Some pointers for making the most of your sessions. CUT THE CHIT-CHAT! Yes, that was a great movie you saw last night and you want to tell your gym buddies all about it. Yes, that Spinning instructor has been kind of giving you little looks here and there and you want to try talking to her. But why are you in the gym? If you truly have no other social outlet in your life other than the gym, then perhaps it's a place you don't mind whiling away most of your free time. But if you have other, more productive things you'd rather be doing than spend unnecessary hours in a noisy gym, it's time to zip your lip and train. It's hard when you're used to being Joe Garrulous. Everyone expects you to sit at the juice bar, the modern equivalent of the porch of the old General Store, and hold court with hours of idle gossip and trivia. Your pals will still want to yap it up. One way to shut them off without seeming rude is to wear a pair of headphones every time you train. Most people won't ask you to take them off to speak unless they have something important to say. In the gym, it's very rare that any of the conversations are life or death matters. Do not hang around the juice bar, or the front desk, or anywhere else you may tend to get caught up in conversations. If you have a training partner that prefers jaw-jacking over actual training, get rid of the louse. You may come off as rude or arrogant all of a sudden, but it's a decision you'll have to make and follow through on if you wish to start making your gym time more efficient. HAVE A PLAN OF ATTACK "Hmm. Leg day today. Let's see, I haven't squatted in a few weeks, maybe I'll do that. Let me try a couple sets. Nah. I'm not feeling them right. Maybe I should do leg presses? But wait, all that plate loading..." Is this you? Do you wait until you get to the gym and then start deciding how you'll train that day? If so, you're wasting a good deal of time on something that should already be fleshed out before you arrived. Have a good idea of exactly what you're going to do before you walk through that gym door. Nothing is worse than finishing your first exercise, then wasting precious minutes as you survey the gym floor and look for inspiration on what to do next. Your pump is rapidly diminishing, and the clock, as always, is ticking away. Either the night before, that day, or at least on the ride over to the gym formulate your workout, deciding which exercises you'll do and in what order. Of course, someone might be using the equipment you wanted, but that's why we remain flexible. There's an old saying that goes, "If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail." Put a bit of preparation into your training and you will instead have successful, productive workouts. CUT REST TIMES BETWEEN SETS Many of us, and I guiltily include myself, have borrowed a tenet from the world of powerlifting concerning resting between sets. Powerlifters will rest three to five minutes, sometimes longer, between sets to fully recover from the all-out effort of near-maximum lifts. Many weight trainees have mistakenly adopted the same method, theorizing that it will allow them to lift heavier as well. What we seem to have forgotten is that there is a huge difference between strength training and muscle development. If getting stronger is your number one goal, then by all means long rest periods will serve you well. If instead, as the case is for most of us, an impressive physique with good muscle is your goal, then you should be doing more reps with less weight and resting less. It should take no more than ninety seconds for your breathing to return to normal and the lactic acid to clear from the muscle group after an intense set of eight to twelve reps. (The rep range just about every scientific study has determined optimal for producing growth) Anything beyond two minutes and you're just wasting time. Move on the next set or the next exercise as soon as you are able!