SS Fitness

5 components to add into your routine to get the most out of your workouts.

How to get the most out of your workout without completely altering your schedule?

• There are five programming components that you can use to help you elevate your workout and reach your goals most effectively. 
• You may have heard these terms from your favorite fitness influencers or trainers. Still, if you haven’t, I hope I can explain them clearly so you can use them to program a routine, whether you are a trainer programming for a client or creating a routine for yourself. 

The Five components are as follows: 

1. The Intensity 
2. Sets
3. Repetitions
4. Rest Time
5. Tempo

This method improves four main fitness goals. 

1. Muscular Endurance: Overall Endurance Cardiovascular health paired with strength training…
2. Hypertrophy- Muscle growth
3. Power: Explosive Strength
4. Muscular Strength: Overall, Strength

Now, let’s get into what these terms mean, and later, we will dive into how we can use them to our advantage. 

1. The Intensity: Your intensity is a vital component of your workout. Your trainer will measure this by curating a percentage of your one-rep max. Depending on your goals, the weight may be slightly heavier or lighter.
   1. How can I use it? 

• Muscular endurance: 67%
• Muscular Strength 85% or More
• Hypertrophy: 85%
• Power: 75-85%

2. What are Sets? Sets consist of groupings of uninterrupted movement that are repeated to create a certain level of fatigue resistance, which allows the muscle to improve, whether the improvement is muscle growth, power, or endurance.
   1. How can I use it? 

• Muscular Endurance: 1-3 Sets
• Muscular Strength: 3-5 Sets
• Hypertrophy: 3-4 Sets
• Power: 3-5 Sets

3. Repetitions, also called reps, are the pieces that make up the sets. They are often considered repeated complete movements with no rest period in between.
   1. How can I use it? 

• Muscular endurance: 15 or more Reps
• Muscular Strength: 1-6 Reps
• Hypertrophy: 6-12 Reps
• Power: 1-5 Reps

4. Rest Time—Rest time is precisely what it sounds like. It is the period between each set of a current exercise used for muscle recovery and the ability to perform at the highest volume possible.
   1. How can I use it?

• Muscular endurance: 30-60 Seconds
• Muscular Strength: 2-5miniutes
• Hypertrophy: 30-60 Seconds
• Power: 1-5 minutes

What does the different amounts of rest times correlate to

Longer Rest Time—Just like with shorter rest periods, your body can take a moment to recover to have the ability to perform as much exertion as possible. Longer rest periods will also help you increase your overall volume and intensity even further, and it would make sense that for a heavier load (The weight that causes resistance), you would want to lengthen your recovery time. 

Shorter Rest Time– Is incredibly beneficial for a variety of reasons: It helps to promote blood flow, and this helps the body to transfer more oxygen and nutrients to the muscle, which can help lead to quicker muscle recovery and repair: this allows for the body to work harder in each set and recruitment more muscle fibers in a shorter period than if he/she were to neglect to have a period between your sets for recovery, Of course the goal is to fatigue your muscles overall, but you can still do this with having a period to recumbent within the overall workout to keep consistency and prevent burnout. 

I recommend that my clients do their best to track this, whether it be a stopwatch or your phone: you can count in your head that it, in my experience, can be harder to keep track. but do what works for you. Just be careful that you don’t take so long of a rest period that you prevent your muscles from being able to fatigue. It will not make a complete change, but it can help you to reach your goals faster than if you were just to go when you feel like it. Again, this method is only for some, but try it out and see how you like it!

5. Tempo: Tempo is usually used for music, and it’s very similar in workouts. It represents the time your muscles are under tension. It focuses on Cocentractin (muscle shortening), Eccentric Motion(Muscle lengthening), and Isometric( muscle stretching)—this allows your muscle to fatigue under the pressure your body is put under to tear so that later on, it can improve.
   1. How can I use it 

• Muscular endurance: 4:0:6:0
• Hypertrophy: 3:1:3:1
• Maximum Strength: 3:0:1:0
• Power: 4:0:6:0

I hope that helped you a bit! Of course, no program will ever be 100% perfect, but try it out to see what works for you and how you can reach your goals. I will go into some curated programs later on, but for now, I hope this helps you!