My First Go At EDT

Escalating Density Training is a training system designed to make maximum gains in muscular strength and endurance, whilst burning fat and all in minimal time. It was developed by Charles Staley, a renowned strength coach who was fed up with the normal sets and reps approach to weight training and wanted to get the maximum amount of hard work into a session. Sounds too good to be true, so I did some research and tried it out for the first time today.

In more conventional hypertrophy training approaches you would try and fatigue the muscle or muscle group over a number of sets, training to failure and typically doing 3 sets of 8-12 reps. With EDT the idea is to "manage" muscle fatigue by using the same weight that you may otherwise use and doing sets of only 5 reps. The real difference is that your workout is divided into a number of zones, each comprising opposing exercises for instance a bench press and bent over row. A zone is usually 15 minutes and within that time you carry out as many sets of 5 reps of each exercise as possible and record that number. 5 reps bench followed by 5 reps rows non-stop for 15 minutes!!! Then rest for about 5 minutes and complete your second zone or two opposing exercises. Over a series of workouts you record your results and once you have improved your score by 20% you increase the weight.

This evening I used an adapted approach using hardly any kit in my front room:
1st Zone
10 Press Ups (hands in low position as if doing planche press up)
5 Pull Ups (mostly overhand grip but some sets underhand as could not do any more!)
2nd Zone
5 Sumo Squats with Kettlebell
5 Pull Overs with Resistance Bands

My results:
I managed 22 sets of zone 1 and 23 sets of zone 2.
It felt good and I got a full sweat on and a really intense pump too.
Next time I will need to adjust the exercises a bit as the squats were too easy and I lost intensity on zone 2.

I will modify the workout and let you know how I get on. Have you ever done EDT? If so let me know how you train and why!

Stay strong

Ben