The best advice I’ve ever heard is that anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. It’s most commonly offered to those who are combating depression: Can’t find the will to brush your teeth? Just swish around some mouthwash. Don’t that the energy for a shower? Wash your hands and face, and put on a fresh set of clothes. Trouble mustering up the will to make breakfast? Nibble on a piece of toast. You get the idea. The same thing applies when you are trying to build muscle! Let me explain.
I have found this advice to apply to almost all aspects of my life, whether it be studying or completing homework in school, getting over my paralysis of perfectionism when starting any new project, performing any arts, jumping at an opportunity. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly, and barring poor technique which can lead to injury, the same applies to exercise!
Never Lose Muscle Mass Again
Have you ever put a ton of effort into building your strength or developing muscle over a period of time and suddenly stop exercising entirely? Maybe you were forced to take a break for a week or two? Perhaps Summer ended? Something happened, and there was suddenly no point to going back at it- you were just resigned to fate: you had lost some gains and it’s time to just deflate like a punctured balloon for a few months until you’re ready to repeat the process. I cannot count on my fingers how many times this has happened to me. It feels like it’s been an annual occurrence since middle school.
Here is the truth: you only have to work on your muscle groups about twice per week for just 10 minutes to keep the muscles you have worked so hard for. If you can commit to just 2 sessions of high-intensity 10 minute workouts per week for the rest of your life, you will never lose gains (Disclaimer: around 40 years of age, we tend to naturally lose 3% – 10% of muscle per decade). The reason for this is that after a workout, most muscles take 2-3 days to recover. If you’d like to understand more about this, I highly recommend taking a look at this article.
Note that if you are also interested in sustaining your joint health, I can recommend some excellent exercises! Take a look here.
It’s that easy to build muscle!
Twenty minutes does not sound a lot, but it is absolutely crucial to keeping your body in the shape you desire. Only a few weeks after quitting exercise, your body starts to lose mass and strength. That said, bodies do have memory, so rebuilding is always easier than building muscle for the first time. My point, however is that we should not simply give up whenever we are forced to take a break. 20 minutes per week will save you the process of starting over from scratch every few months, and instead it will be like picking up where you left off where you left a few months ago (or years ago).
Making Gains
Growing muscle requires two things from your workouts: volume and intensity. It does not matter very much how long you work out per session, if you end up with the same overall volume of reps and intensity of reps. Of course there are advantages of moderately longer workouts! The ideal workout time (depending on the type of workout you do) is usually going to be around 40 to 50 minutes. Unless you are trying to literally be a move star, it’s not completely necessary however.
With a strong diet (which is much, MUCH more important than your workout selection) and a high-intensity 10 minute workout, it is absolutely possible to build lean muscle and accomplish most workout goals. You may be surprised to learn that there is an entire community build around this concept! I’ll share one article you may be interested in which has a full workout plan built for you already, but just google “10 minute workout”. I challenge you! Workout for 10 minutes, 4-5 times a week, and see how your body responds after a couple months!
Closing Thoughts
Do I personally follow a 10 minute workout plan? Not all the time, but I definitely do it on super busy weeks. Regardless, learning more about how muscles function and develop has vastly changed my view of workouts, and I almost never workout for longer than 40 minutes anymore when trying to build muscle. The puddles of sweat all look the same. Go forth, aspiring Healthy Couch Potatoes! Build that muscle! Keep that muscle!
