Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1700: Seven Ways to Get Great Gains in 30 Minutes or Less

Episode Date: December 6, 2021

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover how to get an effective workout when time is limited. It’s always TIME. (2:00) The problems with the “all or nothing” mindset. (4:26) The approach young trainers fail at. (9:20) Seven Ways to Get Great Gains in 30 Minutes or Less. (14:36) #1 – Master one movement. (15:35) #2 – HIIT training, done properly. (19:57) #3 – Mike Mentzer “Heavy Duty” style workout. (25:18) #4 – Body-part focused complex workout. (30:43) #5 – Frequent daily short workouts. (33:59) #6 – Focus on mobility. (39:25) #7 – Do something recreational outdoors. (44:58) Related Links/Products Mentioned December Promotion: MAPS HIIT and MAPS SPLIT 50% off! **Promo code “DECEMBER50” at checkout** Visit Vuori Clothing for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Stop Working Out And Start Practicing – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump TV - YouTube Mind Pump #1697: HIIT Training Doesn’t Work (Unless You Follow These Steps) Mind Pump #1632: The Truth About German Volume Training The Most Overlooked Muscle Building Principle – Mind Pump Blog MAPS Prime Pro Webinar Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Danny Matranga | CSCS | BSc. (@danny.matranga)  Instagram Milos Sarcev (@milossarcev)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, we talk about getting great results if your time is very limited. 30 minutes or less. Can you get great results with 30 minutes or less? Yes, you can.

You just got to do it the right way. So in this episode, we highlight it. We talk specifically about the things you can do in short periods of time to get phenomenal results, build muscle, burn body fat, improve mobility, health, and longevity. Now, this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Viori. Viori makes the best at the leisure wear you'll find anywhere. Comfortable clothing that looks incredible

that lasts a long time, this company's exploding because the quality of their clothing is exceptional. Really, they're the best in the business. You need to go check them out. And because you listen to mine pump, you get 20% off, which I believe is the biggest discount you'll get anywhere so head over to Viori clothing dot com That's VU ORI clothing dot com forward slash mine pump and on that particular page on that link You'll get that 20% off also all months long

We're running a 50% off sale on two of our workout programs the first one is maps hit So this is high intensity interval training, short but hard workouts, effective rapid fat loss in a short period of time. And the other workout that's on sale is Maps Split. This is a traditional bodybuilding, bodypart split routine. It's five or six days a week in the gym. Again, it's advanced, but great for those of you

that want a body sculpt or body build and shape your body. So they're both half off. If you're interested, head over to maps, fitnessproducts.com, and then use the code December 50. That's December 50, no space for that discount. Hey guys, I already know the answer to this, but I'm going to ask anyway, what's the number one thing that gets in people's way, or at least what they say gets in their way when it comes to being able to work out consistently?

One is time to his money. Yeah, it's time, right? Every time. It's always time. Time is a big issue. And you know what's funny is that although we have a lot of time-saving devices, I've actually read some studies showing that we just fill our days more than ever before. We schedule everything, including play dates,

which is funny. No, when I was a kid, it wasn't a play date, you just played with your friends. You hung out. Yeah, yeah, no, it's called something. But time is what always gets in people's way. And what happens with that is they feel like they don't have enough time. They've got other priorities.

Or they feel like if I can't do this one hour workout, I only have 30 minutes or I only have 25 minutes, why would I waste my time doing anything at all? It's not gonna be worth it, so I'm just not gonna work out at all. Well, this will be a good discussion because we just had a live caller the other day that called in and I think it was a trainer, right?

It was a trainer. And he was asking a question because he worked in a facility that it was like a big box gym and management there didn't allow our sessions. And I know, actually, I remember, I don't know if you guys knew this or not, but 24-hour fitness on my way out, they were contemplating this. They were considering trying to go to only half-hour sessions. So there's a lot of companies that have done this. They were considering trying to go to only half hour sessions. So there's a lot of companies that have done this. And so he was asking us, like, you know, I've only got 30 minutes, you know, how would you guys program for that? And when he asked that question,

I'm like, you know, what we have talked about, but it was a long time ago, we went into this because I remember when the company, when I was working for 24, they transitioned into and they had 30 minute sessions as an option and as a fitness manager, I had to help my trainer is not only like sell those and figure out how would you present that to somebody and then also how would you train that and what is the most effective per client

and I think that our answer is pretty unique. I don't think that I haven't heard anybody else talk most people go to the easy default which is doing some sort of a circuit base which there's some value there, right? Of doing that. But I think that's kind of the generic answer and I've had more success doing different things.

There's a lot of ways to make 30 minute workouts truly effective. And before we get into them, I do wanna say this, because I actually fell into this as a trainer myself. When I would get potential clients who would say to me, you know, Sal, it's time is really challenging for me. I can't be here for longer than 30 minutes. I would always default to this motivational speech

in which we all have the same 24 hours in a day. So guilty of this. Yeah, and you know, it's how you make, you have to make the time to this motivational speech in which we all have the same 24 hours in a day. So guilty of this. Yeah, and it's how you have to make the time that doesn't just appear. You've got to prioritize. You're just being lazy. It's basically what it amounts to. Exactly.

If you devote more time to fitness, you'll actually find more time because you're more effective in efficient at work, and you'll be a better mom or a better dad and a better partner. All true. But here's the problem, that strategy fails, doesn't stick. If you know that time is an issue for you and you're saying, well, I just gotta make the time and now you're hyper-motivated,

the odds are you probably won't stick to your new routine. What you need to do, what's more effective, is to work within the timeframe that you have, make that effective, and then what tends to happen naturally is because you find it effective, because it's working for you, then you start to naturally want to find more time, and it sticks, that's the big thing.

So I wanted to say that first, because I know some people watching are like, we'll just find a way to make an hour work for you. That doesn't always work, and if you do it within that wrong context of, I'm just getting started, and I'm in this motivated state of mind. That doesn't always work. And if you do it in that wrong context of, I'm just getting started. And I mean, this motivated state of mind, which doesn't always last, it'll fail long term.

