Binary Training

Like most people, its not long till I go on a summer holiday. There's a few parts of my body that I still want to improve, and my fat level needs to drop more. I'm switching my training sessions to include only 2 desperate training sessions to be done on alternating days. While this sounds a bit too intensive, you will see the logic of it when I explain.

Usually, workouts can be split into desperate days for desperate muscle groups. For optimal recovery, you generally need 48 hours between sessions minimum. As I have less time to work with, I'm going to train each muscle group once every 2 days. This doesn't mean destroying the muscle group every other day though. Each training session will have a primary muscle group and a secondary muscle group. The primary muscle group for the session is the one that your going to do a comprehensive workout for. This means covering all the exercises you would usually do for that muscle group. The secondary muscle group isn't going to receive such an intense workout, but should be worked all the same. In the major exercises for the primary muscle group (big pushing and pulling movements) we are going to super set with an exercise for the secondary muscle group. Here's an example set.

Dumbbell Pullovers- 3 sets of 10 (major muscle group exercise)
Incline Chest Press- 3 sets of 15 (secondary muscle group exercise)

The primary muscle group is worked as normal, at a high weight struggling to reach the rep count. The secondary group has a high rep count than usual, prompting the use of lighter weights,causing less muscle tearing and so preventing excessive recovery time. Performing the exercises as a super set increases your heart rate more without increasing muscle fatigue any faster in the primary muscle group.

The super set with the secondary muscle group is only included for 2-3 exercises. This reduces over working the muscles, as they are still not fully recovered from their previous session as the primary muscle group. The result of training in this way is that each muscle group is trained fully once every 4 days, with a top up session part way through to prompt more growth.

This kind of training will only work if performed with adequate intensity. Pushing your body through an extra 9 sets each session will cause your energy levels to drop faster. Reducing your energy levels in this way forces your body to start using your less accessible energy stores (fats).  When combined with interval training before and after the weights session you should end up burning well over 1000 calories in the training session and raise your metabolic rate for the rest of the day, sending your calories burned through the roof!

As this kind of training puts your body under a huge amount of stress you need to make sure that you are looking after the nutrition side of the training as well. Training at a high intensity will cause you to dehydrate, so drinking plenty of water is essential. Keeping your protein intake high will make sure that your muscles can recover quick enough to perform properly in the next session.