logo
Do this expert-approved four-move workout weekly to improve full-body strength, blood sugar and bone density

Do this expert-approved four-move workout weekly to improve full-body strength, blood sugar and bone density

Independent7 days ago
In the fitness world, if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. The advice below can be viewed as one of a select few exceptions.
Completing just two time-efficient strength training sessions per week – taking roughly 1 per cent of the 168 hours on offer – will provide the stimulus most people need to make life-changing improvements to their health, fitness and physical capacity.
This is what experienced certified strength and conditioning coach Danny Matranga stresses to clients; and he has helped hundreds of them since he started working on gym floors as an 18-year-old. In fact, he adds, less is usually more for those newer to this type of training.
'From just two sessions of resistance training a week, you will have better blood sugar, better bone density, better cognition and better motor control,' Matranga says. 'Physically, you'll have more muscle, probably less body fat, and less pain in your joints. Aesthetically, you'll probably look way better in your clothes – you'll see areas like your arms, thighs, glutes and tummy start to change.
'That's an amazing return from just a few hours per week; you are going to get the most unbelievable benefits from that first hour of exercise. [But after a point], with each additional hour, we get into what we call diminishing marginal returns.'
Below, he explains why this is the case and shares a sample dumbbell-only workout you can use to build full-body strength – among a plethora of other benefits.
Science says beginners shouldn't train too much
'When people look at the fitness industry, they see people in incredible shape working out six or seven days per week and think, 'Wow, that must be what I need to do,'' Matranga explains. 'But for somebody who is currently doing nothing, or very little, you're actually better off working out one to three times per week.'
The reason for this, in his words, is that 'you're only going to make progress equal to the amount of work you can recover from, and a new exerciser can't recover from an advanced routine'.
Strength training provides the stimulus for positive physical adaptations; more muscle, less fat, increased physical capacity, better cognition, improved heart health, the list goes on. But these changes don't happen during the workouts themselves – they happen in the time between sessions when you're recovering.
Because the strength training stimulus is new to novice exercisers, any amount will act as a jolt to the system, and it doesn't take much to trigger impressive results. But when you give your body more exercise than it can handle, which for fresh exercisers is usually a fairly low threshold, you will quickly hit a point of 'diminishing marginal returns'.
In layman's terms: your body will reach a point where it can no longer positively adapt to the volume of exercise you're asking of it, leading to limited benefits relative to the extra time you're putting in. Less really is more, and for newer exercisers, most of the magic lies in the first hour or two of work you do each week.
Of course, over time, consistent and progressive exercise can increase your work capacity – a term defined to me by endurance swimmer Ross Edgley as 'your body's ability to perform and positively tolerate training at a given intensity or duration'. When you start to spot evidence of this progress, you may want to consider upping your weekly training volume.
But work capacity takes time to develop, so for time-efficient training, two or three strength sessions per week (alongside some form of regular aerobic activity such as walking) offer optimal ROI for those in their first few years of lifting weights.
How to use this advice to improve your fitness
If you want to implement this advice, Matranga recommends starting with full-body workouts – sessions that recruit every major muscle group; the chest, back, shoulders, arms, legs and core – twice per week.
'When you're a novice, you can go into the gym and do a pushing exercise and a pulling exercise for your upper body, something like a squat for the front of your legs, something like a deadlift for the back of your legs, and then you can walk away after four exercises having trained every single muscle in your body,' he says.
'The average person wants the most results from the least amount of time in the gym, and I respect that – the gym isn't everybody's happy place. If time is of the utmost importance and you want the most gains from the least number of trips to the gym, total body programmes are very effective.'
The gym isn't a prerequisite for this plan of action either. Strength training involves using your muscles to overcome an external load, but as long as this load is challenging enough to stimulate the desired adaptations (more on this below), the body won't mind whether it comes from resistance machines, dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, resistance bands or even your own body weight.
A sample full-body dumbbell workout
All you need to complete this session is a pair of dumbbells, and you can use it twice per week as your strength training workouts – if you do, complete the dumbbell overhead press in one session and the press-up in the other to bias the shoulders and chest muscles respectively.
You can also do it at the gym, in your living room or at the park – your muscles don't care where you are, just that you're giving them a good workout.
The common denominator behind an effective strength-boosting, muscle-building, joint-bolstering session is something called mechanical tension. To achieve this, you need to ensure the target muscles are working hard enough during each set to achieve the stimulus needed for positive adaptations.
A good way to check for this is, by your last two or three reps, your form should remain immaculate but your movements should be involuntarily slowing down due to the accumulated fatigue in the muscles. If the last couple of reps feel easy, the exercise wasn't challenging enough.
This is why Matranga prescribes a goal of 12-15 repetitions, rather than giving you an exact number to gun for – stop when you can't complete another rep with perfect form, rather than hitting the breaks when you reach the listed rep target.
If you don't have access to dumbbells heavy enough to feel challenging for 12-15 reps, Matranga advises completing the exercises non-stop for a set amount of time (such as 30 or 60 seconds) or continuing until you feel 'it burning in the target muscle' instead.
However, a rep goal of 12-15 per set is his favourite for beginner lifters. This is because a higher target number of reps allows you to challenge yourself with lighter weights, while also practising the movement more times – lifting weights is a skill, after all, like any physical activity.
'In golf, if you wanted to learn how to swing the driver, you wouldn't go to the driving range, swing it one time as hard as you can and then leave,' Matranga explains. 'You would take a bunch of swings, and after a lot of practice, you would eventually start hitting the ball straight.
'For new lifters, I like aiming for 12 to 15 reps because you use less weight, which allows you to practise and rehearse the form while still getting close to failure. Sometimes you get a little bit of an aerobic benefit from a little more reps too, and let's be honest, most people could use a cardiovascular benefit from their exercise.'
When you become more comfortable with an exercise and fine-tune your technique, you can then start increasing the weight you're lifting and lowering the target number of repetitions to increase strength, Matranga adds.
10-second takeaways
Two weekly strength training workouts per week is enough to trigger impressive results in beginners, including improved strength, joint health, mobility, heart health, body composition and cognition.
Beginners will enjoy maximal return on investment from fewer workouts as they need less of a stimulus to trigger positive adaptations, and they are unable to positively tolerate advanced exercise routines.
Full-body workouts are the most time-efficient option as they allow you to train each major muscle group (those of the chest, back, shoulders, arms, legs and core) more frequently.
An example of an efficient dumbbell-only full-body workout is the goblet squat, dumbbell Romanian deadlift, dumbbell overhead press and single-arm dumbbell bent-over row, each performed for two to three sets of 12 to 15 repetitions, with 60 seconds of rest between each set.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Roche to test if new drug can prevent Alzheimer's disease, Bloomberg News reports
Roche to test if new drug can prevent Alzheimer's disease, Bloomberg News reports

