Every Thirty on Thirty (ETOT): An Alternative to EMOM

Ah the EMOM. If you’ve heard of her, you know her well, and if you haven’t, you’re missing out. An acronym for “Every Minute On The Minute,” EMOMs are a staple workout of the modern interval training scene.

Made most-famous by Crossfit, these workouts involve performing an exercise or set of exercises within one minute while resting for the remainder of the minute. EMOM workouts range from 6 minute burnouts to 35 minute endurance festivals, but the one thing they all share is the interval nature of the workout.

But EMOMs may be a bit… too popular. As with anything fad-ish, the first to make a name for itself defined the genre and smothers the alternatives. In the case of EMOM, this training style has overshadowed variations of the “on-again, off-again” workout. And in our opinion, this is stifling.

We’d like to see more people enjoy the unique benefits of the EMOM structure with shorter intervals. Research on Tabata and Sprint training lend itself to the idea there are unique benefits to shorter intervals. And when combined with tools like BFR bands, variations of the EMOM structure can really come into their own spotlight. Welcome to Every Thirty on Thirty, or ETOT.

Don’t Fix It. Alter it. (Reinventing The Wheel of EMOM Workouts.)

First and foremost, let me just say it’s best not to reinvent the wheel if the simplicity works for you. Ultimately, whether you’re doing EMOM workouts, AMRAP workouts, sprint work, or sport training, the most important part is that you ARE training.

At the same time, more tools in the kit means more variety and more specificity, both of which being very good things.

So without further adieu, here’s why we’re reinventing the wheel with ETOT.

Variety is the spice of life.

It’s popular to talk about the benefits of specific styles of exercise, but there are benefits to simply doing something you’re not used to. Due to the nature of adaptation, simply putting your body through something it is not used has rapid benefits.

One of the better reasons to switch to ETOT is simply to do something new.

ETOT Is More Similar to Tabata

Tabata is one of the oldest forms of interval training, dating back to the early 1900s, and has been well studied. Most tabata training involves exercising for Thirty seconds and resting for 10. 45 seconds on, 15 seconds off. 40 seconds on 20 seconds off. Etc.

Comparatively, EMOMs lean towards the longer side of the “exercise” portion of tabata and have an unprecedented long rest between go rounds.

ETOT places us more firmly in the realm of tabata, and while I’m not saying this means the benefits are all-around better than EMOM, we know more about the benefits of shorter tabata style training thanks to the age of the system.

As shown in this study, tabata training has massive benefits over treadmill cardio for both aerobic capacity and muscular endurance.

It also creates benefits in much shorter time-windows. In the same study, a 4 minute tabata session boasted greater benefits than thirty minutes of steady state cardio. The efficiency is so great that tabata is thought to be one of the most energy efficient ways you can exercise.

Now, this could mean that EMOM and its effectiveness is for similar reasons, but other research on sprint training implies that the shorter, higher-intensity nature of tabata is key to its benefits. Shortening to ETOT instead of EMOM workouts is likely more efficient.

Sprint Training

Simple sprints have become a darling of the modern biohacking community, which if you didn’t already follow, is obsessive about “minimum effective dose” tools. In essence, they love efficiency. As it turns out, going all-out such as during a sprint yields many benefits for less time-under-tension than most other training styles.

Even 6 seconds of all out sprinting is enough to cause cascading effects on improving muscle strength, size, aerobic capacity, etc.

By shortening the work/rest cycles of EMOM exercises we trend more into this realm of true high-intensity “sprint” work and away from what some refer to as “black hole” training.

In case the name didn’t make it obvious, we want to avoid black hole training. Black hole training refers to sessions that are too hard for your body to recover while exercising, but too long to be worth the signals. Another way it has been described is that black hole training doesn’t quite get into the zones of effort necessary for the most beneficial exercise signals to take place, while simultaneously black hole training is too intense for the body to meaningfully recover. It’s most-effort least-gain, and an easy place to end up in.

Short ETOT workouts go the opposite way from black hole training by keeping things intense but brief.

