Density training

For all those that think achieving great fitness results means spending hours upon hours in the gym, think again! What if I said you could build muscle and burn fat in just 20 minutes? Well you can, allow me to introduce Density training. Simply put it’s a timed combination between strength training and a metabolic circuit. The loads being used are still quite heavy meaning your still working in the hypertrophy/strength range, but the pace of the workout really ramps up your heart rate keeping you in that fat burning zone.

Tip 1: be a clock hawk

  I like to call on DT’ing sessions when I’m busy and don’t have much time to train, but they also work great if you wanted to use them 3-4 times a week as your main training mode. I also like to use a full body session, as I find the total amount or muscle recruited keeps the heart rate ramped up even more, but you could also use an upper body/ lower body session or a chest and back session etc. When putting together your own full body DT’ing session these rules should be followed:

·         Choose five exercises from the following menu

Exercise	Example
A.      Explosive	Jump squat, box jump, BB snatch
B.       Knee or hip dominant	Front squat, overhead squat, Romanian deadlift
C.      Upper body push	Bench press, DB shoulder press, press-up
D.      Upper body pull	Fat gripz pull-up, DB rows, BB row
E.       Abs	Ab roll out, crunch, lying leg raise

·         Use loads that allow you to reach 8-12 reps per exercise. Make it challenging, but you shouldn’t be missing reps at any point during the workout.

·          Start a stop watch and move from exercise to exercise as fast as you can resting only as much as you need to complete the next set. As a guide you should be aiming for a set per minute.  Do this for a total of 20 minutes.

·         Sessions can be progressed by either adding more weight, more reps or completing more total sets during the 20 minute work period.

For todays DT’ing session the exercises, loads and reps I picked are:

A.      seated pause 30” box jump (0kg/8 reps)

B.      overhead squat (12.5kg/8 reps)

C.       DB bench press (30kg/8 reps)

D.      bent over reverse grip BB row (50kg/8 reps)

E.       valslide pike (0kg/8 reps)

Tip 2: create your own workspace and have all the equipment/ exercises ready to go before your workout begins

In the 20 minute work period I completed 19 sets, that’s almost 4 rounds of the circuit!