Gasping for air after a few squats?

Or, better yet, mid-set?

No worries, though. Twelve minutes of rest should suffice, heck, you could stay at the gym all day.

The thought of cardio frightens you, and there’s no way you’re gonna sacrifice the rest time in between your sets.

Who cares when you have pre workout, ammonia, and heavy metal, right?

Suddenly your squat workout lasts an hour and a half, and you’ve yet to even think about the accessories and supplemental work. 

Well, we hate to break it to you, but Instagram is just as cool after your workout, and you’re most likely wasting a lot of your valuable time.

We all love the gym, but it shouldn’t take up the majority of your life. Perhaps this article all boils down to productivity, but when you think about it, you could end up doing a variety of other things throughout your day. Work capacity, otherwise known as your ability to perform physical tasks for a certain duration of time, translates to a variety of things in your training. The easier it is to recover and get back to that next set, the easier it will be to efficiently train in the long run. Good work capacity could improve performance on meet day, mostly in regards to how you will feel by the end of the meet. If you’re in good shape and work capacity is optimal, you will most likely feel less fatigued by the time deadlifts or clean & jerks roll around.

Consistently training with work capacity in mind not only saves you time, but it also trains the central nervous system to not crash and burn in the middle of your workout, or *gasp* in the middle of your meet.

If you can’t think of any other things to do throughout your day, here are a few things to consider.

Done with training at a regular time?

Prep food.

Take a walk with family or furry friends.

Go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Do homework.

Call family or friends.

Clean your house.

Maybe even pump up the tires on your bike and go for a ride.

 So now you need some ideas to improve work capacity during training?

Try to minimize rest between sets.

Train with a partner, or have a bar buddy. A bar buddy can be on a separate platform or lifting area and lift while you rest. It’s a “you go I go” mentality that accounts for large discrepancies in the weight you’re both lifting, and it even works during COVID times.

Intelligently utilize rest days.

Don’t just sit around. Active recovery is proven to increase blood flow and improve recovery, and gainz are important to you, right? Take a bike ride, jog, walk, or look up a workout (approximately 20-30 minutes) that emphasizes bodyweight movements and time constraints, such as EMOMs (Every Minute On the Minute), AMRAPs (As Many Rounds/Reps As Possible), or rounds for time.

Use timers.

If you’re training alone (hello to training in driveways, garages, and basements during quarantine!), try using timers to measure the amount of rest in between sets. Working against the clock allows for a regulated rest, even when your body is fighting and wants to rest more as the sets grow more and more grueling.

Put the phone away.

Unless you are actively recording lifts or communicating with your coach, PUT IT AWAY. You don’t need Insta motivation, and you surely don’t need to check what your aunt said on Facebook today. Perhaps the phone being put away will even provide more incentive to get the workout done in a timely manner.

Don’t be afraid of cardio on training days.

No, weighted sled drags, jogs, walks, biking, or any other kind of tool for conditioning won’t make or break your strength gains. If used at the right time in the training cycle, this addition to training can actually benefit an athlete in a variety of ways. At DG, we preach about aiming to become well-rounded athletes, so limiting oneself to a single modality of training actually proves itself detrimental when you wanna become an all-around monster human.

We hope some of these tips can increase the quality of your workouts! Don’t be afraid to try something new and switch around your style of training; your lungs will thank you.