So remember that. I mean, isn't it like that for almost everything? Right, like if you thought, like if you're trying to introduce someone to a new type of food or an interested and then watching a sport or get them to, I mean, you're basically essentially trying to close them on your ideas as a train. My ideal is I want this client to be in here

at least three to four times a week for an hour at a time, but I'm being told that they only have 30 minutes. And so I can either try to force that down their throat or I can give them extremely valuable stuff within that, you know, constraint. And then hopefully that sells them on why they want to spend more. That's all young trainer. You know, that's the, that's the mentality is like, well, you're not doing it right.

So we need you to do all these things that are outside of what you're currently doing instead of trying to work in how they're currently doing things. And, you know, it's so much more successful because then it's not like this big leap that they have to take out of their daily routine to make it work for them. And it doesn't have to be an all or nothing approach. And I think that so many people out there, they think that's the only way I can get into fitness,

I can get into the gym, is if I abandon all of my bad habits right now, and I just completely steer the boat in this direction. Now, all in non-mentalities is a poor, long term strategy. It has very little stick. It's almost never sustainable. It's not all or nothing. And the truth is this, something,

so long as it's done appropriately, right? But something is always better than nothing. So if you do a little bit, and you're comparing that little bit, all things being equal to doing nothing, that little bit is better. So something's always better than nothing and that's an important thing to understand. Now I fell into this myself. You know, I would have this rigid idea of what might work out needed to look like. And it had to last, you know, an hour and 15 minutes and it had to include the following things and here's the volume, here's the sets

and here's the exercises. And then I had kids. And then you owe them a business and it doesn't always work that way. So was I supposed to do stop? Well, no, you start to figure things out of that. In fact, I did that this morning, right? So this is the week that I have my two older kids with me.

And every other week, they're with their mom and every other week they're with me. And the weeks that they're with me, I take them to school, which means I get here at about 805 if I'm lucky, if I beat traffic and all that stuff. And then I might have about 45 minutes to work out. Today I had 25 minutes because we had a meeting at a 30. So I was gonna have to fit a almost hour long workout in 25 minutes because we had a meeting at a 30. So I was going to have

to fit a, you know, almost hour long workout in 25 minutes. Okay, what do I do? Well, I modified it. So what did I do? Personally, as I dropped the volume way down, I jacked up the intensity, and the novelty was actually phenomenal. And the fact that I've been doing this actually now for a little while, I'm actually gaining value from doing different things because I have this time constraint. And that's, I think one of the big lessons of what we're gonna talk about is, not only is it not a poor substitute. In other words, if you only have 30 minutes,

you might think to yourself, well, it's better than nothing which is true, or, oh, it's, you know, I could do so much better, but this is what I have to work with. In some cases, that true, but in other cases, especially for people who sometimes have full hours, but other times don't, you can find ways to make those short workouts novel and do things for your body that you may not normally do and actually get better results.

Why do you think this is such a popular messaging from young trainers? I mean, I remember when Danny Mintrego was working with us and I remember a conversation you sitting him down and trying to explain this to him. Very, very smart kid. Kid has more national certifications than I think all of us. Really, really smart dude, knows the stuff,

but young, right? And just not as experienced. And I know that he was giving messaging like that. I remember you sitting him down and trying to explain to him. What do you think it is that, because it's not like a lack of information, I mean, you're talking about a really smart kid who's giving that messaging,

what do you think it is? Why do you think that we, the trainers, including ourselves, gravitated towards that messaging that trying to push you to commit to more time, because it almost seems obvious what we're saying right now is like, yeah, if you shove something down someone's throat or make them feel guilty for not doing it, do you think it's because they get a temporary response that is positive, like where people, okay, they submit and they

give in. Do you think it's the trainer doesn't think they can provide enough value to make a significant enough change in that person in 30 minutes so that they will resign within. What's perpetuating it in our space? I can tell you what it was for me. For me, it was, I had the answer. So here's the solution, and I know it'll happen. If you just do what I tell you,

and I'm gonna save your life, and I'm gonna do all these awesome things. Yeah, it's not you. Yes, yes. And so my goal was, my goal was, let me motivate and inspire this person to do everything, to do, to follow my answer. But what it does is it completely ignores human behavior, it completely ignores the

lack of sustainability that happens from that particular strategy. And so because of those things, it's actually a failing approach. So it is true if you do everything I tell you, you'll get better results. But then you won't stick to it and it's not going to work. Is that what you think, Justin? I just think that it's lack of experience at the end of the day because you haven't seen how that method plays out all the way. And you're not going to be able to see that until you get enough people in front of you

where you've tried over and over again with this approach because it makes sense. If you change your behaviors, you will get results. If you do this, the earlier do this, the better. But, and so that's something that you get really passionate about it and you're almost like this new evangelist because you've learned all these cool hacks and things that you can apply that will really make a massive difference on yourself or you know, you've read about all these, you know, health and fitness. You've gotten like the education behind it to back up like what you're trying to say,

but in terms of it playing out and watching human behavior and how they receive it, that takes a lot of interaction between your clients that you need experience for. So I wanted to take you guys to figure this out. I'm trying to actually unpack that and remember where it was with that light bulb went off from me. And maybe that's what it is is that I didn't have a large enough test group at the beginning, right?

Because initially the people that you tell a do this and they don't do it, they don't get the results. You know, they don't see, and the ones that actually follow you and do what you tell them to do, they get the most results. But I think it's like over time, maybe over years of realizing like, oh wow, how many people did I turn off

because it was an all or nothing with me? It was like, you got to commit to three days a week for an hour or I can't help you or you're not going to see the results. And so I turned off two out of like 20. Right. Something like that. That actually do it. That actually you get like massive success

or you just you feel like and I think you go back and you look at that and you look at those 20 people and you're like, wait a minute, why didn't I make that impact with these people? Like what can I do better? And once you really start like asking yourself that question, I think it leads you back. It took me, it took me years, dude.

