Skipping a workout because you don’t have time to do all of it is like skipping dinner because you don’t have money for dessert.
Do what you can with the time you’ve got. Something is always better than nothing.
Not sure how to make the most of a short workout, though?
According to research conducted by scientists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the most time-efficient way to train looks like this:
- Exercise type: Prioritize compound barbell exercises that train your body bilaterally (both sides at a time) over isolation and unilateral (one side at a time) exercises.
- Exercise selection: Do at least one pushing exercise (e.g., bench press), one upper-body pulling exercise (e.g., pull-up), and one leg pressing exercise (e.g., squat), each week.
- Intensity: Do most of your sets in the 6–12 rep range.
- Volume and frequency: Do at least one workout per week with a minimum of three-to-four sets of three-to-four exercises.
- Rest intervals: If you’ve been training for less than 12 months, rest 1–2 minutes between sets, and if you’ve been training for longer, rest at least 2 minutes.
- Advanced training methods: Incorporate supersets, drop sets, and rest-pause sets into your training where possible and practical.
- Warming up: Do exercise-specific warm-ups only. (Don’t do long warm-ups with cardio, exercise bands, plyometrics, and other faff.)
- Stretching: Don’t spend time stretching unless you want to improve your flexibility.
Essentially, the researchers recommend you stick to traditional strength training fundamentals except with a slightly lower frequency and volume than what you might use if you were trying to maximize muscle and strength gain.
My only quibble would be that I think drop sets probably aren’t the best use of time and rest-pause sets can be difficult to do with compound exercises, but that’s splitting hairs.
In any event, the key takeaway is that you just don’t need that much time to get fitter and stronger, and even less to stay fit and strong.
Something like this done a couple of times per week would more than suffice:
- Barbell Back Squat: 3–4 sets of 6–8 reps with 2 minutes rest
- Barbell Bench Press: 3–4 sets of 6–8 reps with 2 minutes rest
- Pull-up: 3–4 sets of 6–8 reps with 1–2 minutes rest
And if you want to get through those sessions even faster without sacrificing results, you can superset the bench press and pull-up using the popular “antagonist-paired” technique.
Want to know exactly how you should train to reach your fitness goals? Take our free 60-second training quiz and find out now.
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