Breaking up strength training = horrible?

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Aeris

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Question about strength training: I like to do it at home (I have some dumbells), but I get distracted a fair amount. I often end up doing all the sets of one or two exercises then feeding the cats, then coming back to do a different exercise, or something like that. Is that bad? Is there a substantial benefit in doing it all together, only stopping to catch your breath? Or is is just important to get all the exercises done with the right reps/sets/weights? (I don't generally stop between sets of the same exercise, just between two different exercises...)

Thanks all!
 
Aeris said:
Question about strength training: I like to do it at home (I have some dumbells), but I get distracted a fair amount. I often end up doing all the sets of one or two exercises then feeding the cats, then coming back to do a different exercise, or something like that. Is that bad? Is there a substantial benefit in doing it all together, only stopping to catch your breath? Or is is just important to get all the exercises done with the right reps/sets/weights? (I don't generally stop between sets of the same exercise, just between two different exercises...)

Thanks all!
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Tricky question.......the answer: Yes and no.

In the beginning, there is no PHYSICAL harm.

Disciplinewise, you never want to do anything but your workout when it is time for your workout. Interruptions will just build habit of being distracted.

As your workout progresses, you need to focus on ONLY your workout to get 100% result. Breathing and recovery is just as important as the lift. Stopping to do something as simple as bending over to pick up a book, and walk halfway across the room to put it down can cost you 30 seconds to a minute in breathing when you are taking a timed rest between lifts as the heart and lungs have to do more work. Therefore, your workout can now suffer.

In the beginning stages, it is all about discipline and form. In the progression, it is focus and intensity. Allowing interruptions anywhere in a workout timeframe can sabotage all of this and make your time and effort you put in less effective than it could be.

Therefore, I would say you should save your in-between tasks until after the workout.
 
I would also add that the body goes through some physiological changes during resistance training...blood engorges the muscles, heart rate increases slightly....this is the whole reason you warm up the muscles in the first place.

If you take long pauses during your workout, you're letting the body cooldown too much.
Just like a car engine, its not as efficient to barely warm it up, then let it go cold, then warm it up again. An engine is most efficient when allowed to run at the optimal temperature. Your body's the same.

I won't even try to complicate matters by bringing up stuff like cortisol being released when your body 'thinks' you're done working out.

And I fully agree with Hawk...staying dedicated to your workout is important. your workout time should be as sacred as church is to christians on sunday morning.
 
Alright, points taken. Thanks to you both for responses. I'll do my best to dedicate a chunk of uninterrupted time from now on.

Slightly different question on cardio - I know that the benefit of cardio is in the sustained work, and I NEVER intentionally break it, but my university gym is massively overcrowded (you have to sign up for 30 minute chunks on machines hours in advance, etc). As such, what tends to happen half the time is I'll get 10 or 20 minutes in on one machine, then either be kicked off, or the machine I want opens up - so I move, which takes a good 3-4 minutes (cleaning off machine, etc). How much damage does this do to my workout? I don't really need to start the clock over when I get to the new machine, do I? But I imagine 10 minutes-stop-20 minutes is not as beneficial as 30 minutes - so what's the best way to make up for the hiccup? Just go a few minutes longer?

Sorry if this seems like a silly question!
 
3-4 mins to clean off the machine, just how dirty is that machine? Just carry some anti-bacterial wipes and grazed where you touch for a sec. Unless you have some germ fear issues, but I can tell you know that other than ick factor, its really not that harmful to you if you miss a spot.

If there is a short decrease in your heartrate its not going to affect you that bad as long as the rest of the workout is focused. Also you can throw some HIIT in your workout and tranfer machines during that 1 min slow point before sprint. I myself have done that before when having to switch machines.
 
Eh, it ends up being 3-4 minutes to clean it, move my bag, convince the other person that I have the next machine for that time slot, wait for them to clean off their machine, etc - it just ends up taking that long altogether.
 
Agree with the above posters about taking your strength training time and making it dedicated.

Cardio... taking a 4 minute rest will not derail your efforts. :D
 
It's actually good for you to break it up into smaller blocks through out the day.

That's a big reason I try to do two-a-days when I have the time. And if I didn't have to work, I'd spread it out into even more sessions.
 
No, not at all.

It's because of overall fatigue effects. You can improve performance by breaking up and spreading out any given volume of work.

The fear-mongering in this thread regarding spreading things out is based on conditional psychological issues and on erroneous understanding of physiological systems in response to training.
 
Aeris said:
PMDilly - you do two-a-day for cardio, strength training, or both?
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I rarely do cardio except during specific phases at certain times in the year. It's typically not a requirement except in small doses.

But yes, it does apply to both, and even to active recovery/restoration work if needed (stretching, stuff like that).
 
It manages acute fatigue, especially if you have several training targets in mind.

People get too locked into the idea that "training" and "rest" and so on are discrete states of the body that are like "off" and "on".
 
I'm not sure I follow you. You don't have to post more, but I am still interested in your research of this. I've never heard any arguments suggesting two strength training routines per day is better.
 
I'd suggest a look in Zatsiorsky's "Science and Practice of Strength Training" or if you can stomach the read, "Supertraining" by Siff.

The idea is that any given volume of work will provide greater results when distributed into multiple sessions instead of piled into one single session because of accumulation of fatigue.
 
The idea is that any given volume of work will provide greater results when distributed into multiple sessions instead of piled into one single session because of accumulation of fatigue.
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I do agree with that and will look into the books you mentioned. I just don't know that I agree with splitting up strength sessions. Not to disagree with you... I've just never heard of this before :D
 
You might also be interested in the training done by the Bulgarian Olympic weightlifting team then.

Granted they're an extreme example built up to over years of training, but they do exemplify how multiple sessions per day can be quite productive.
 
Trainer Lynn said:
I'm not sure I follow you. You don't have to post more, but I am still interested in your research of this. I've never heard any arguments suggesting two strength training routines per day is better.
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from the hst forum
Having the liberty to train twice per day and/or everyday opens up the possibility to significantly increase training volume.

As long as a "highly conditioned" person stays within his/her limits of exercise tolerance, doing more generally means better gains. I don't mean more fatigue, I mean more reps with a given load... Sounds like one in the same but it isn't really. To understand, consider the "effort" (A.K.A. CNS activation, or even "intensity" by its incorrect HIT terminology) it requires to do the 1st as compared to the last rep of your 10 rep max. The tension produced on the tissue doesn't change from the 1st rep to the last. The only thing that changes is the amount of CNS activiation required to contract the muscle under load.

So, more reps doesn't necessarily mean more fatigue if you can get enough rest in between sets. To get more and more rest, simply do 2 workouts spread out by several hours. Hence, the value of training twice per day.

Another advantage is being able to do more volume per bodypart during one session. You can also split the body up into 2 halves and train half in the AM and the other half in the PM. This essentially allows you to double the amount of volume per session per bodypart.



This also applies to cardio.

It may sound counterproductive but it isn't. Just consuming more food will create a more anabolic environment (more insulin, more leptin, more test, more GH), and the additional exercise also enhances this by increasing IGF-1, and protein synthesis rates in tissues. (yes, cardio increases protein synthesis in those muscle you are using)

The additional exercise will also lower your average glycogen levels and increase your insulin sensitivity at the same time, in addition you will get some upregulation of lipolytic enzymes. All of this makes those additional calories that you are eating less lipogenic.
 
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