Yep, I said it.
Stronger and faster in 25 minutes, or less! No, I am not trying to hop on the infomercial bandwagon where they keep shortening the length of the DVD to keep the masses entertained.
No, I’ll tell you upfront that what I am about to propose will be grueling, and some of the toughest workouts you can accomplish. But I am the human guinea pig here at End of Three Fitness and I have found something that works great AND can be done in a short amount of time. My fitness is a product of my lifestyle. I need to be really fit, but I have very limited time…so what do we do about this??
How about you? Do you ever feel like you simply do not have enough time to fit fitness into your daily routine?
Life is busy.
On any given day you have a commute, work, family, friends, schedules, appointments and all the other everyday “life†stuff we cram into our routines. And despite all we have to do, and our busy schedules, we still need enough time for an adequate amount of sleep, proper nutrition and efficient workouts
How can we accomplish it all?
You can do one of two things. You can either say, “I don’t have time”, for all that and give upyou can let your health and fitness take the back seat and see where you end up.
Or you can play by Rule #76:
- No excuses. Play like a champion.
Personally, I am a Rule #76 type of guy, and I like to think if you read End of Three Fitness, you are too.
If you haven’t noticed, I am kind of a time-efficiency nerd. I have written on this subject a few times:
- Be a Fitness Efficiency Ninja, or How to Apply the 80/20 Principle to your Training
- Hacking Your Way to Productivity: Better Human Lesson #47
Today, we have a new technique to try, please welcome the Pomodoro Technique.
What is the Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro Technique was created by Francesco Cirillo, and “pomodoro” is the italian word for tomato.
There actually isn’t a super cool story on why this technique is named after tomatoes other than the fact that Francesco, let’s call him Frank, was experimenting with ways to become more efficient when working/studying and he used a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato to do so.
What Frank came up with is rather simple.
You work and break in set intervals:
- Specifically, you work for 25 minutes (a “pomodoroâ€), then take a break for five minutes.
To further his technique, after four “pomodoros†have passed, (100 minutes of work time with 15 minutes of break time) you then take a 15-20 minute break.
Every time you finish a pomodoro, you mark your progress with an “Xâ€, and note the number of times you had the impulse to procrastinate or switch gears to work on another task for each 25-minute chunk of time.
It’s a pretty awesome technique, and I actually used it to write this blog postup to this point in the article I am at one pomodoro.
I know what you are sayingJerred, that’s great if I am answering email, studying for an exam or working on a projectbut HOW DOES IT APPLY TO FITNESS??
Glad you asked!
And honestly, I don’t think anyone else has applied the pomodoro technique to fitness, so I will go ahead and coin it as “Pomodoro Training†which literally means tomato trainingwhich makes no senseI digress, moving on!
How Does the Pomodoro Technique Apply to Fitness
First, let’s talk about strengthmy favorite. (the above picture links to a video of “freedom” deadlifts I did on the fourth of July, or click here to watch)
I am just as busy as the next guy juggling my responsibilities as a father, husband, employee, coach, athlete, etc.
So if I want to maintain a high-level of fitnessI’m talking high-level, not average or adequate, but good enough to feel comfortable telling thousands of people each week what my thoughts, theories and opinions are on training I have to have a LASER FOCUS on my training.
I keep experimenting with getting more and more efficient and I am trying to find where a lack of time starts to hurt my progress or results, and I am telling you I am finding you can achieve amazing things in very limited time.
For instance, I am still on my quest to lift 1,000,000 pounds for Project Barbell and I have been shaving more and more time off of my strength training to where I can actually fit the entire session into a “pomodoroâ€, or 25 minutes or less….and I am still getting great results.
Why? Well, most of you know I strictly follow One Man One Barbell and its methods, and NO this is not a sales pitch, I simply practice what I preach, or rather, preach what I practice. Anyway, I got a great idea to do dynamic efforts at every 45 seconds on the second and now even every 30 seconds on the second from Louie Simmons from Westside Barbell, and while I don’t follow his program at all, this shortened rest times has been huge.
So back to the “Why?â€, to put it simply I am lifting more in less time, which makes me faster, which makes me stronger. To be more specific in my past deadlift workout I was able to move 15, 210 pounds of volume in 20 minutes.
Some could try to argue against this method, but I have yet to hit a plateau…I’ll go with what works, not theory.
I do a few heavy sets then I do fast lifts (dynamic efforts) every 30 seconds. I start a running clock at 30 seconds and if it takes me 6 seconds to do 4 reps, I have 24 seconds to rest before the next set.
I don’t want to get any further into the weeds there because I am already probably boring some of you by talking about volume in time.
The main takeaway: You can get stronger in a small amount of time.
The only tradeoff here is FOCUS. If you are only going to be doing something for 20-25 minutes you need to eliminate all distractions. Turn off your phone, don’t waste time talking, and don’t worry about writing down your workout or anything that distracts you until your pomodoro is up.
Now, conditioning.
I always enjoy metabolic conditioning like we have posted on the Daily Workout site, End of Three Fit, but another tool I have become a HUGE fan of is the 30/30 interval, or 30 seconds of work followed by 30 seconds of rest.
Yes, that is the exact same thing I am doing with my strength training dynamic effortshmm kind of weird, right?
While I would love to run for an hour straight (not really) after my strength training everyday, because I know there a ton of benefits from doing steady-state long endurance workoutsI just don’t have the time.
But I want the results!
So if you are like me and want to be strong AND fit, but you don’t have the time to focus on both for long periods, the goal is to find the best balance possible. Well, a little research will turn up that interval training such as the 30 seconds of work followed by 30 seconds of rest can be used as an alternative approach to steady-state exercise training but with less time commitment, and will yield very similar results in overall VO2 MAX training.
And, these intervals will kick your butt!
Try this one:
It can be rowing, running, air dyne, swimming and you goal is about 90% efforts.
- 6 rounds of 30 seconds on 30 seconds off
- Rest 3minutes
- 6 rounds of 30 seconds on 30 seconds off
- Rest 3 minutes
- 6 rounds of 30 seconds on 30 seconds off
Yep, that’s just 24 minutes and you will be SHOT! Of course you can do one 6 minute bout, or two, but no more than three to fit it in the pomodoro time frame.
So give it a try!
Try some time-based dynamic efforts for strength training, rest five minutes, then move to the above 30/30 interval session.
That will equate to 60 minutes of training or two pomodoros, with rest. If you don’t have time for both, try one pomodoro of strength today and then tomorrow do one pomodoro of interval training.
Really, it doesn’t matter. You will see amazing results from following this protocol!
What do you think? Will you try some pomodoro training??
Here’s to getting Stronger, Faster and Harder to Kill in less time!!
-Jerred
P.S. – You can read more about the Pomodoro Technique here and here, and a really simple-to-use pomodoro timer can be found here.