Sometimes you don’t have a lot of time to workout so you have to do a couple of exercises back-to-back as a super-set or giant set. Trust me if, you can’t work out hard for a long period of time. You can work out for 2-hours at sub-maximal effort or you can work out hard for a short period of time at maximal effort. Now there are reasons to do both types of training but I will not get into that right now. I will revisit those concepts in another post.
What is a superset? A superset is performed when two exercises are performed in a row without stopping. In super-setting you have a variety of options, you can either super-set within the same body part or you can train two different body parts.
On workout days, my calories are higher as I follow the Cheat to Lose diet methodology whereby I vary my calories based on my activities; however my macros stay the same. My diet on workout days is as follows and keep in mind this is a custom diet based on my body-weight and goals.
| Food item | Calories | Protein (g) | Carb (g) | Fiber (g) | Fat (g) | Sodium (mg) |
| 7am | ||||||
| PP | 157 | 25 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 60 |
| almond milk | 40 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 180 |
| 9.30am | ||||||
| 1/2 oatmeal | 150 | 5 | 26 | 4 | 3 | |
| 1/2 berries | 40 | 1 | 10 | 2 | ||
| vanilla pp | 130 | 23 | 3 | 2.5 | 50 | |
| 1Tsp flax | ||||||
| 11.30am | ||||||
| 1C Turkey Chili | 236 | 22 | 27.6 | 9.6 | 5 | 194 |
| 1C mixed veges | 35 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 25 | |
| 1C B-Rice | 216 | 6 | 44 | 4 | 2 | 10 |
| 3.00pm | ||||||
| 20oz Latte | 130 | 12 | 18 | 6 | 140 | |
| Oh Yeah PB | 380 | 27 | 30 | 5 | 20 | 110 |
| 6.00pm | ||||||
| 1-Egg muffin | 70 | 6 | 0 | 5 | 70 | |
| .5C B-Rice | 108 | 3 | 22 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
| 7.00pm | ||||||
| Atkins PD | ||||||
| 9.00pm | ||||||
| 1C ChocoMilk | 170 | 8 | 24 | 5 | 250 | |
| PP | 157 | 25 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 60 |
| Glut/Creatine 14g | 40 | 9 | 28 | |||
| 10.30pm | ||||||
| 2-5oz Protein | 110 | 25 | 1 | 2 | 40 | |
| 1-sm swt potatoe | 103 | 2 | 24 | 4 | 1 | 41 |
| 1/2 avocado | ||||||
| Peanut Butter | 95 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 8 | |
| 11.30pm | ||||||
| Coconut Oil | 125 | 0 | 14 | |||
| Liquid Aminos | 80 | 15 | 5 | |||
| Aminos | ||||||
| Glutamine | ||||||
| Total | 2572 | 211 | 264.6 | 36.6 | 84.5 | 1263 |
| Grams Conversion | 844 | 1058.4 | 760.5 | |||
| Macro | 0.3281493 | 0.411509 | 0.295684 |
In any event, my workouts tonight was about 30 minutes – its what I call hacking fitness and it consisted of the following:
1. I always perform a 4 – 20 min warmup on the lifecycle depending on what I want to achieve during that workout session.
4m warm up to warm the entire and loosen connective tissue and prepare the body for the workout.
2. I normally superset antagonistic bodyparts because (1) its a more intense way to train; (2) it saves time; (3) push-pull movements (i.e.: Chest-Back exercises) usually move blood from one muscle to the other mitigating lactic acid build-up; (4) however you must be careful that you don’t overtrain with this method of training. I am listing the weights below to show that I am lifting in the 80 – 90% of my 1RM (rep maximum) and that’s no small feat to do within 30 minutes as I take very little rest in between exercises.
- Super-set Group 1: Chest – Back
Incline Machine Bench: 4 sets: 90X10, 180 X 10, 270 X 10; 360 X 4
Seated Rows: 4 sets: 190 X 8 X 4 - Super-set Group 2: Bodyweight Dips – Pullups
4 Sets
That’s it and after I finished the workout believe me I am spent. Now this part is very important. Immediately after your workout you need to eat, drink, or both within 30 minutes to 1.5 hours aftward something with 4:1 Carb to Protein ratio. Why? After a workout is a critical time for growth and recovery as your cells and hormones (specifically, Insulin one of the most anabolic hormones in the body) are most receptive at that time.
Insulin is a hormone central to regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body. Insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle.
This is a very important concept that I am not going to talk about indept here as it is a very extensive topic that deserves much more than I want to talk about in this workout post. I will revisit the concept in another post however if you want to know more check out Nutrient Timing by John Ivy et al.
My stats: Age: 40ish | Weight: 223 | Bodyfat: 26.5% (59lbs) | Lean Muscle: 164lbs
Benny Jones Jr., Fitness-Weightloss Consultant
Benny Jones
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