For an example of the benefits of sprint training, there may be nothing better for your mitochondrial health. Don’t you remember? The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. More specifically, our mitochondria serve as our deepest layer of energy production as a biological being.

Sprint training increases mitochondrial density massively when performed at a rate of 4 thirty second sprints 3 times a week. ETOT workouts of 4-5 minutes imitate this style of training near-exactly.

And in case you were wondering, yes, this has health and longevity implications too. Mitochondrial health appears to be one of, if not the most important qualities in aging. Better mitochondrial density and function correlates with longer lifetimes, greater cognitive function, and better fitness whereas poor mitochondrial density and function correlate with many chronic conditions including mental degeneration.

How To Do ETOT

At its core, ETOT can be performed the same way as the EMOM Crossfit you’re used to, except only for thirty seconds on and thirty seconds off. To get the maximum benefits however, we like short ETOT sessions range of 4-6 minutes, or 4-6 rounds depending how you like your math.

Exercise Structures

As far as the ETOT exercises themselves, remember you’re working for thirty seconds and no more. Often this works best with a single exercise, such as push-ups or light snatches. But you can also alternate exercises every round or give yourself a sequence to progress through.

For example, you could do 5 pushups, 10 squats and 15 toes to bar. Go through the sequence for thirty seconds and restart if you finish before the break. Then pick up where you left off on the next round.

It really doesn’t matter all too much as long as you’re working hard.

As with EMOMs, however, we suggest lower weights or resistance for this, both to avoid injuries and maximize positive benefits. You don’t need to throw around 130 Lbs when you’re going all out for Thirty seconds every Thirty seconds.

As you’ve probably already noticed, these are pretty short burners. You can do 2 or even 3 short ETOTs per workout but as shown in the research earlier, just one is enough to garner benefits.

BFR Modifier

Now that you have an idea how to program your ETOT workouts, let’s talk about one of our favorite modifiers here at The Ready State: BFR.

BFR, or blood flow restriction, cuffs are a tool that restricts blood flow in a muscle in order to amplify the signals the body creates to garner positive improvements. We go into much more detail on this in our BFR guide, but for now I want to mention using BFR with ETOT is one of our favorite ways to use both tools.

This is because the fundamental goal of using BFR is to quickly deplete a muscle of oxygen and subsequently engorge it with blood. In layman’s terms, to create a “pump.”

To combine BFR and Every Thirty On Thirty, choose just one exercise to perform while wearing BFR cuffs and do 5 rounds of ETOT. Then remove the cuffs and wait at least 5 minutes before wearing them again.

You could do multiple exercises of this, but I suggest no more than 2 BFR ETOTs per training session. Remember, we’re doing this because of the efficiency. Overdoing it is well-and-truly self-defeating.

When it comes to the exercises themselves, it’s best to do movements which you can perform quickly that use a decent range of motion in your upper or lower body. For example, I’d rather you do pushups than kettlebell swings, as kb swings (while awesome) mainly focus on the posterior chain rather than the arms of legs. With that said, BFR bands still boost the benefits of movements like KB swings. It’s really just a matter of what your goals are.

Curls, pushups, pullups, rows, and tricep extensions all work great for upper body bfr, while squats and lunges (and their variations) are awesome for lower body BFR. Experiment with it and have some fun.

Again, Faster (Summarizing ETOT)

In summary, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the famous Every Minute On The Minute or EMOM structure we know and love, but the available research does lend to the idea shorter cycles would be more beneficial.

Even if it’s only because you’re not used to it, the Every Thirty on Thirty (ETOT) structure is our suggestion.

Decades of research on tabata as well as the clear benefits of short sprint work both support an ETOT structure over an EMOM workout, especially when kept below 6 minutes in total-workout-time.

You can go ahead and perform the same EMOM exercises you’re used to in an ETOT, but the shorter nature particularly suits the use of a single exercise, even more so if combined with BFR cuffs to create pump and engorge muscle tissues.

We don’t aim to reinvent the wheel and if you like EMOMs we say, keep doing them! But more tools in the toolbox are always welcome and if you’re feeling adventurous, the ETOT structure may just be the thing you need to break through that next plateau.

Let us know how you like ETOT in the comments!