Singapore Personal Trainer: The 80-20 rule in training

Use Of Time: The difference between success and failure!

I know that many other personal trainers, fitness professionals and fitness coaches in Singapore and around the world use this rule in their training, coaching, and program design. I'll just give some examples here of how this rule is used in some sample programs for my clients.

The general idea of this rule is the 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.

That is very true. But I would like to look at it from the perspective of our most important asset.

Time

I often have clients who have to cut short training because of urgent work or family commitments. This is not their fault.

Here is where the 80-20 rule makes it's presence most obvious in the training program.

Our training programs for the majority of clients include individualized Self massage, corrective training (for posture/movement dysfucntion) warmup, core training and static stretching.

Followed by strength training and then metabolic training/cardio

This usually takes 55-70mins

But what if I had 25 mins?

PRIORITIZE

I would first cut out the self massage with rollers/tennis balls - yes its important, but people have gotten good results injury free before this came onto the fitness scene. skipping a session of this is not the worst thing in the world. And most of my clients buy a foam roller for home use anyway so its not a big deal (in the grand scheme of things) self massage does not fall into the critical 20%

Then I would cut out the cardio at the end. This is used to burn extra fat calories at the end of a workout when fat stores are most easily burned. It's good for fat loss but its not critical compared to maintaining lean muscle mass. Again, not part of the critical 20%.

Then I would cut out the corrective training, yes its important, but the benefits are felt long term and not over a single session. Again, not part of the 20%.

That leaves warmup (5 mins), strength training (15mins) and metabolic conditioning - burpee variations, bodyweight circuits, Kettlebell swings etc...(5-10 mins)

A total of 25 mins.

In fact for the strength training, I am cutting out probably everything ecept a superset that includes a compound lower body exercise like a deadlift, and a big upper body exercise like a chinup.

Will a client on such a program get fat after such a short session. No. In fact some people are over trained and such a program will actually boost results.

As long as nutrition is ok, this top 20% of critical time usage will just about ensure that even busy clients get awesome results.