. Choosing bodyweight squats in an 8-12 rep range is not a good idea unless you are a complete beginner.

Figuring out sets

• Based on yesterday’s article, in order to find how many sets to perform in each workout, you would need to perform all the exercises for one set, time them, and find the average time it takes to complete that set. Instead performing all the exercises, you can just choose three exercises to save time.
• Lets say it takes 30 seconds to perform a set of squat jumps, 35 seconds to perform a set of hindu pushups, and 48 seconds to perform a set of chinups. The average is 37.66, or 38.
• With the 2 minute rest period, each set will take us 158 seconds. We divide that into a 40 minute session, or 2400 seconds, and come up with 15.19. This means that we have room to perform 15 sets in 40 minutes, or 5 sets per exercise.

Moving on from Here

You will most likely realize that some workouts can be completed in under 40 minutes, and others take longer than 40 minutes. I am simply giving you the tools to create a rough design. What will give you the most success is carefully tracking your results and gradually tweaking your workouts for greater efficiency.

What about Quick Workouts?

Most that have been steadily following my site for the past few months know that I support quick workouts. These articles were more for general trainees who may not be familiar with quick workouts, or simply do not enjoy quick workouts. For those that wish to know how to create these types of workouts, I will be devoting my next post on just that.

Did you enjoy this article? If so, please subscribe to Shah Training for free. Click here for more info.

Also Check Out:

• 6 Methods to Design an Intense Body Weight Workout
• How To Design an Effective Bodyweight Training Program, Part 3
• Fat Loss is a Battle Explained
• How to Chooose the Best Exercises for your Goal
• Journey of a Warrior: The Fitness Diary of Parth Shah - Entry Three

In the last installment, we went over how to choose the right training split and how to organize your exercises based on that split. I hope now you have a rough schedule set up.

The next step is to determine how many repetitions to perform per exercise. Use the following table as a guide:

Table 1:

Note these are just guidelines. You can certainly move out of your rep range for a particular goal, and still be able to achieve some gains in other goals. For example, a trainee going after mass will certainly be able to increase their base level of strength if they continually use more difficult exercises. The key to progress with bodyweight training is to seek out more difficult exercises, or find ways of making a set more difficult.

How many sets per session?

The number of sets performed per session is based on the number of exercises you have per session. So, for arguments sake, lets assume that your session lasts 30 minutes and you have five upper body exercises in that session. Here is a sample routine:

Pullups
Pushups
Incline Pushups
Hindu Pushups
Chinups

If you’re goal is mass gain, then you will be performing 8 reps per exercise. Here is how you will determine how many sets to perform in total:

• Time each set of exercises as you time them. For example, lets say you perform 8 pullups in 26 seconds. This means that you can perform one pull up in approximately 3.25 seconds. Do this for the rest of your exercises, then average the times. Lets assume our average is 2.1 seconds per repetition. Multiply this by the total number of repetitions per exercise, or 8. This will give you an idea of how long each set will take you. In our case the number is 16.8 seconds.
• Next step is to determine the rest between each set. Let us assume that you are an intermediate. Since your goal is mass gain, you choose to start off with taking a 2 minute rest between each set. Add that two minutes, or 120 seconds of rest to the 16.8 seconds we found to be the average length of each set. This number is now 136.8. For simplicity, lets round it up to 137 seconds.
• Take this 137 seconds, which represents the time it will take for you to complete one set of an exercise, and divide that into the 30 minute session. First convert the 30 minutes into seconds (30 x 60 = 1800). So, 1800 divided by 137 seconds means that we have room for 13 total sets.
• Distribute these 13 sets amongst the 5 exercises that you have chosen from before. Here is a sample:

Pullups 3×8
Pushups 3×8
Incline Pushups 3×8
Hindu Pushups 2×8
Chinups 2×8

Repeat as Desired

Use this process to create the workouts for the rest of your training program. If at any time you need to create a new program (preferably in a few weeks), then refer back to this article series.

Did you enjoy this article? Then please subscribe to Shah Training for free. Click here for more info.

Also Check Out:

• How to Design an Effective Quick Workout
• 6 Methods to Design an Intense Body Weight Workout
• Make your Quick Workout even Quicker Using Whole-Body and Hybrid Lifts
• 12-Month Advanced Strength Program - Month Two (With Free Printable Workout Logs)
• How To Design an Effective Bodyweight Training Program, Part 1

Image by matchstickvideo

In the first installment, we talked about determining the number of days and total time you will be exercising each week. I also presented a video which should have helped you determine how many exercises to perform in total.

The next part is to take your list of exercises and organize them into a balanced program. Before you begin to do this, you need to determine what kind of training split you wish to follow. A training split is a method of organizing your exercises based on groupings of movement plains or body parts. I will present a few training splits and how to use them for each fitness level.

Full Body

• A full body split is simply a split where you train your entire body in one session. This split is best for beginners and intermediate or advanced athletes who are training for either fat loss or athletic fitness.
• Creating a full body program is not that difficult. The main idea is to choose at least one upper body exercise, and one lower body exercise per workout.
• If you are following a two or three day program, training on non-consecutive days, you can even perform the same exact workout at each session.

Upper/Lower Split

• An Upper/Lower split means that you are train your upper body on one day, and lower body the second day. This split is ideal for intermediates and advanced trainees, regardless of their goals.
• The split works great on a four-day or five-day split where you can simply alternate between Upper Body and Lower Body days.

Push/Pull/Legs

• A Push day means that you perform exercises that require “pushing” away from your body, such as push ups. A Pull day means that you perform exercises that require “pulling” towards your body, such as a pull-up.
• Leg day requires performing exercises that train your lower body. The Push/Pull/Legs split is great for advanced trainees who are looking to work on strength and mass.

Based on your fitness level and goals, organize your exercises in either full body, upper/lower, or push/pull/legs split workouts. The third installment of this series will run tomorrow.

If you enjoyed this article, please subscribe to Shah Training for free. Click here for more info.

Also Check Out:

• Make your Quick Workout even Quicker Using Whole-Body and Hybrid Lifts
• How to Design an Effective Quick Workout
• How To Design an Effective Bodyweight Training Program, Part 3
• How To Design an Effective Bodyweight Training Program, Part 1
• Lose Fat with Supersets and Trisets!