Workouts to Try When You’re Short on Time
Time shouldn’t always dictate your workouts, but life happens. Something is almost always better than nothing. Give these ideas a try next time you need to squeeze a workout in, or you need to shorten your normal session due to other obligations.
Density training
Instead of lifting weights for traditional sets, put about 70% of your 1 rep max on the bar and start a running clock, say 15-20 minutes. During that time, you’ll perform as many sets to 2 reps short of failure as possible, resting about 2 minutes between sets. The first set, you may get 10-12 reps. Next set, maybe fewer. Continue in this fashion until time is up. Don’t stop the clock when resting OR when performing the exercise.
DO NOT TRAIN TO FAILURE. The point of this technique is to accumulate a lot of volume in a short time, and training to failure will create too much fatigue for a quality session. Volume (sets x reps x weight) is the most potent driver of muscle size, and indirectly muscle strength.
Doing this with 1-2 total-body exercises will be a great training session that will take well under an hour, eve including warm-ups.
Myoreps
This technique is best used with assistance exercises, machine exercises, and small muscle groups. Not saying you can’t do this with your squats or bench press, but safety is a big concern and you’ll probably want to die anyway.
Think of this as one long set, and you’ll only do it once per exercise. Your first mini-set will be 12-15 reps with around 60-65% of your 1-rep max. If you don’t know your max, just pick a weight you think you could do for 16-18 reps and stop a couple reps short of failure. Then, you’ll perform multiple sets of 3-5 reps with very short rest periods, 15-20 seconds at most. Stop after 5 mini sets, or when you can no longer perform 3-5 reps with good technique.
Here’s an example:
15 reps
Rest 20sec
5 reps
Rest 20 sec
3 reps
Rest 20 seconds
2 reps
STOP
Dynamic Effort Method
This is another way to accumulate a significant amount of volume in a short time. It will also build muscle power at moderate weights. Use this method with squats, deadlifts, bench press, or their close variants.
Put about 60-70% of your 1 rep max on the bar and do 8-12 sets of 2-3 reps, focusing on moving each rep as fast as you possibly can. Lifting light weights slowly doesn’t do anything. Think about throwing the bar through the ceiling on bench press or trying to “jump” with your squats or deadlift. You won’t be able to, but keep that mentality every single rep. You should be absolutely spent afterwards if you do it right.
Rest 1 minute between sets and keep rest periods strict.
Interval Training
Interval training can have a huge variety of effects on the body depending on the length of the interval, the intensity, the rest period, and the number of intervals you do. Not all intervals do the same thing, just like not all strength training has the same effect on the body.
Here are some simple protocols to try, based on your goal for the session.
Repeated explosive efforts: 10-20x10sec maximal effort, 50sec rest
Repeated high-intensity sustained efforts: 2-3x (3x90sec hard, 60sec rest), 4 minutes rest between sets
Maximal Aerobic Speed (great for PT tests and mid-distance running): Read this
High Intensity Sustained Effort: 1-2x 10-20 minutes at a pace you could hold for about an hour at max effort (your traditional “tempo run”)
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