Yeah, I was probably five years. At least, yeah, I remember, I don't remember specifically, but I remember having years, dude. Yeah, I was probably five years, at least. I remember specifically, but I remember having conversations, I don't remember who it was, but we had this conversation about like how successful are you as a trainer? Well, I'm super successful. My clients get results.

Like how many of them that don't work with you have kept these results? And then I had this real honest like reflection. So, oh my gosh, like if they stop working with me, that's it, they stop working with me, that's it. They stop working out. So I'm not really actually very effective at all. It's not working. It works in the short term, but it doesn't work in the long term. And then when I started changing my approach, what I noticed was I had way more stick with results. People started

with what they thought they could work with, which was fine, and they would slowly start to get results, and then they'd like it, and then they themselves would work out more and make more time. And even if they didn't, what I didn't do was blow them out of the water and say, hey, if you're not going to do everything I tell you, then you might as well not waste your time, which I did in early on. I was that kind of trained early on. You end up helping the people that probably would have figured out no matter what anyways. Totally.

When you think about it, with that method and that thought process, the people that you truly end up helping that go, okay, yes, Adam, I'll come into the three day, five day a week, one hour. Those people probably would have figured it out on their own or eventually got to their goal no matter what with or without your help. And really, all the ones that you turned off because they wouldn't commit to that, or you couldn't meet them where they were currently at,

those are all the real people that needed your guidance and help, and you completely lost them because you had this kind of ultimatum. You know what the irony is, I'd love your guys' feedback on this, but for me, when I started to figure this out, and I'd say, okay, cool, we have 30 minutes,

so I got to get more creative. I have to figure out how to really make this effective. I became a way better trainer. I found so much value in short workouts by applying a few different techniques and focuses that it actually made those workouts extremely valuable. It wasn't, no, it was no longer a poor substitute, but rather just a different type of workout.

Did you guys go through something similar? Oh yeah, I like putting constraints like that. A lot of times because it forces you to be more effective. And you really have to evaluate each one of those exercises or each one of those methods as like, is this really gonna move the needle? Or am I just like having them sweat and you know, raise their heart rate through this workout?

Are they learning anything? There's lots of factors there, but it really just forces you to condense all of your information into what's the most effective thing that you can do right now. Well, I think it came together for me, which is the first one that we were gonna cover is when I started to realize that if I could take

a single exercise, like a major compound lift, like a squat or a dead lift or a overhead press, and I could take somebody who couldn't really do it. Like just their form was breaking down, they had all kinds of postural deviations and they sucked at the movement. And if I could get them to master that one big movement, I saw these huge gains from that.

I saw muscle being put on, I saw body fat being burned, I felt pain going away for them. So when I started realizing, like, holy shit, I could do this crazy workout with all these different exercises and push them for an entire hour, and sure they leave sweating and like, oh, that was hard. Or I could take this one person who all we did was like hyper focus on like one major movement.

And over time, I improved that. The carry over for that, I think I saw how beneficial that was and it started to make me really evaluate those 50 minute hour sessions. What am I really doing in there? That's truly moving the knee. I figured this out for myself first, believe it or not, because I would want to get like a specific lift to improve, like a bench press and I'd say, okay, I have 30 minutes, I'm only gonna focus on the bench press.

Or there would be two lifts, right? Okay, I'm only gonna focus on the deadlift and the overhead press. And so I do lots of sets, watch my form and my technique. Some of the sets were fast, some of them were slow, some of them were heavy, some of them I'm focusing on the extension

or the isometric contraction at the bottom. And so I started doing these workouts for myself and my lifts were exploding. So I do a 30 minute like deadlift and overhead press workout or bench press workout alone. Then I started doing it with clients like you said and it was incredible. And by the way, the clients got, they loved it. They would come in and okay, we got 30 minutes. I was the reverse dude.

It was like, it's not that long ago. Matter of fact, maybe right before we started this podcast years ago, where I started to piece that together. I used to be in all or nothing. I used to fall off the diet, fall off the train. If I did not have that four day a week, one hour at a time, committed and I wasn't dialed in, I was like, oh, it was a waste of time.

That was like my mentality. Even as a trainer, it was, and yet I was coaching clients this way. It wasn't until I started to apply it myself. Did it really all come for full circle? Because then I started, I've talked about this on the podcast before, where sometimes I'm in on a kick this all the time. All the time.

I'm in that kind of mode right now, where I'll just do one lift and I'll spend the entire time on just that. And it's amazing to me how much I can still kind of maintain my physique just from that one exercise in a workout, which I would have never done in my 20s. Now think of how much the average person would gain value from practicing a compound lift or a complex lift

for 30 minutes. Oh yeah. I mean, there's so many nuances to it that you just improve. You get more effective. You get better at just that one lift, which then, and you pick these types of lists because they're so impactful. They really do a great job of building muscle and getting you strong. And to get better at it, you see that now, how that translates when you go back to working

out and you have more time. It's amazing. Yeah, my favorite exercises for this are of course, your traditional bench press, overhead press, row, squat. I also like pull ups for this. I've done a 30 minute pull up workout, which is phenomenal.

