Why 20 minutes, 2-3 times per week is all you need
It’s time to bust some myths about muscle development and strength training.
Muscles aren't just for aesthetics
Plenty of people talk a lot about losing weight and burning fat. But muscle matters more.
Muscle is your…
Metabolic Engine
Burns calories even at rest
Organ of Longevity
Protects against disease
Physical Insurance Plan
Prevents injury and frailty
A person can have a "normal" BMI but be dangerously low in lean mass.
And that midlife weight gain so many people are concerned about? It’s not from slower metabolism.
It’s from losing muscle mass—a condition called sarcopenia. Research shows adults lose 3–8% of muscle per decade after age 30 if inactive.
This leads to…
- Reduced insulin sensitivity
- Weakened blood sugar control
- Increased risk for fat gain, frailty, metabolic disease, and early mortality
In other words,muscle is medicine.
The most powerful intervention for metabolic health, longevity, and quality of life
Strength training twice per week can provide life-altering results.
Combined with adequate protein intake, is the best way to maintain or increase your muscle mass, no matter your age.
Muscle protects your metabolism, reverses sarcopenia,
and improves overall health and longevity.
Developing muscle is at the heart of real health and fitness. And it should be the goal of your strength training workouts.
You need 3 things to build muscle
(spoiler: “lots of time” isn’t one of them)
Tension
Tension is the amount of resistance (or weight) your muscles are up against. Or, in other words, the "weight on the bar."
Stimulus
This tension stimulates your muscle fibers, so that, when the muscle repairs itself, it grows back bigger, stronger, tougher. (This is known as hypertrophy.)
Metabolic stress
As muscles fatigue, super-critical muscle-building processes get kickstarted at the cellular level. (We could really nerd out on this but we'll keep it high-level for now.)
Muscle is strength. Muscle is medicine. You want more of it—whether you’re 55 with kids graduating high school or a linebacker preparing for two-a-days.
But here’s the secret:
Not all muscle-growing methods are created equal.
The problem with traditional weight-training
If you want to make the most of the factors needed to create new muscle tissue, you’re going to want to make the most of the tension. Or, put another way, you want to maximize the resistance.
The reality, though, is that your strength changes during workouts in three ways:
- You get weaker as each set goes on
- You're stronger when lowering weight than lifting it
- You're stronger at some joint positions than others
Free weights can’t respond to your changing levels of strength. This means you’re stuck with the same amount of resistance—whether you’re in a position of mechanical advantage or disadvantage.
Tension is good (in your workouts)
Most strength-training protocols don’t create adequate amounts of tension—or any at all.
Pilates, yoga, and group fitness classes may improve flexibility or endurance, but they lack the mechanical load necessary to build significant strength and muscle.
If the exercise lacks tension, it will lack effectiveness and efficiency.
Real strength gains happen when muscles are loaded in their lengthened (eccentric) position, where they’re mechanically disadvantaged. This is what creates the tension we’re looking for, and it does two things:
- Forces your body to recruit more muscle fibers just to control the movement
- Creates the ideal environment that accelerates muscle growth
But most training—including traditional weight-lifting—rushes through this critical zone and focuses on the shortened range (concentric) where leverage is easy and muscular demand is minimal.
We call this a tension mismatch
And it’s the core problem with almost all strength training methods. It’s also why you might regularly find yourself “plateauing” or struggling to reach your desired results.
To compensate for this mismatch, most people do one of two things:
Increase weight:
It’s efficient but comes with a serious injury risk
Reduce weight:
Safer but inefficient—and not nearly as effective
So, standard training regimens default to three sets of 12 reps. It’s the safe-but-time-consuming way to apply the necessary tension that (eventually) stimulates and fatigues your muscles.
If you feel like you've tried everything and it still isn't working?
But there is a better way. There is a way to match your resistance and varying levels of strength.
Your strength + isokinetic resistance = a better way to workout
FastFit® machines move at the same velocity throughout the full range of motion to solve this mismatch problem.
To get technical, this is a form of isokinetic exercise. Instead of stacking weight against gravity, the machine moves at a constant velocity—and you produce force against that movement. No weight stack. No gravity. Just you, pushing or resisting as hard as you want, through the full range of motion. Concentric and eccentric. All the tension your muscles can take.
Isotonic training—like free weights—can’t adjust to your strength output. It limits the tension and effectiveness. But the unique form of isokinetic exercise through FastFit® frees you and your muscles to work as hard as possible—without the safety risks.
From your very first rep to your very last
Whether you're lifting or lowering the weight
No matter what position your joints are in
Our isokinetic approach creates the optimal conditions for muscle development at the cellular level. The muscle stimulus is more complete, leading to more meaningful results than traditional weights.
Develop 2x more muscle
Ditch unwanted fat
Improve bone density
Increase mobility & energy
Rebalance hormones
Enhance cardio endurance
This is how you unlock better results in a workout that's only 20 minutes, 2-3x per week.
What about cardio?
Cardiovascular fitness comes from challenging your muscles, not just your heart and lungs.
It's about your muscles.
When researchers measure improvements in VO2max (your body’s ability to use oxygen), they’re actually measuring adaptations happening inside your working muscles, not your cardiovascular system. Your heart and lungs exist to serve your muscles, delivering oxygen and nutrients through blood flow.
The more intensely you challenge your muscles, the more robust these cardiovascular adaptations become.
This is why high-intensity strength training produces the same cardiovascular benefits as traditional cardio in a fraction of the time.
- Improved oxygen uptake
- Enhanced metabolic conditioning
- Better endurance
When you maximally stimulate your muscles with FastFit®, you're maximizing your cardiovascular benefits, too.
What about safety?
With free weights, safety and effectiveness compete. FastFit® eliminates this tradeoff through three built-in protections.
No impact stress
Isokinetic machines move at a
constant velocity. There’s no
acceleration. That means there’s no explosive force, no ballistic loading, and no impact stress on joints. Every rep is mechanically smooth from start to finish.
No overload
Because isokinetic resistance is
generated by your own force
against a speed-controlled
machine, the load is always
proportional to what you’re
producing. You can’t be overloaded at a weak point in the movement the way you can with a fixed weight.
No fear of fatigue
With free weights, fatigue is where you’re most susceptible to injury. On the FastFit machines, fatigue doesn’t work against you. There’s nothing to drop. When your strength decreases, so does the amount of force you’re exerting on the machine.
With FastFit®, maximum tension meets maximum safety.
If you've tried everything...
Try what actually works.
You don’t need more time in the gym. You need a method that honors your body, your age, and your goals.
Three steps to your stronger self
No pressure, no sales pitch. Just a focused, 1-on-1 session with a certified trainer and a firsthand experience of what actual strength-building training feels like.
1. Find a Studio Near You
76 locations nationwide
2. Book a Free Intro
See if FastFit® is right for you
3. Explore Membership
Starting at just $99/mo