Tips For Effective Workouts When You’re Short on Time
We’ve all been in a situation when we’re short on time, but missing your gym session is not a good idea. So you’re heading to the gym, but you don’t have time for a two-hour workout. You want to make your workout as effective as possible in as short an amount of time as possible. This is the perfect article for such situations.
Here I will share top tips for a quick and highly effective training session that will ensure those gains keep coming, while you won’t spend too much time on it.
Have a plan
In order to get the most out of your short time in the gym and ensure you make it highly effective, despite not spending a lot of time, you will need to have a plan ready even before getting started. A well enough plan will help you keep track of your routines, including reps, sets, and weight. This will allow you to keep pushing yourself further.
Not only that, but I recommend having a plan B, just in case. Having a backup plan will help you save time. For example, you need to use the bench press, but all stations are full. Have a backup plan that will use dumbbells, for example.
Group and order your exercises
Having a plan includes grouping and ordering your exercises while making sure your main movements come first to perform them at your best. For example, if you want to deadlift, which is one of the main movements out there, you may struggle to do it at the end of your back day after an hour or continuous work with other exercises. That’s why you start with it. Additionally, you will definitely cut down your session time by ordering your routine in a way that will reduce rest, travel across the gym, and change equipment. You may not even realize how much time you’re spending on this.
Crossing the gym, changing equipment, and resting take most of the time that a lot of guys are spending in the gym. Avoid it if you are short on time and want effective but short workouts. You will cut time by making your workouts more convenient and grouping your lifts. You could group your exercises that use the squat rack, then exercises that use dumbbells then exercises that use cables, and so on.
Warm up towards your goal
You need to warm up even if you’re short on time. You shouldn’t start lifting heavy without a proper warm-up. Nonetheless, we all know that warming up takes some time, and when you’re short on time, you may want to avoid it. Don’t avoid warming up, but you can make your warm-up work for you and towards your goal. When doing so, you can get specific with your warm-up, helping your body prepare specifically for what’s ahead.
You do not go on the treadmill walking mindlessly for 10 minutes on a chest day. You better go for a short circuit session of push-ups, bench press reps with an empty bar, and band pull-aparts. These are perfect examples for you to warm up, as they warm up the target muscles you need to work with. Only a few rounds of these exercises will help you have your heart pumping, and muscles ready for your hard, effective, yet short workout.
Focus on compound movements more
Compound movements are perfect because they are working more than just one joint simultaneously and multiple muscles or muscle groups at the same time. This means that by executing just one movement, you work multiple muscles, which can save you a lot of time. Compound movements are extremely helpful when you want to grow muscle, but they are even more valuable when you’re short on time and have the same goal. For example, you could go for a compound movement that can do the same job as three different exercises. Yes, you may not get the exact same level of targeted stress on an individual muscle group as you can with isolation movements, but you will save a lot of time and you will still cover what you need to.
While you may still not need to make your entire workout with those big compound lifts, you definitely need to include a few in every workout, even if you’re not short on time. So, here are some examples of my personal favorite compound lifts that will hit multiple muscles at the same time: deadlift, bench press, front squat, barbell row, pull-up, power clean, and numerous others.
Use supersets
Supersets are extremely helpful for anyone looking to gain muscle and even break through muscle growth plateaus. Nonetheless, supersets can be a complete game changer when you are short on time. They will help maximize the fatigue, ensuring you get the most out of the short time in the gym. Many may make the mistake of using two exercises back-to-back, working on the same muscle group. This is a mistake as the performance on the second exercise would significantly suffer, as you work the same muscle. However, you could perform exercises that work out two opposite muscles and your performance won’t suffer!
In short, using supersets means that you pair up two opposing muscles, and this way you will cut your rest time down to almost nothing. Since you do not rest almost anything, you ensure that almost all your time in the gym you use for working your muscles. So, for example, instead of doing a set of bicep curls and then resting, you could add a set of triceps extensions while your biceps rest. You could pair these two muscles and have almost no rest in between them.
Ask to tap in
You may have a perfect plan and even a backup plan, and yet, you can still hit a roadblock. That’s especially true if you’re going to the gym past 5 PM (we all hate it, don’t we?). Going at 5-6 PM in the gym you may find that all machines and stations that you want are busy. So no plan will work. That’s why you may just need to move on to your next exercise. But this could hinder your performance on the previous exercise. So, what else can you do?
Ask to tap in and join, working while the person who uses the machine is resting. It may not be ideal, but it still saves you some time. By doing so you make sure that your training stays on track. In fact, it may come with an additional awesome bonus – you could get a new gym buddy.
Time your rest
Even when you have all day to train, you still shouldn’t rest for too long between sets and exercises in order to grow muscle. Studies suggest that the rest time shouldn’t be too long. Many people tend to zone out between sets and exercises and this takes way more time than you could think. While you allow yourself a bit more time when you can train for a long time, you must be as efficient as possible when you’re short on time and want effective workouts. Therefore, I strongly recommend you monitor your rest periods carefully.
As said, it is very easy to zone out and spend way more time in the gym than you wish. That’s especially true if you are scrolling through social media between sets. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend using your phone in the gym at all, even if you’re not short on time. Of course, unless it is something urgent. Otherwise, you better use your phone only if you set a time and rest for a set amount of time. This way, you know that you are not going to waste any time while in the gym. For most exercises, 45-90 seconds is more than enough time to rest and recover between sets and exercises.
Effective Arms and Shoulders Workout When You’re Short on Time Example
If you really want to see those gains, you need to make sure you make time to work out and make your sessions as effective as possible. So, you better have enough time to spend in the gym to make the progress that you are really looking for. However, we all know that there are times when you could be short on time. For such situations, you better plan it out and learn how to condense your routine to make sure that you get the most out of the short time in the gym. In the end, here is an example of an effective and short workout below. It will take less than one hour to complete, but it makes sure you can build up muscle and strength gains.
Arms and shoulders are two muscle groups that can be grouped together, so they are suitable for working out time effectively. Most of the exercises I will share below will use dumbbells, so you can easily change them between exercises. Moreover, arm and shoulder exercises usually do not require any setup. This means that you could quickly get stuck in. It is very important to keep your rest time between sets under 90 seconds, or even shorter.
Keep in mind that even if you’re short on time, you still need to ensure you perform each movement correctly with proper form.
Here’s the workout example:
- Superset: seated dumbbell shoulder press and lateral raise 3×6 and 12 reps
- Superset: front plate raise and face pull: 2×12 reps for both
- Seated dumbbell curl: 3×8 reps
- Dumbbell overhead triceps extension: 3×8 reps
- Superset: incline hammer curl and triceps kickback: 2×12 reps for both
Short on Time? Use Cycle Gear
Ask any professional bodybuilder and they will all tell you that this is a slow game. Gains definitely do not come overnight. Nonetheless, it doesn’t mean that you always need to spend half of your day in the gym. You can get those gains even if you spend a shorter time in the gym, as long as you make your gym sessions effective. You can definitely make your gym sessions as effective as possible in a short amount of time as long as you follow the tips above. They will definitely help you make some serious headway with your goals, even in a shorter training session.
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