Dips are a great exercise for this. Turkish get ups for just overall function for 30 minutes is exceptional. Sled work for 30 minutes. Like all you do is you grab a sled and you drive it or you pull it for 30 minutes. Excellent workout, right? Those are some of the, do you guys have any of this

that you can think of that you like to do? I've done circus press for 30 minutes. I mean, you just hit a lot of the big ones. I mean, anything compound movement is gonna have tremendous benefit because you're incorporating so many muscles. So, you know, we think we, you see trainers do all these, like, you know, get on a machine and do a tricep push down

or a dip machine or they have all these isolation exercises where you get minimal benefit to it. We're a single exercise that may be like the squat. Sure, it's primarily quads, and glutes, but hamstrings or involve, calves are involved, like your upper back is involved, like your forearms and gripping, like there's so much that's involved in that movement

that you get muscle benefit all over the body instead of just in one local area. Now the next one I think is the obvious one. I think this is the 30 minute workout button that people tend to hammer, which is high intensity interval training. Now, hit training can be very valuable. It just needs to be done properly,

but hit training done properly, 30 minutes is plenty of time. In fact, 20 minutes is plenty of time when you're doing really effective hit training. And the way I like to do it, and you have to have good programming, is I'll put four, maybe five exercises together, and I'll do each one until my form starts to break down. I'll rest long enough so I can compose myself to do the next exercise with decent form until that

breaks down. I'll do a cycle, then I'll rest long enough until I can repeat the cycle. This is not easy. Now some of my favorite ways of doing this are I'll grab two pairs of dumbbells or one barbell with weight on it and then all the exercise I do are with that one particular weight or those two particular dumbbells. It saves a lot of time and again you get phenomenal results doing this. Yes, yeah, I like this because I can address it like I'm doing a strength workout but I'm just cutting the rest. And so like you said, though, the biggest thing is to make sure that my form and everything

doesn't degrade. That's when I stop. That's when I stop and I compose myself and then I come back and I approach the next exercise. But you know, in terms of condensing time, way down, it's so effective and efficient. And you get like a very, you know, a very good workout of just from cutting it down in half like that, but really just focusing on, you know, the mechanics and making sure everything is in good form. This is, this is actually my least favorite of all the

ones you're talking about, although it's probably the most popular and arguably one of the most effective, but it's one of the most abuse probably. It is. And that's the reason why I'm even cautious about talking about a day as a way to, you know, because obviously this the episode is going to attract people are like, Oh my God, that's me. I only have 30 minutes wrong. I have this was time. And then you can we could break down all the benefits of hit as far as burning body fat and and building muscle and we know how great and effective it can be. But with anything like that, you also have the other side, which it can be easily abused or done improperly. So I'm very careful on who I suggest this to also keep in mind, like we're going to go over like five or six of these different examples. You don't have to just choose one. No, in fact, you're better off not choose one.

Yeah, in a perfect world, we blend these together. Like, I would love to have a client who's only three days a week, 30 minutes at a time. And one session, I might just focus all on squat and overhead press. That's their whole 30 minutes are those two movements on Monday. And then Wednesday they come in and we hit like a hit circus. You know what I'm saying? And then on Friday, we go back to another single, another compound movement or two for the entire 30 minutes. So in a perfect world, if I only have 30 minutes, I'm actually going to blend almost every one of these things that we're going to go over today and hit is one of the ones that will be attracted by most people and people will gravitate to that

being their main one. But I would caution you and say, I would utilize all the ones we're going to go over today. Yeah, I'm glad you said that. Well, and too, I just think in terms of hate, a lot of people think of just jumping and think of just a plyometric portion of it and doing stuff that's just gonna make you sweat. And so I think that focusing it a little bit more on dumbbells or barbells or weights and doing strength type exercises but being really focused on form with that's a totally different experience.

Yeah, in fact, the maps hit program that we have, I think the most advanced, because it was three levels beginner intermediate events, I believe the advance is like 25 minutes if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. It's all under 30 minutes and it can be very, very challenging. And of course, it's hit training done for us. It's for more of an advance. Yeah, it's slifter. Glad you brought that up too, because I just remind me another mistake that people make with hit is if you train traditionally and then you switch over to like a hit style, a lot of people don't know how to adjust the weight properly because when you are...

No, way down. Yes. When you increase the intensity by that much, you have... And it's hard, especially for my guys that are listening that now transition. Now transition is... You go check. Yeah, it's like if you're used to, you know, barbell bench pressing 225, it's real hard to tell someone to put 90 pounds, you know,

and go do that on the barbell bench. I'd say you cut the weight at least in half. Yeah, that's why I said that, you know, at least in half, or more. I mean, I think I just did this not that long ago. We talked about a GVT training. And I was like, oh, I haven't done that a long time. And I'm talking about bench, I was like, you know, that's, by the way, that's one 10 sets of 10, right?

It's not like a crazy circuit where you're doing a ton of work, but just that much volume on the single exercise with pretty short rest periods in between, I was blown away by how much I had to reduce the weight. So, and I can comfortably work out with 225 on bench, and I had to drop down to 35 pounds on each side, which was very humbling even for me to do that. It took me a long time to get beyond

and never look back past 45s. Thank God we got those plates that are all the same size. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, look like the same. It was just a little bit better. But yeah, so no, when you're doing hit and the circuit type base,

you have to be very mindful of form and technique. And in order to do that, reducing the weight and I always encourage people to go way, like at least 50% or less at first, you can always scale up later on. You can always add more weight later on. Totally.

Now there's a big myth surrounding short workouts, these 30 minute workouts, that yeah, they work for the average person, it's better than nothing, but I want to build a lot of muscle, I'm advanced, like this is gonna be a total waste of time. Here's the funny thing about that. Number one, some of the most winningest body builders

of all time, trained within this time limit. Believe it or not, not because they were constrained by the time limit, but rather, they figured out a way to work out, it was so effective, but so intense, that more than 30 minutes wasn't even beneficial. So Mike Menser is one example. He created what's called heavy duty type training.

And what he did is he dramatically reduced the volume of his workouts and would just increase the intensity. So rather than, you know, doing nine sets or 15 sets for chest, he would do two or three sets, but to failure, maybe throwing some partials, right? Dornian Yates, six time, Mr. Olympia, his workouts didn't last longer than 45 minutes, sometimes and often less than 30 minutes, but he wasn't doing, you know, let's say the average body builder was doing four exercises and they're doing five sets of each

exercise for 20 sets. Dornian Yates was still doing four exercises, but it was one set to all out failure for each exercise. Isn't Arnold who famously said that he could come in and do one set or one exercise that's more effective than someone's entire workout? Didn't you say that one? I don't know if it was Arnold said that. I mean, Arnold was very big on the volume.

