How hard should my workout be?

I get asked often how hard you should be working out when you are working out. The simple answer for me is workout as hard as you can for as long as you can.

Lets go into some detail.

Lets take doing weights for an example. I start my workout with a focus and goal of what I want to have happen. I want my weight workout to end with nothing left so I structure my workout this way. As I have mentioned before, lately I have been doing three sets per exercise and one exercise per muscle group. I will do the first set knowing that I will be stretched out and tired at the end of each set. I do 12 reps and finish probably having gone to about 70% of my possible set.

On the next two sets of my exercise I go to 100% of my possible set. I try to make sure that these sets push my body as far as I can. To get more out of the set than normally possible I will use a weight that will only allow me to do 6 reps. After I have done these reps I will drop the weight by 10 pounds or so and immediately get another couple of reps out. I will finally drop the weight another 20 pounds and get another couple of reps out. At this point I have nothing left.

The other way that people will tend to workout is to do more sets. Maybe doing three exercises per muscle group for three sets each. This will also work but I do not think it works as well. You body reacts best I have found by quick but intense stress.

For cardio you can do the same thing. A cardio workout would take you in a warm-up at the beginning and then cycles of sprints followed by slowing down to a jog. The more common way of doing cardio is to do your run at the same rate from beginning to end but this method will help you push yourself during those sprints and then you have a short time to focus on which will allow much faster improvement in pace as well as endurance and if you want weight loss as well.

Can you imagine how this strategy would change your weight training or using this kind of strategy for your cardio workouts? The problem for most people is that when you do this kind of workout you need to have very good focus throughout your workout and at the same time you need to be willing to step into the workout with a plan and goal to know that you are going to go all out, most people are not ready for this so do not worry if this is a problem to consistently do. Just do this as often as possible.

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