Efficiency

Part 2: Strategies at the Gym

Mark Brown

March 24, 2022

Last time I wrote about three things powerlifting has taught me over the last year to help me become more efficient at the gym. This entry will be about strategies that can be used at the gym or in a private facility to help attain that efficiency. A couple of those strategies were already baked into part 1 of this topic. Those will be fleshed out more fully in this post. The goal of today’s entry is to help you, the reader, to become a more efficient lifter in the gym both in terms of time and effectiveness.

Time is important but it is far from the most important aspect of efficiency in the gym. I compare it to cooking a brisket or a pork shoulder in the smoker. Timing is important but both pieces of meat are done when they’re done, not “after 10 hours” or “after 12 hours.” That kind of knowledge can only be learned after someone has done enough of them to know. A lifting session is the same. A lifter is done lifting when they’re done. That can be seen through many tell tale signs: Energy is gone, muscles are cramping, motivation to continue is lost, discipline has broken down, etc. There really are too many to count. Just don’t let one of them be “the headphones died.” That’s really, really stupid. Seriously. That said, 4 hour marathon lifting sessions should really never happen unless one is a competitor. My leg/back lifting sessions take right on about 2.5 hours to complete. Tuesday is about an hour long because it’s all isolation based accessories. My Wednesday chest/shoulder day took 90 minutes. My weekend chest/shoulder workout took about 2.5 hours because it is far heavier than the Wednesday one. In the past, all of these lifting sessions have been longer than they currently do. Programming the main lift – supplemental lifts – accessory lifts way has helped simplify my plan and help me get what I need out of my program. It helped me strategize ways to help get around what commercial gyms do best, which is kill a workout’s momentum.

The first strategy I will address is one that I had heard about from listening to Dave Tate on a podcast talking about accessories. This happened in about October of 2021 and his verbalizing it helped me see what I was doing with my lifting plan for last fall. He said “and there are some people out there who only do supplemental lifts.” I was not quite doing that but I was very close to it. A couple weeks after that I found that I was not getting enough rest because the training had amped up to the “peak phase” and I just couldn’t keep lifting five days a week at that intensity. I dropped one of the days of lifting and eliminated all accessory work at that time. That had 1 major effect on how I trained. I had to choose my best, most helpful lifts and eliminate ones that were less so, at least for the time being. Isolation based accessory lifts just weren’t necessary to do at that point. Eliminating that from the program saved time and energy to work on the lifts I needed to the most. Of course, the downside of leaving them aside for the time being was that my muscular development didn’t improve as much. My current program, which utilizes 8 – 10 or more low rep sets done every 2-3 minutes at it’s core, benefits from the elimination of all upper body accessory work done on power movement days by allowing me to use all of my energy consciously for only the power movements. Strength training is not only about the lifts, the body, the plan, the central nervous system but it’s also about the mental development. Being able to stay mentally on task is just as important as the lifts themselves.

The second also involves those accessories. Commercial gyms are also great, besides what I already mentioned above, at helping people do accessory lifts. Cable towers, dumbbells, machines and a whole host of other gym equipment are all there to help isolation movements. Most commercial gyms are populated mostly by people who are more concerned about muscular development than moving weight. Some go as far to prevent powerlifting of any kind to be done on premises. I’m happy to report that Genesis Health Clubs isn’t one of those. Accessory lifts, like curls and push downs, are done very easily in a short amount of time because they require almost no rest between sets. That makes them ideal to be done at the end of lifting sessions or on their own day. What that means, however, is that these lifts have some of the highest competition for equipment in the entire gym. The best way to make an accessory day efficient is to have a plan of ideal lifts with alternatives at the ready, if necessary. Accessory day isn’t the time to be waiting on equipment.