And by the way, there's value in volume two and value. But my point with this is that if you never train this way, if you're an hour long workout person and you do lots of volume and sets and angles, try instead of this, try instead of doing multiple sets of multiple exercises, do one set to failure, and if you're advanced, maybe a little bit beyond failure, maybe have a spotter give you a four strap

or do a couple of partial reps at the end or rest pause where you actually rack it rest for 10 seconds trying to the rep or two. You'll only need one set to equal what you did before with three or four sets. And it's such a short period. I did this. This is one of the workouts I do. So give me an example of what that looks like protocol wise. So does that mean there is no warming up with server. So let's say I don't know if you did bench press today or not, but let's say you did bench press. You know, give me an idea of one, what kind of way you normally move in a workout and then two, what is setting the bar look up,

look like and what is that one set look like? So let's say I'm going to do upper body. So we won't even save the entire upper body, right? So I'll come in and let's say the first exercise I'm going to do is bench press. I'll do a warmup set of bench press or two until I feel like I'm ready to go. Okay. Then one really, really light. Yeah, light and I feel like I'm ready to go. Then I'll load it up and let's just say I put 225 on and then I'll go to failure. You know, maybe 12 reps and then maybe I'll try like a half rep at the end or a rest pause, rep or two. That's it for bench, but now I'm fully warmed up with chest.

Now the next exercise is flies. I go to failure, one set with flies. Oh, so you are still staying in the same muscle group. You're not moving to another set. No, and then I'll go to back. Now I'm ready to do my back. I'll do one warm-up set. Now I'm ready to go.

Failure-on pull-ups. Then when I'm ready for my bar-bar-bar-row, failure-on-bar-bar-row. So now by this point, my shoulders, biceps, and triceps are all pretty damn warm. So now I can jump right into a set of failure to overhead press, a set of failure for rear flies, then biceps and triceps, pick your bicep and triceps exercise, do the same thing. 30 minutes, I worked out my entire upper body, very high intensity, very low volume.

Now this isn't something that you can do indefinitely, so you can't just do your work, by the way, like what Adam said earlier, you wanna mix and match what we're talking about. But this is one way to do like a body building style work out in a very short period of time. Those are your two variables, right? You have volume or intensity, and you can crank one up like substantially or the other. And that's a good way to then reduce the time length

to really make a big impact on the body. Totally. Now I have a pretty good idea of why you did this, but I want you to explain to the audience so they enter, because you quickly went over that. For the chest in the back, you picked two exercises that you did, and then for like arms, you're doing, or shoulders, or other things,

you're only doing one. No, well, shoulders I did too, biceps and triceps just one. Okay, yeah, because, I mean, you're getting some bicep, I mean, when I'm going to fail, you're going to point that out. That's how it's pulled up, yes.

Right, so you chose to do, you know, two big exercises for the big muscle groups, like the chest, the back, the shoulders. And then for bison tries, which are all involved in every pushing and pulling movement that you do, you're getting those anyways with air, so there's no need for you to do two exercises on that all. Yeah, because when you fail with a pull up,

it's your back fails, but so's your biceps. Yeah. Right? So you're getting a set somewhat for biceps as well. And if you were to train this way, let's say for a couple of weeks, you would recommend sounds like a upper body Monday, lower body Wednesday, upper body Monday, lower body Monday, and then you alternate back or from that. Yeah, so you could do it that way or you could do, let's say if you do the three-day

week routine and you want to hit each body part maybe once in that week Which is more heavy duty. It's a little even less frequency It would be like chest shoulders triceps back biceps and legs and abs maybe and then your set So Monday Wednesday Friday, but you could do the split however you want I think you probably want to stick to no more than maybe four body parts. Yeah, but it's the intensity is that's important on this Yeah, and the low volume. But the time frame is short and believe me, this is advanced, but it's one of the more advanced ways

of doing this 30 minute workout or less, you do what you are taxed afterwards. I mean, 25 minutes and you're done. It feels like you did your hour workout, but you did it. Well, yeah, because you're basically taking every exercise to failure. So you're done.

Absolutely. Now, this next one is also kind of a bodybuilder inspired short workout. Milo Sarche, I think what's his last name? Sarche, I think he was a bodybuilder in the 90s. Now he's still coaching bodybuilders. He's a big fan of what to call these complexes. And what he does is he'll or giant sets. He'll take maybe three or four exercises and do them in succession, but their body part part focused and they're pump focused. So if you only have 30 minutes, this is a great way to bring up a lagging body part.

So I only got 30 minutes today, you know, my lagging body part is my glutes. Pick four exercises, mix up compound and isolation movements and do one after another for six to eight reps each. Heavy, of course, this is all relative because it's not gonna be very heavy compared to what you normally do because you're doing one after another for six to eight reps each. Heavy is, of course, this is all relative because it's not gonna be very heavy compared to what you normally do because you're doing one after another.

But the pump you get from doing this is ridiculous. It's absolutely intense and insane. One of the most crazy pumps I've ever got is doing something like this. So let's build an example complex that would look like. So we're all on the same page. So pick a muscle. So you would do just one muscle in that 30 minute workout?

Okay, one muscle and then one four exercise complex. And then you go back to back to back to back and then you rest after the circuit, right? And then do it again. Okay. Yeah, so let's say it's shoulders. Let's say that's your weak body part. I would do overhead press.

The compound first. Yes, usually, right? So I go overhead press, standing lateral, rear fly, and then maybe at the end, I'll throw under the compound in there, but real light, like an upright row, and then arrest, and then do it again. And you do maybe three rounds of that. You're done in literally 20 minutes.

