The honeymoon period is over. I get it. Early on, many of you were enjoying the novelty of home workouts. Trying out something new is always fun, but it can quickly become boring once the initial novelty wears off. That has definitely been the case with home workouts, so here is a method to spice up that process a bit and hopefully make your workout time more efficient.
Escalating density training (EDT) is a method of organising your training so as to use time as the marker for the number of sets you perform. This can be extremely useful for those that want to get a lot of training done in minimal time; this is the case for many of us now that we are squeezing in home workouts. However, it likely doesn’t represent a very good long term method of training (but, this hopefully won't be long term), as it
does somewhat limit your ability to progress, especially if you are looking to maximise strength gains.
To set up an EDT program, generally, antagonistic supersets are used. A fixed rep range is used, along with a fixed RPE/RIR. Then, a time limit is set. As rest periods are limited, and a lot of work performed, cardiovascular fitness is also likely to improve quite quickly with a method like this. However, do realise that this style of programming isn’t likely going to lead to the best gains in size, strength or conditioning.
An example of an EDT workout would be as follows:
A1 Dips 6-8 reps (at 10-12RM or 2-4 RIR or RPE 6-8), Tempo 3010
B1 Chin Up 6-8 reps (at 10-12RM or 2-4 RIR or RPE 6-8), Tempo 3010
Time limit: 20 minutes
Other exercise pairings might include:
- Squat + Overhead Press
- Push Up + Inverted Row
- Flat DB Press + Row
You get the picture...
A very effective workout can be done in a very short amount of time. The focus should, however, still be on quality work. If you rush through your reps and get sloppy and fatigued, generally, bad things tend to happen. So the focus should still be on control throughout the range of motion and while there is a focus on getting a lot of work done over the 20 minute time period, the work should be extremely high quality.
The use of submaximal reps is important, as those who try to max out the first few sets will quickly find out. What you want to do is get a lot of high-quality work done over the set time period. You can maximise this by not going to failure and instead accumulating lots of high-quality reps. So if you were to do the above workout, you would be able to do a ton of high-quality work that only really started to degrade as you progressed towards the end of the time
period. Your first few sets may feel very light, but as you really get into the thick of it, you will likely start dropping off reps from your rep target. I generally stop the workout if the individual falls below the lower end of the rep target, however, I would also recommend integrating some mini-breaks where you are doing some slow deep breaths before it gets to this point. While the program doesn’t have rest periods assigned, you will be resting the muscles used while you train the opposing
muscles. I would also generally take 10-15 seconds of both shaking out the limbs and/or deep breaths between each mini-set. I also use this time to write down the reps achieved. As you get fitter/stronger/adapted, you can reduce this rest period (however, a relaxed transition between stations is still a good idea as it gives you a few seconds to catch your breath and get into the right mindset for the next set, along with writing down your reps achieved).
Now you may be wondering how you progress? Well the answer is simple, you either get more total reps, or when you have absolutely maximised the number of reps you can do, you add a little bit more weight. The hardest thing about this type of workout is actually counting your reps. You must do this if you want to accurately progress. If you don’t track your reps, there is no way of telling if you are actually doing more work, or if you just started taking slightly
longer rest periods, started doing fewer reps per set etc. So tracking is vital to the process, unless of course you are just using EDT as a one-off style workout to get a quick high volume workout.
Until next time... Keep it 2ez.
