Originally Posted by
Leisesturm
I don't know ... could be me but you sound a little skeptical. You are right to be skeptical. Now to be fair we don't really know what "results" means to the other poster, but as there is a fair amount of time involved in performing each set of an exercise ... well, time is money as they say. The best bang for your buck that I know of exercise wise is what are called "20 Rep Squats" they are sometimes called "Breathing Squats" because you do a lot of that performing them. It's not just a one set exercise, its a one set workout! Basically you pick a weight that allows you to do 20 Reps standard squats. With effort. Next week (yes, week) add 10lbs. Very quickly those Squats get real hard to do. You don't consider the set finished until you have done 20 reps. No matter how long it takes. No matter how many times you pause for 'breath'. Sounds like just the thing to put some hair on the chest of the Gen Z guys in the Lime Green workout shorts. Maybe too much (but maybe not) for us Boomers.
I wouldn't have bothered to respond if I were skeptical. I know you as a knowledgeable poster.
When I started out strength training, I followed Friel's advice in the 2nd edition of his Bible, which I highly recommend: 7-9 exercises, 3 sets of 30 circuit style, same weight for each set of that exercise, weight set to that the last set will be to failure just before 30. Friel says to do that just for your Anatomical Adaptation phase, but I got such good results that I did that for 2 years. Yes, that gets your HR up for sure. I'd let mine drop back to some number still in the aerobic zone before doing the next exercise in the circuit, so I was aerobic the whole time. I would take one breath per rep as long as I could, then start taking 2 breaths per rep. That was enough. I started doing that in my early 50s. I think I've mentioned all this in previous posts.
"Results" means you go faster on the bike or have more endurance or both. I got both. Just increasing the weight lifted or reps doesn't count as "results" for a cyclist. Too many people are confused about that.
This Covid thing has sucked, big time. Only one gym is left in my town. We're vaccinated now and will join and start strength training there again, tomorrow. I can hardly wait to get under a bar again.