Yeah, I would actually, so I did this for a while. Some very, very similar to that with clients when I was doing some of these 30-minute sessions. And I was able to get two muscle groups done like that. Yeah, you could. I would pick two, while, some very, very similar to that with clients when I was doing some of these 30-minute sessions. And I was able to get like two muscle groups done like that. Yeah, you could. So I would pick like two, I would be, you know, buys and tries would be my two, I do two, four, you know. Especially if you're not used to it, man,

it'll fry that muscle. Totally. Yeah, yeah, you don't need, and I'll do this for legs. Well, honestly, I recommend it. I think there's more value in doing it for the big muscle groups. Like I think chest, back legs, I like doing stuff like this.

And I would have the first exercise be like a big movement. And then the other three smaller movements. Starts to kind of taper off intensity wise. Yeah, like, I mean, you get a crazy workout. I mean, you literally did like squats, leg extensions, leg curls, calf raises. And you did a little circuit like that. Oh, you're done. Woo-hoo, yeah.

Three rounds. Yeah, three rounds. Yeah, yeah. And the pump is the focus on this. And again, bodybuilders used to call this giant sets, you know, aren't at least to do this back in the day. Lots of, like I said, Milo Sarchev does this now with his train, with his bodybuilders that he coaches. So what does the rep range look like for this?

And like, I mean, we're going for volume. 10 to 15 at least. 10 to 15, or you could do what I like to do. Sometimes it's pick, have you? Well, again, it's all relative, but I'll do like six to eight reps of each. Because remember, it's a giant set. So if I did that, that's what I would do

is six to eight reps for the big movement. And then the higher reps. They have the higher reps for the other. So you got one set that you're getting taxed pretty good, like on a squat, that would be six to eight reps. And then I do all those other ones, like extensions, like curls, calf raises, those are 10 to 10 reps.

Well, this is where sometimes you'll see people with the quote unquote, finishers, like at the end where they're doing, like basically to failure, like as many reps, almost like an amrap approach at the end. Yes, yes. Now, this next point I think is real important because in my experience, people who say

they only have 30 minutes, or sometimes last 15 minutes to work out, often to have that time every single day. So what I mean by that is they'll say to me, I can't do a full hour workout. I don't have any day of the week where I can dedicate an hour and hour and hour and hour and hour and hour and hour.

But I could definitely do like 20 minutes a day, or 30 minutes a day, or 15 minutes a day. If you do the math, that's like an hour and a half to three, you know, three, three and a half hours a week. So you could literally do an hour, three day a week workout, or you could do 30 minutes, six days a week. And you could split everything up. There's actually a tremendous value.

It's similar to what you've talked about with splitting it up in a day, right? Like there's so much value in even a 15 minute workout done six days a week. You could make the case that a six day a week, 15 minute workout is better than a 3, 30 minute or 45 minute workout. Because you're just doing something every single day.

The benefits of what you're gonna get energy to throughout the rest is. Why does response better? Because it's learning these movements frequently. And it's not something that you're waiting a long period of time in between to then reapply and try to add intensity to. It's like we're just constantly kind of reinforcing that this movement is important.

It's also interrupting every single day with some physical, some vigorous physical activity where you could easily have, yeah, great phenomenal 30 minute, 60 minute workout one day. And then the next day you're sedentary all day. And I would make the argument that that type of person who has a job like that would actually benefit more from 15 minutes on Monday, and also 15 minutes on Tuesday, then real intense on Monday,

nothing on Tuesday whatsoever. There's a lot more benefits. And it's funny, there's studies that even hint towards that this might even provide a better physiological benefit. Like there's studies that compare, you know, like, you know, two 30 minute cardio sessions versus one one hour one, or three or four, 15 minute workouts versus one one hour one.

And they've actually find that there's a, it trends towards better results with the more frequent shorter workouts. Now I used to do this all the time for new parents, new parent clients. This, I'll have like people all the time for new parents, new parent clients. Yeah. This, I'll have like people's a great hack. Oh, yeah, like moms, you know, like new moms would hire me

and oh my god, you know, an hour's impossible. My baby naps for, if I'm lucky for 35 minutes before they got a nursekin. And I'd say, here's what we're gonna do. You're gonna do 15 to 20 minutes every single day. And you're gonna pick like two exercise and just do it every single day. And the funny thing is when they would do it,

they'd come to me and be like, I think I like this better than what I was doing before. It's worth a try. Well, to Justin's point, the adaptation process has to be better because of that, because of the frequency that you're doing something. And then you gotta think also the benefits

of the heart rate and calorie burn. If you are sedentary and you're almost at a resting heart rate all day long as you sit at a desk and you interrupt that for 15 minutes, you're, you, you're, it takes a while before that heart rate comes all the way back down to its resting. And in fact, and I know you guys can attest to this too,

I always notice when I create any sort of, this is what I loved about trigger sessions. If I was sitting on the couch, I do this little trigger session workout, I noticed that afterwards, I'm, now I'm doing dishes, I'm, I'm just, I want to be more active. So subconsciously, it's not like I'm like making myself be more active, it's that I interrupted this,

you know, sitting on the couch or sitting in a desk for hours with some sort of activity because I did that. Now I'm more likely to do other physical things and that's like one of the behavior benefits that it's subconsciously, you don't even realize from that. It's weird, it feels like it's like charging your battery. Like, I swear, it's like these little like energy chargers because if you've ever done just a few reps and like got a nice little pump, but then you know you can do like a lot

more, but then you stop and then you go do something else and then you come back to it. It's like, oh my god. It's so strange like the phenomenon around. Yeah, and we can't overstate the psychological benefit, right? There's a there's a profound, just like immediate mood lift, there's this increased production of catacolomines, which is why you feel energized. Dopamine and serotonin tend to write, you feel better.