Reuters

time2 hours ago

  • Reuters

Roche to test if new drug can prevent Alzheimer's disease, Bloomberg News reports

July 27 (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding (ROG.S), opens new tab plans to test whether an experimental medicine can prevent Alzheimer's disease symptoms in high-risk people, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday. The new late-stage study will target people who are at risk of cognitive decline and aim to slow down the emergence of symptoms or prevent them fully, the report said, citing a statement. The new pre-clinical study is the third largest late-stage trial that the company has announced for its drug trontinemab, which uses an experimental technology called brain shuttle to ferry medicine past the protective blood-brain barrier, according to the report. Rivals like Eli Lilly (LLY.N), opens new tab have been making progress in the complicated field of Alzheimer's recently with Lilly's Alzheimer's drug Kisunla getting recommendation from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) last week. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Roche did not immediately respond to a request for a comment. Treatments for Alzheimer's approved so far, including Eisai (4523.T), opens new tab and Biogen's (BIIB.O), opens new tab Leqembi, and Eli Lilly's Kisunla, are designed to clear sticky clumps of a protein called amyloid beta in the brain. They also carry hefty price tags and the risk of serious brain swelling and bleeding.

Hospital begs for help identifying woman who has been in their care for past 100 days
Hospital begs for help identifying woman who has been in their care for past 100 days

Daily Mail​

time3 hours ago

  • Daily Mail​

Hospital begs for help identifying woman who has been in their care for past 100 days

