A Two-Exercise Mini-Workout

© COPYRIGHT 2009 BY BRADLEY J. STEINER - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Sword and Pen – December 2009 Issue

[Reprinted With Permission]

American Combato
Seattle Combatives


THIS may be a particularly appropriate piece of information now that the bustling and busy Holiday Season is upon us. With family and other social commitments, it may be the case that you are unable to maintain your normal schedule of physical training via comprehensive total body workouts.

When time is at a premium and you are next tempted to miss a scheduled exercise period, you will find the following abbreviated session a real convenience. While the workout we are about to suggest requires of you only two exercises, we assure you that these two exercises, properly done, will maintain your physical development and might even increase your strength.

The session of exercise that we recommend is a super-abbreviated program consisting of the SQUAT and the MILITARY PRESS. It is preferable to do these exercises with a barbell, but if a barbell is not available and you have only a pair of dumbells, that will do nicely. (Note: Because your pair of dumbells will almost certainly be a lot lighter when totaled than a barbell, we suggest — if this is so — that you use dumbells in a CLEAN AND PRESS, rather than in the simpler "military press" mode. The added work doing the clean with each repetition compensates for the lighter poundage being used. Naturally, if you train with heavy dumbells, this compensatory step can be omitted).

While we appreciate that some instructors might disagree with us, it is our opinion that it makes no difference whatever which of the two exercises you begin with. Our advice is: Do the two exercises in whichever order you fancy — just DO them!

Purely for the purpose of setting the schedule down for your reference, we select a "squat first, then military press" sequence.

Here is the mini-workout:

1. SQUAT — 1 SET OF 18-20 REPETITIONS, rest only long enough to get your breath back, then do 1 SET OF 8 REPETITIONS (being sure to add weight for this second set).

2. MILITARY PRESS — 1 SET OF 10 REPETITIONS, rest only long enough to recover your strength, then do 1 SET OF 6 REPETITIONS (again, adding weight for this second set).

While you must use heavy poundages, we wish to DEFINE precisely what that means, so that relative beginners and newcomers to sensible training are not misled: A "heavy poundage" is a poundage that makes YOU work hard, and that YOU feel is heavy. There is no arbitrary or objective standard (unless we were discussing competitive weight LIFTING, where specific records were being made and broken, according to fixed and known weight amounts). We are concerned with TRAINING; with WORKING OUT for all round development and conditioning, as well as to bolster our combative skills capabilities.

Always — A-L-W-A-Y-S — use weight resistance that you can properly work with. If it‘s heavy for you, then it‘s HEAVY. There is nothing competitive about this. Your goal is to build you up; not to lift or train with more weight on the bar than anyone else uses.

To be certain that you do this correctly, let us provide the correct pointers for training. Some of what follows is repetitive — BECAUSE IT’S IMPORTANT!:—

• Use weights that are heavy for you. Be certain that you are able to handle and work with whatever weights you use, properly. A good indicator that you‘re doing things correctly is when you feel the last one or two repetitions in a set to be a hard fight, ut the repetitions up them are simply "demanding". The last repetition or two should NOT involve "cheating", but should always be fought out in correct exercise form.

• Consciously focus on working each repetition through a full range movement and feel it all the way. No "bouncing" or "dropping" when squatting, and no "jerking" or "heaving" when pressing. If you cannot handle the weight that you are using in correct form, then USE A LIGHTER WEIGHT; you are NOT benefitting yourself by cheating!.

• Rest minimally between sets. The entire workout consists of only four sets, but when you do it you‘ll see that each one, done as we advise, takes a lot out of you. This means that you will not be able to "breeze through" the two exercises. Nevertheless, you are robbing yourself of valuable conditioning benefits if you rest too long between sets. "Too long" is resting beyond the moment when you feel that you can do the next set.

• Finish this mini-workout within 12 minutes if you possibly can. Do NOT allow yourself more than 15 minutes. If you can‘t do the workout in 15 minutes then you‘re using too much weight OR you are dawdling.

So-called "abbreviated workouts" such as this one were popularized by the late, great Peary Rader in his (then) marvelous periodical, IRONMAN MAGAZINE. Mr. Rader was one of the most sensible, honest, and realistic trainers in our Nation‘s history. The old IRONMAN reflected his wisdom and his immensely practical philosophy of training.

As Peary Rader pointed out, abbreviated workouts can be incredibly effective (sometimes triggering gains in individuals who found the usual full body workouts consisting of eight to twelve exercises to be too much). Normally, we recommend and prefer a comprehensive total body workout of between five and about ten or so individual exercises. Still, when well chosen, two or three exercises are enough — if you work them very hard — if a regular length routine is for the nonce not feasible.

The squat and the military press were the two exercises most responsible for developing Paul Anderson. Anderson was regarded as "The Strongest Man In The World", so don‘t worry about these two exercises not being effective!

For the dyed-in-the-wool training devotee who bitterly resents missing a workout or two (even if it is during the Holiday Season), and has no confidence in "short" workouts, we would offer some parting words of encouragement:

Peary Rader once noted that he was never able to see any difference between the physiques of men who took about an hour to train, and those who lived in the gym, and spent half the day at it.


Harry B. Paschall — one of our personal "heroes of the Iron Game", and a writer/teacher of matters pertaining to weight training, par excellence — always emphasized the value of REST as an aid to muscle building. In a classic article that he authored he once wrote that he never saw really outstanding development in those who trained compulsively and rigidly, but that he did see the best size and strength gains in those whose training was irregular.

We hope that we‘ve been of help to you here.