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Gym for 30-40 mins. Selling myself short?

Stugatz

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I hit the gym for literally 30-40 mins. I'm in and out. I do 1 muscle group per day with the exception of Mondays which is bis and tris. I do 3-4 sets per workout and 4-5 workouts per muscle group. For example my chest routine might look something like:

-Incline dumbell press 12x12x10x8
-iso-lateral chest press 12x12x10x8
-decline cable presses 12x12x10x10
-machine or cable flys 12x12x10x10

Sometimes I'll only do 3 sets if I feel I've hit it hard enough. I can get all this done in 30 mins. Sometimes I feel like a lot of people train harder than me....maybe not harder, but longer. I've always had a fear of overtraining, whether it's a myth or not, I still try to avoid going over the top. My progress seems to be fine, I'm just wondering if I'm selling myself short by not spending 1-2 hours in the gym destroying my muscles.


***What are your thoughts? I'd like to hear from both sides of the spectrum.....
-the quick and to the point trainers.
-the fanatic spend hours on end and destroy every muscle until you pass out trainers.
 
The key point is progress. I've seen a TON of posts over the years on a LOT of forums regarding time in the gym, the sets and reps people do (but oh so rarely mention the weight) and so on. And while it's very true that someone doing a standard workout and taking two hours for bodybuilding is probably wasting time so would you be if you was lifting too light, getting a nice pump but only taking 40 minutes if nothing happens.

So when you say you feel like your progress is ok what do you mean?
 
if you count playing with the phone, socializing, stalking women, resting between sets, drinking water, saying hi and bye to the person up front, going to bathroom, locking stuff up, etc. then it will run over an hour

nobody truly lifts for an hour straight in a gym setting.

so it depends on how you use those 30-40 minutes.
 
As long as your focusing on progressively overloading the muscle group your training and not just going through the motions, you’ll make progress. Definitely no cookie cutter way to train, just depends on what your personal goals are. If you’re trying to be a professional bodybuilder, your going to have to work pretty damn hard and put in the time. Not going to build a world class physique training for 30 minutes a day. The more work you put into anything, the more you’ll get out.
 
Let me just include my stats for reference:

6'0"
225lbs
12% bf

So there's that for whatever it's worth


The key point is progress. I've seen a TON of posts over the years on a LOT of forums regarding time in the gym, the sets and reps people do (but oh so rarely mention the weight) and so on. And while it's very true that someone doing a standard workout and taking two hours for bodybuilding is probably wasting time so would you be if you was lifting too light, getting a nice pump but only taking 40 minutes if nothing happens.

So when you say you feel like your progress is ok what do you mean?
I definitely don't waste my time with no girly weights, but I'm also not strength training.

I go by feel. If I can easily do more than 12 reps then I up the weight. Some days I will do lighter weight but add more sets to keep the overall volume high. If I feel I need a 4th or 5th or even 6th set, I'll do it. My usual is 4 sets. I won't move on until I am completely exhausted from that particular workout and have hit failure at least once.
One chest workout might look something like this:
DB incline press
100 lbs x 12 or failure
100 lbs x 10 or failure
100 lbs x 8 or failure
85 lbs x absolute failure
Ponder on my last set and ask myself if I'm satisfied.
Possibly another set with 85 lbs to failure.

When I say my progress is ok I mean I'll look at a picture of myself from last year and clearly see that I am bigger, muscles are better shaped, fuller, leaner, stronger, etc. So I'm definitely making progress....I'm just wondering if I could be doing better with more volume or if my routine is just fine and I just happen to use my time more efficient;y than some.

if you count playing with the phone, socializing, stalking women, resting between sets, drinking water, saying hi and bye to the person up front, going to bathroom, locking stuff up, etc. then it will run over an hour

nobody truly lifts for an hour straight in a gym setting.

so it depends on how you use those 30-40 minutes.
I workout alone in a quiet-ish gym. I have my few gym buddies whom I see now and then in the locker room but I think I've inadvertently sent the message that I do not want to stop and talk when i"m out on the weight floor. So I may shoot the shit for 5 mins before or after in the locker room, but when I'm out there it's do a set, 30 sec break (change song, take sip of drink, look around for nice butts) rinse and repeat. My actual workout I can fit in 12-24 total sets in 30-40 mins. Not counting locker room time. I leave feeling like I've worked my muscles hard, and feel is what I go by.
 
45-60 seconds of true time under tension, and running each "working" set to failure, you can certainly get a kickass workout done in 45mins if you focus. If I continue to make gains, then I continue as planned. A lot of guys just move the weights around and do 10-12 reps and call that a workout. It's all about how you move the weights, rather than home much weigh you move. Once a plateau is reached, then it's time to shake things up once again.

For instance, right now, I've really increased my rep ranges to make sure I get 60 seconds of time under tension...really slow painful negatives...the last 3 reps are the money reps.
 
Like Lee Haney said "Stimulate don't annihilate".
No but seriously it depends on what you do in the gym or what's your training split like.
Training longer doesn't mean training harder. I would go as far as saying it most likely doesn't mean harder because you simply cannot train for hours if you push yourself even relatively hard in those working sets.

If the workout consists of big heavy multi joint movements it's gonna take longer to finish everything because each set is gonna wear yourself out so much more.
No one can argue that a set of bicep curls is not even comparable to set of heavy squats or deadlifts and it takes much more longer to recover those exercises.

Last but not least you also have to be smart with what you do. You can't always all the time push everything to the limit because at some point it's gonna set you backwards whether that is an injury or just a stall in your progress. And knowing how important progression is in terms of muscle gain you don't want that to happen.
 
IMO - it's pretty damn hard to properly train a couple muscle groups in 30-40 minutes. It takes me around 10 minutes just to properly warm up.

If it's working for you then keep at it but I recommend most of clients spent around 10 minutes warming up, 60 minutes training, 10 minutes cool down
 
It takes me 1 hr to 1.5 hours. Sometimes I can do a quick booster workout in 30 mins, which would normally be a rest day. I think an hour is minimum time needed but if it works for you then keep too it.


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