A Manhattan hospital is begging for the public's help in identifying a woman who was admitted more than 100 days ago. On April 12 around 4:45am, a woman believed to be in her late-fifties was sitting at a Harlem bus stop when a bystander dialed 911. It is unclear why an ambulance was called, but she was taken to Mount Sinai in Morningside Heights - where she has remained ever since. Employees have described the mysterious patient, who may go by the name Pam, as shy. In a photo shared by the hospital, she was seen covering her face with a towel. But these surface-level details are all officials have gathered about Pam during her three months at the hospital, and now hospital workers are trying to fill in the gaps. The hospital is asking anyone with information on who she might be to come forward, NBC reported. Pam is 5'8" tall and weighs 170 pounds. Hospital workers believe she was often in the Harlem area and generally wore black and covered her face. She speaks English and has greying hair. The Daily Mail has reached out to Mount Sinai for comment. Anyone with information regarding Pam's identity should contact the hospital's associate director of social work Kelly LaTerra at 646-901-9309. Last month, a California man was found unconscious and was rushed to St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach. He was believed to be in his mid-forties, but just as in Pam's case, little else was known about the patient. A chilling photo released by Dignity Health showed the man lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to a ventilator. In October 2024, another California hospital took a similar approach to Mount Sinai in hopes of identifying a seriously ill patient. Staff at the Riverside Community Hospital had done everything they could think of, but could not determine the name of a man who came through the facility's doors a month earlier. They refused to say what was wrong with him or why he was attached to a ventilator, but released a photograph in the hopes that someone can put a name to the face. Identifying John or Jane Doe patients is no easy task, as doctors and other hospital staff members must work to find out who they are without violating their rights. The New York Department of Health has protocols in place specifically for missing children, college students and vulnerable adults. These standards were set in 2018 after 'several instances of a missing adult with Alzheimer's disease who was admitted to a hospital as an unidentified patient and police and family members were unable to locate the individual.' However, the process is not as cut and dry when it is the hospital asking for the public's help instead of the other way around. While hospitals have been known to share images of unknown patients when all else fails, they are not allowed to reveal much about their circumstances.

Top medical body concerned over RFK Jr's reported plans to cut preventive health panel
Top medical body concerned over RFK Jr's reported plans to cut preventive health panel

The Guardian

time4 hours ago

  • The Guardian

Top medical body concerned over RFK Jr's reported plans to cut preventive health panel

A top US medical body has expressed 'deep concern' to Robert F Kennedy Jr over news reports that the health secretary plans to overhaul a panel that determines which preventive health measures including cancer screenings should be covered by insurance companies. The letter from the the American Medical Association comes after the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Kennedy plans to overhaul the 40-year old US Preventive Services Task Force because he regards them as too 'woke', according to sources familiar with the matter. During his second term, Donald Trump has frequently raged against organizations and government departments that he considers too liberal – often without any evidence. The US president, and his cabinet members such as Kennedy, have also overseen huge cuts and job losses across the US government. The taskforce is made up of a 16-member panel appointed by health and human services secretaries to serve four-year terms. In addition to cancer screenings, the taskforce issues recommendations for a variety of other screenings including osteoporosis, intimate partner violence, HIV prevention, as well as depression in children. Writing in its letter to Kennedy on Sunday, the AMA defended the panel, saying: 'As you know, USPSTF plays a critical, non-partisan role in guiding physicians' efforts to prevent disease and improve the health of patients by helping to ensure access to evidence-based clinical preventive services.' 'As such, we urge you to retain the previously appointed members of the USPSTF and commit to the long-standing process of regular meetings to ensure their important work can be continued without disruption,' it added. Citing Kennedy's own slogan of 'Making America healthy again,' the AMA went on to say: 'USPSTF members have been selected through an open, public nomination process and are nationally recognized experts in primary care, prevention and evidence-based medicine. They serve on a volunteer basis, dedicating their time to help reduce disease and improve the health of all Americans – a mission well-aligned with the Make America Healthy Again initiative.' According to the Affordable Care Act, public and private insurance companies must cover any services recommended by the Preventive Services Task Force without cost sharing. In a statement to MedPage Today, Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon did not confirm the reports, instead saying: 'No final decision has been made on how the USPSTF can better support HHS' mandate to Make America Healthy Again.' Reports of Kennedy's alleged decision to overhaul the taskforce come after the American Conservative published an essay earlier this month that described the taskforce as advocating for 'leftwing ideological orthodoxy'. It went on to accuse the panel of being 'packed with Biden administration appointees devoted to the ideological capture of medicine', warning that the 'continued occupation of an important advisory body in HHS – one that has the capacity to force private health insurers to cover services and procedures – by leftwing activists would be a grave oversight by the Trump administration'. In response to the essay, 104 health organizations, including the American Medical Association, issued a separate letter to multiple congressional health committees in which they urged the committees to 'protect the integrity' of the taskforce. 'The loss of trustworthiness in the rigorous and nonpartisan work of the Task Force would devastate patients, hospital systems, and payers as misinformation creates barriers to accessing lifesaving and cost effective care,' the organizations said. In June, Kennedy removed all 17 members of a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel of vaccine experts. Writing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, he accused the committee of having too many conflicts of interest. Kennedy's decision to overhaul the immunization panel was met with widespread criticism from health experts, with the American Public Health Association executive director Georges Benjamin calling the ouster 'a coup'. 'It's not how democracies work. It's not good for the health of the nation,' Benjamin said.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store