So, you may be thinking, What the heck is E.M.O.T.M?
Well, it stands for Every Minute On The Minute…
Basically what this means is you start a movement (or series of movements) at the top of a minute and then a minute later, you repeat whatever it is you’re doing. The faster you get the movements or set of movements done within the 60 second time frame, the more of a rest period you get.
Sounds easy huh?
I’ve been using E.M.O.T.M.’s now for a while now and with much success.
The most success I’ve seen has come from gaining more strength and overall strength endurance.
There’s a different between the two…
Basics/ Relative Strength = how much weight you can lift maximally
Strength Endurance = lifting heavier weights for higher reps.
My goal is to have a high level of basic and maximal strength abilities.
But, don’t we all???
What I want to be able to do is lift these same heavy weights (or close to them) multiple times with little to no rest.
Basically what it comes down to with that is being able to handle a low rep maximum weight for a longer period of time with less rest. When you build up your overall capacity to recover quickly, you’ve now built up more strength endurance which is a powerful quality to have.
You can take your “by the book” method of training for strength and toss it out the window when you’re using the E.M.O.T.M. protocol.
In regards to that, I’m a huge advocate of “Attacking The Time” when you train. In other words, you should always be trying to push the pace and rest only when needing to.
I know the guys over at West-Side Barbell are notorious for lifting super heavy weights with insanely short breaks.
They build up to this by always pushing the pace and being relentless with their rest periods.
It’s usually in and out when they train.
They set it up so one guy lifts while another spots, another changes weights and they just rotate… The rest periods are quick… No BS just pure hard work and getting sh*t done!
The way it’s supposed to be.
Most strength and conditioning books prescribe you rest anywhere from 3-5 mins when you’re training with 80% + weights. That’s great and it works but, overtime you’ll do very little to actually increase your overall strength endurance capacity.
E.M.O.T.M. isn’t restricted to only strength and strength endurance work as you can use it for pretty much any type of training outcome…
- Specialized Conditioning
- Speed Training
- Strength/Endurance
- Specialized Strength / Skill Work
E.M.O.T.M. is a great way to help build endurance overall with anything you do as well as help get in a ton of work at once.
Examples:
I love working on strength and power by doing either stone shouldering or heavy sandbag shouldering where I’ll two 1-2 reps / shoulder E.M.O.T.M. These get a little bit nasty. You’ve got to really focus in on form or you’ll break yourself.
Here’s another great example of a recent Thursday Throwdown I did by targeting a bit of strength and conditioning by going – E.M.O.T.M. with sandbag cleans x 5 + using the remaining amount of time for burpees until I hit 100.
This was BRUTAL but, helped me work some serious conditioning plus build some strength endurance as I had to lift a 100lbs + bag even when I was tired.
Another example of a Strength Endurance E.M.O.T.M. protocol session was when I did 3 Box Squats every min on the min x 15 total mins. The weight was easy and felt great at first but, quickly got heavy towards the end. I did 15 total sets which allowed me to do a fairly heavy amount of weight in a very short amount of time.
A great extra bonus to E.M.O.T.M protocol sessions… MENTAL TOUGHNESS
Seriously, the weight starts to get heavier and the rest periods seem to get shorter… What do YOU do??
Quit or push on???
Another way to implement E.M.O.T.M is with through Power / Explosive E.M.O.T.M.’s.
An example would be with a superset I did just last week when I would do 3 broad jumps + 6 banded Kettlebell swings every min on the min for 10 mins.
I set up a cone to make sure I wasn’t falling short of where I was landing with the broad jumps and the banded swings were easy to gauge as I just made sure I was moving as fast as possible with each rep.
Obviously, this won’t be for PURE power work as you’ll get fatigued after a few rounds but, that’s the point with these E.M.O.T.M sessions.
And one last example I want to share with you would be with skill work E.M.O.T.M. you can do in which you take a movement that requires some degree of technical skill and focus in on that. Honestly, this could be done with any particular movement you plain suck at. If it needs work, do it.
For me, pistol squats are it. I like to work pistol squats or Olympic lifting where I’ll do very light weight or bodyweight and just focus in hitting perfect form each and every set.
You could also use this type of set up for low rep gymnastics training as well with movements like muscle ups, HSPU’s, ect.
Overall, using the E.M.O.T.M. protocol really forces you to focus in hard on what you’re doing since there’s a very short time limit on each round. Makes for less distraction and for more work getting done.
And as you can see, there’s a ton of ways you can use this type of training protocol.
One thing I might note is that it’s not for straight up beginners and not something you just want to “throw in” to your training program. It needs to be properly and strategically placed into your training for best results.
When you hit the heavier weighted strength-endurance E.M.O.T.M. sessions, expect to be banged up for a few days. A true beginner would get crushed for a week!
I hit a 10 set round of 5 front squats E.M.O.T.M. just the other day and I’m still messed up! It’s no joke, but when used right will give you some really amazing results!
Live Aggressive and Get Strong!
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