So daily short workouts versus infrequent longer workouts, in my personal opinion, the psychological benefit, the mood lift, the energy boost, the just just making you feel better in general is better from the daily short workouts. And this was the feedback that I would get from. Well, and it's less daunting. I mean, how many times have either you personally are seeing clients where they're just like, ah, you know, I wasn't going to go workout, but now in my time, I don't have, I got hurry

to rush here and right there. I now I don't have my 60 minute window. And so also, they just say, no, I'm not going to do anything. It's like, it's less daunting to know that I just need to go do this one thing or just 15 minutes. I can squeeze 15 or 30 minutes in. So I think the mental part of that, too, is that it's... I had a guy that reminds me of this guy that he's trained,

who, I don't remember what happened exactly, but he, this was him. He used to train two or three days a week for an hour, and then it became impossible to do that. And so he bought a pull-up bar that he put in his doorway, some resistance bands, couple adjustable dumbbells, and then he had like this dip station. And he started doing 20 minute workouts every single day. And I would see him every once in a while.

I trained this guy like once, maybe twice a month, if it worked. And during our workouts, I'm reevaluating his sessions and what we can do and all that stuff. And he was getting better results this way. He actually got better, he built more muscle in burn more body fat doing this. This is these short 20 minute workouts

where he had his stuff set up right over there. He would just jump over there, do some dips, do some pull ups. Just get it when you can get it. Totally, totally. Now this next one I know you guys are, especially you Justin, a big fan of. his stuff set up right over there he would just jump over there do some dips do some pull ups get it when you can get it totally totally now this next one i know you guys are especially you just a big fan of and i started now putting this into my routine is a permanent thing which is making that 30 minute time window a mobility focus and you can do amazing things in 30 minutes for mobility. And then that improved mobility will contribute so much to all the other workouts you do with great arranges of motion, better connection,

and just getting more out of your workouts. And I think that's something people tend to neglect. So oftentimes, like, I got 30 minutes. I totally neglected it. That's why I became an evangelist because I didn't realize like how good your body could feel if you really incorporate this into your programming. And it's really just even hyper focus on it because it's always an afterthought. It's always been

a warm up or a cool down. We always kind of know like, yeah, that's probably a good thing to do. But to really focus on those types of movements that really help the joints to function well, the feel supported to, you know, to really address any kind of imbalance or anything going on, it has massive benefit and carryover to anything else you want to do to build on top of that. So to really break it down to one complete focus of how I can make my joints really challenge my range of motion and dive into it, there's just so much value there. Well, this is the motivation between the webinar I did.

This was the motivation behind why I stopped doing boot camps and I transitioned into this one day a week mobility flow session that I built for these clients was I had this point where I noticed that I had mostly advanced age. So most people were 15 above that I was training. Most of them wanted fat loss, feel better, joint pain, you know, general clients that we would train.

And I was running them through bootcamp style. You know, they were doing the warrior ropes and the ladders and the flip and the tires and like circuit base and running and like I was doing the things that burned the most amount of calories in the short period of time. And that's the thought process for me as a trainer back then was, oh, I only have an hour to two hours a week with these people. I'm going to do the things that burned the most amount of calories and hit the most amount of muscles. So I was thinking that's the biggest bang. But as I looked, you know, years later of doing this and I looked back at my clients and like, none of their bodies really changed that much, still complaining

about the same aches and pains that they were the first day they met me two years before. And I thought, you know what, even though a mobility hour is not gonna build the most muscle, is not gonna burn the most body fat, it is the most beneficial thing I could possibly do for this collective group. It completely changed the way I looked at these sessions.

And then later on, I started to get a little older and have the same thing and realize, and it's hard, right? It's hard for especially trainers and young trainers and fit people to recognize that like, okay, yes, that type of a session is not going to build the most muscle and burn the most body fat, but you could make the case that is the best thing that that person could possibly need. And if you have any sort of chronic pain whatsoever or dysfunction or the inability to squat or the inability to overhead press or do things that are very basic and functional, if you can't do those things, this becomes more important than building the most muscle or burning the most body fat. And I think for trainers, like the difficulty there is like trying, they think that they're

trying to have to sell these people on this, like it's the most boring idea they've ever heard until they actually do it and feel the difference of it and how challenging it could really be. And this is something that if you really, you know, take the chance to apply this and like introduce your clients to that type of training. They'll feel it right away.

Change the first session. That's what I love about this. So sure, it won't build as much muscle and burn as much body fat, but believe it or not, that takes weeks of months and consistency and dieting and for that to all pan out anyways, where you could build a session for 30 minutes that's completely focused around mobility and the way they walked in will feel completely different than the way they walk out. Like, if you're a trainer or a pan at listening right now, that's a very powerful tool for getting that client to continue and then overall changing their lives.

And there's two things I want to comment on. One is in the moment, it's not building the most muscle and burning the most body. That's right. But because of what it does for you, it allows you to build more muscle and burn more body fat with the other workouts. So they are, when it's something that benefits you,

it does lead to better gains and better fat loss as well. And then the second point is, here's what's funny. I remember when I started doing this with my clients and I thought, oh, I'm gonna have to convince them and I'm gonna have to talk about it. This very quickly became the most requested type of workout. Very quickly, this is the one most requested workout where clients would call me up and be like,

hey, Sal, can we do just mobility-focused today because I'm not feeling very good or my back kind of hurts or I'm kind of tired. And they love the way they felt. And the proof is literally in the pudding. Like do this and then you'll see for yourself just how valuable this is for everything else. When you move better, all you're the workouts and more effective. That's literally the ball. Well, and a giving an example, what that, I mean, I experienced that with my squat depth. Because of all the time and energy that I put on my ankle mobility and my hip mobility, sure I was squatting way less weight, way less as frequent. But when I returned back to squatting and increased my frequency, I was getting way more out of squatting with way less weight and