The third way to make one more efficient at the gym is to choose times that are conducive to being able to execute the program that is being done. This one is a lot easier to say than do in reality because of the responsibilities one may have in their personal life. Commercial gyms make doing a program difficult because lifts are designed to be done in the order they are listed. If this wasn’t the case, the program would be written differently. Commercial gyms are also notoriously limited on the necessary equipment to help people get things done in the order that they are listed. That means competition for equipment will be higher at various times throughout the week. I gave the example of Mondays being both “International Bench Press Day” and “International Leg Day” in the entry about my ideal lift order. One has to go to the gym and figure other what other people do and when they do it to help find the best time to lift. “People watching” is an important part of a lifter’s responsibility to their own program and their ability to complete it as intended. Unplanned lifting will have positive effects. I know that because I did it for the first 5 years of my lifting life. However, planning and programming is what will get the best and most long lasting results. Choosing the time that best helps this get done is one of the first steps.

A fourth way to become more efficient in the gym is every bit as obvious as the last one. It’s also much easier to say than actually do, as well. Using as little equipment as possible is the best and easiest advice I have for being efficient in the gym. This combines a few of the elements of above listed strategies. The first part of the strategy involves a lifter finding 4 to 5 of the best lifts per session then figuring out how to structure the into one cohesive plan. The second is finding the rhythm the gym to help determine what times will eliminate the heaviest competition for the equipment they need. This plan will help increase the chances of successfully implementing a strength development focused lifting program the way it was intended to be done. This strategy is the one I used over the first 9 weeks of 2022 weeks that helped my program stay on track while I waited out the winter months. The gym has always been a challenge to make it work for me instead of the other way around.

Let me explain in more detail what the last strategy involves. Monday at Genesis is dominated by people doing chest, shoulder and/or accessory work. That left the open racks available for squats, deadlifts, weightlifting and other stuff that involves using more space. The only way my Monday plan could be more efficient time wise is if I did less sets. I grabbed a power bar and put it on an open rack or pick an open rack that has one already in it, stretched/warmed up, put a bumper plate on the inside followed by the smaller octagonal plates the gym has and began my squat routine. Once that was finished 12-16 sets later, I pulled off plates until I got down to 225 on the bar, lifted the bar into the front rack position then let it drop to the floor and proceeded with my deadlift section. Those 2 lifts alone take 1.5 to 1.75 hours to complete because there are so, so many sets of them. Once deadlift is completed I did 4 sets of barbell rows then, power cleaned the bar back up to the rack to do 3 or 4 sets of barbell good mornings and wiped down the bar. I then walked over to a hopefully empty single leg leg curl machine and finish 3 or 4 sets there before doing seated calf raises on one of the 2 seated leg press machines at the gym. For the first two hours, I used 1 bar in 1 open rack to complete 90% of my lifts for the day before finishing with 2 machines, which could be done in any order because they are accessories. That could not have been more efficient in terms of equipment used and effectiveness. Friday’s leg session was slightly more complicated because the addition of the plate loaded leg press to the day’s plan brought luck more into play. Timing the last set of sumo deadlifts with leg press being free to use can be tricky, but I’m confident it will be ready for me when I need it because understand Genesis well enough. That’s one reason why leg press is done on Friday, not Monday.

Wednesday was the real test of the planning and programming. I could do chest and shoulders on Monday but I would be just one more body in the scrum for flat benches and dumbbells and such. It was so much easier to just wait until Wednesday because when I arrived between 3 and 4 pm the open weight area has at least one flat or adjustable bench available for me to get started with dumbbell press immediately. By the time I was done with that life, my main for the day, one of the two incline bench presses was almost always available. Genesis has 6 connected open racks in one area and all I need is 1 of them for floor pressing. That was sometimes been in issue over the last 4 weeks because the area tends to start filling up around 5 pm. I finished up with a dumbbell shoulder press using 1 of the 2 lumbar benches that were hopefully available after I get done with floor press. Those two benches are popular and have high competition for use every day. The weekend chest/shoulder session was even easier because the gym is quite dead. By learning the gym, I am able to eliminate most of the competition for the equipment I needed.

These strategies have helped me make the commercial gym I lift at work for me. I didn’t expect the winter lifting cycle to go as smoothly as it did because of my past experiences with it. I have powerlifting focused training in the garage over the last 6 months of 2021 to thank for helping me see the areas of improvement in my planning and programming. A lot of what I laid out isn’t anything new but even the oldest understood strategies can be missed if one doesn’t learn the right lessons along the way.