UKC

There's a fitness place called fit20 near me which claims to get you 'fit' in 20 mins a week.. rubbish, i thought! On closer investigation that's probably right and wrong.. of course you can't get cardio fit in 20 mins a week, but that's not what this is about.

It's 'ultra-minimalist' strength training based on high weights, low (4-6) reps and sloooow (10s) movements.  Apparently there's some evidence it works on just one 20 min session per week, at least initally, if you don't do much/any strength work.

I hate strength work, so i don't do it, i just climb, and i'm wondering if anyone has tried this approach which is very different to the usual 2-3 sessions per week, with lighter weights, more reps and normal speed movements. Does it work? Is it garbage if youre not an office potato? Obviously i'm not going to pay fit20 or anyone else to watch me do it, but i might try it in the gym myself..

Personally, I hate concepts like this.

However, if people don’t lift at all there’s probably vague merit in it, assuming people who do sign up acknowledge their gains will be minimal and they won’t be worrying Eddie Hall any time soon. 

My main concern with a protocol like that is you’d need to be properly warmed up, which means you’re adding at least another 20 minutes into your session. 

Fair points. Especially about warm up. I'm more interested in ways to maximise the benefit of a single session, rather than the duration. With cycling, running and climbing there's not much space (or I dont want to make space) for multiple strength sessions a week, but I clearly could use some strengthening!

Go and have a chat with your local gym. Suspect if you paid for a couple of coaching sessions and got them to develop a programme for you that would be a good start; particularly if they get you focusing on compound movements. 

If you could stretch to two equally spaced sessions a week that would be more beneficial. 

You never know, you might end up getting in to it!!

Good luck. 
 

I'd be really interested to see the evidence on this. However some educated guesswork about what is going on:

When someone has never done a progressive strength training program, there are a bunch of low-hanging fruit to pick. In the first 12-16 weeks (ish) of such a program, trainees tend to see minimal physical adaptations - instead there is an increase in strength due to the body and brain learning the skill component of strength. These are known as neuromuscular adaptations, and come down to improving one's ability to both recruit muscle fibres, and to limit antagonist muscle activation. (These natural inhibitory mechanisms are protective, helping us to avoid injury. However they are non-discriminatory, and not helpful in the context of performing safe strength training with reasonable form and load.)

Most beginner strength programs will use a barbell, focus on between 3 and 5 core exercises, and the progression is linear - that is to say, if the last session was completed successfully weight will be added. This continues until progress plateaus (as above usually in about 14 weeks), and then a different kind of training can be used to increase muscular hypertrophy. If wanted. 

So in these basic programs the neuromuscular system is being taught that moving heavy weight is safe. As such I wouldn't be particularly surprised that some gains can initially be made with 20min/week. But I wouldn't expect huge gains in comparison to a reputable program like Starting Strength, Wendler 5/3/1, Stronglifts and so on. 

I wonder how much they charge. The programs I just mentioned are free - you only need access to a squat rack with a barbell and maybe 100-130kg of weight plates. Nearly all gyms have this kit. 

All that said, something is always better than nothing so if 20min/week is all you can spare, good luck and I hope it works well for you. 

There's a bunch of stuff out there about High Intensity Interval Training and a quantity of research, of what quality I can't say.

For cv I actually prefer this approach, going for a half-kilometre swim 5 days a week at the best speed I can manage including a final sprint rather than a longer distance.

I also used to do something called the 5BX programme, which is the same sort of thing invented in the 1950s by the Canucks.

Actually a benefit for this is that you don't really need to warm up if you're doing very slow reps; the weight just can't be that high if you really stick to 10s up 10s down. "Super Slow" has been around for a while. It can give a very big stimulus for hypertrophy if you do it properly (hence why you can actually only do it about once a week) and is ideal for old/fragile people if you use machines too. See Doug McGuff.

Don’t disagree and am aware of super slow reps. But if you’re warmed up you’ll lift heavier, and get stronger, even if you’re going super slow. 

I've heard of this before; about 30 years ago.It was explained to me by some bodybuilders in a gym. The theory was that you would do 1 session (20 minutes) of heavy weight exercise but very slow, the weights would have to be at your maximum. That was supposed to kick start your body, into starting the release of testosterone. It was only usefull for people who had a job where they were on their feet all day, such as a nurse or ware house worker. So basically a natural way of taking steroids.

Mike Mentzer and later Dorian Yates popularised a similar kind of philosophy called high intensity training. The aforementioned Doug McGuff repopularised it a decade ago.

You can see the advantage of isometric and slow movements in gymnastic training, but the fact is that it's just "another tool in the box". Once you've adapted you'll need to change the stimulus.

From a cardio point of view, the Tabata protocol gives a good return on the 4 minutes or so of time invested.

Remember that strength is about max effort, and *not* about volume or repeats. 

For finger strength, Eva Lopez' protocols fit the "minimal strength training" bill. Out of your 20mn per week, most of the time will be about warming up / building a bit of tension, from bottom to top (torso, shoulders, ankles), a bit of core / pull-ups, push-ups (not to neglect the antagonists).

Then the sequence itself is :

   - 10" (or even 7") sub maximal hang

   - 3mn rest

  - 10" hang

  - 3mn rest

  - 10" hang

Keep shoulder blades engaged, arms very slightly bent, etc. So 30" total effort for a sub 7' sequence. Define your sub-maximal effort as hanging 10" where you might reach say 12" and fail.

Next week: increase a bit the load or keep the same if time needed to consolidate your ability to fully succeed.

Important : this is about increasing your ability to succeed, as opposed to pushing up the limit where you fail. Reaching failure is increasing the risk of injury. So, e.g., if a dead hang at +0kg is way too easy, add 5kg. But if successful, add another kg only the following week, and if a bit shaky, then back down a bit next time.   

Using a comfortable rung you may increase difficulty by either adding weight and/or decreasing the rung's depth (by adding cardboard or thin plywood : very easy) and/or removing fingers, plus varying grip types.

With no remarkable strength at start, I have managed to progressively increase to +50kg on comfortable rungs (which is less than bodyweight, so this is still less than no load with only one arm : so much less impressive than it sounds. Was over a couple of years. 

Then, as usual, training should not be too specific :  I found out that such load on big rungs did not translate well on small rungs : so now I tend to focus more on variations with no added weight, but smaller rungs and/or removing fingers.

You will find your own specific mix of grip type / depth / load based on inspiration Most probably you will want to do a bit more : e.g., do 2 x 3 instead of 1 x 3, in order to vary grip / fingers, etc : as long as you navigate in the max load zone with no cumulated fatigue and no risk of failure it's ok (because each hang should be done almost 100% fresh).

https://en-eva-lopez.blogspot.com/2018/05/fingerboard-training-guide-II-Max...