way less frequency, because I now increase my depth, let's say, six to eight more inches, and that greater range of motion ended up building more muscle with less effort. So that's where that carries over into other exercises. Totally. Now, this last one took me a long time to really understand as a trainer, because I never really put a lot of value into what I'm going to talk about until I started to really see the value with my clients and then it

with myself. And that's that sometimes you only have 30 minutes. Do something recreational that's active that you enjoy, like walking or hiking or taking your dog for a walk or doing some stretching outside or some mobility work outside. I remember I had this one lady that I trained, she was a surgeon and she was a high performing intense woman. She was phenomenal, one of the best around

and I loved her, I loved talking to her and listening to her cases and all that stuff. And sometimes she'd have to cancel her sessions because she was on call, something happened. Oh no, I can't make the full workout. And then when she would come in for her next workout, I would ask, did you end up doing anything? So yeah, actually just, I went for a 30 minute walk

or I did a hike for 25 minutes. She had a trail that was near her house. And she said, you know what, Sal, she goes, the emotional and mental benefit I get from doing that is so valuable to me that, you know, I thought to myself, I'm wasting my time because I'm not meeting with Sal and training. She's like, but I realized doing this is extremely valuable.

I would just be like, oh, I only got 25 minutes. Let me go for a walk outside and she would tell me, oh my God, I'm so glad I did that. Well, and this kind of pulls it full circle from what we were talking about in the very beginning of like, you know, where it's not about use the trainer all the time. Once you really start to realize like this has, this is something that this client really enjoys.

It has value because they're moving, they're being active, they're expressing their body, they're getting sunlight, you know, maybe from hiking or, you know, there's all these other added benefits, psychological benefits, you know, de-stressing benefits to this type of a mentality. So you want to be able to provide that like, no, you're not wasting time. This is something that is, you know, a great thing to do and to focus on if you only have 30 minutes. I always feel like an old man now when I talk about how much I love this strategy. And it's because it's so opposite of how it's old with wise. That's really wise.

It's wisdom. And it's so true what you're saying, Justin, is that you, it's such an easy place to meet your client because it's not, either one, they're doing something already love swimming, hiking stuff that they're into. So you're not asking for a big commitment or even if it's just going for a nice little walk or hike outside, it's not really strenuous.

You don't need a ton of energy to get up and do that. commitment, or even if it's just going for a nice little walk or hike outside, it's not really strenuous. You don't need a ton of energy to get up and do that. So it's an incredible way to build momentum for a client to eventually come back to you and say, hey, you know what? I know I told you I only have 30 minutes, but I now have more time. And that's what you see happens when you meet a client to where they're at and you start with stuff like this. Even though we're not, again, building the most muscle

you possibly can in 30 minutes or burning the most body fat, it's the psychological piece, it's the behavioral piece that we're attacking with doing something like this. And if you can convince these clients that there's tremendous value and them just getting out there and at least moving

for 30 minutes a day like that or three times a week, it's a great place to start a lot of people and then eventually build the race. Yes, and I mean, there's a lot of different ways to utilize this to gain value. You can even meditate. I think the point of this last one is literally that

something is better than nothing and to not get into the mentality of, oh crap, my time got away from me. I've only got 25 minutes. I guess I'm gonna do nothing. You can do something, and in this case, do something that you enjoy that involves your health, which meditation does that as well.

Actually, I had a client that used to do that. She would have 20 minutes, and I'd say, why not practice meditation? She was obviously a very high stress individual. And she's like, I saw so much value. I would just meditate for 15 or 20 minutes and get tremendous. So the key here is you've got a little bit of time, do something for your health within that time that you enjoy, right? Something that you enjoy. And by the way, doing things that you

enjoy, because you enjoy them, that alone has got value. There's a lot of value in doing 25 minutes of something that you enjoy doing that is good for your health. And it really, in this case, kind of doesn't matter what it is, so long as it positively impacts your health. And in a perfect world, we literally take all of these. We take all of these and we blend it over the course of a month or two months. Totally. I mean, there's so much value in each one of these that if I am restricted as a trainer

where a client says, hey, I've only got 30 minutes, three, four times a week, that's all I got, I'm not going to just gravitate towards one of these things. I'm going to incorporate all of them because they all have their own own benefits and carry over to whatever their goals make. In fact, you will get better results if you do it that way. Not just physically, that's true. You'll get physically better results, but psychologically and mentally, you'll get better results. If you just hammer one of these, every single time you work out tends to get stale,

the body stops to respond, and we said this earlier in this episode, the one that people tend to gravitate towards, especially the results oriented people, is the most intense one that we talked about, which was probably hit. So like, all right, 30 minutes to hit, every single time I work out, your body adapts very quickly and starts to produce too much stress on the body and you stop getting results.

So of all these things that we just talked about, if you're one of those people where you often run into this problem where you only have 30 minutes to work out, go down the list each time. In fact, I recommend you have a list in front of you of all these things that we talked about. And I'll go through them right now. There's a single focus, like the one or two exercises. There's hit style training. There's that heavy duty or a bledding guts. Kind of, I said that mic men's are

during eight style workout. There's that body part focused complex, right? Where you do three or four exercises, just for a body part to get a crazy pump. You also don't forget you can do 15 minute workouts every single day or 30 minute workouts every single day and get that value.

You can do a mobility session or you could just do something you enjoy. Go down the list of all of these, each time you have limited time and what you'll find is you'll get excellent results, you'll get the gains that you're looking for, you'll get the fat loss that you're looking for and you'll be surprised.

Keep that momentum going. You will be surprised at how great your results are. Look, if you like our information, you'll love the fat loss that you're looking for, and you'll be surprised. Keep that momentum going. You will be surprised at how great your results are. Look, if you like our information, you'll love MindPumpFree.com. So head over there, check out all of our free guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any fitness or health goal. You can also find all of us on Instagram. So Justin is at MindPump Justin. I'm at MindPump Sal and Adam is at MindPump Adam.

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