Time-saving workout tips for busy people

Personal trainer, Ian McGarry, is an RPM Power Partner and he is here to give you some advice and tips on quick workouts with maximum impact. If you maintain a full schedule, you’ll be looking for ways to make most out of your limited time while still hitting your training goals. In this video, Ian shares his advice on the best way to perform quick, impactful workouts at home or in the gym without sacrificing on results. Watch the video below or continue reading to learn more:

How to perform short, quick workouts with maximised results

Even if you’ve got the motivation, sometimes there just isn’t enough time in the day to fit in your training. Thankfully, there are ways to optimise your workouts to make them shorter while still achieving your goals and gains. From upping your rep or weight volume to adjusting rest times and mixing strength and cardio – Ian shares his professional tips on quick exercise routines that still make the difference.

Shorten your workout with giant sets

Ian’s first piece of advice is to compact your workouts by performing giant sets. A very simple way of getting a workout done in a short amount of time, giant sets incorporate a lot of different muscle groups, so you can work multiple areas with fewer exercise variations. An easy way of doing this is to have a push group and a pull group. That could be chest and shoulder exercises followed up by a back exercise or a rear delt exercise, for example.

Another option is to perform full-body tri-sets. Here you would perform a push exercise (e.g. bench press), a pull exercise (e.g. row), and then follow these with a lower-body exercise (e.g. hinge movement like deadlift or a squat movement).

Giant sets are a great way to reduce the number of individual exercises in your workout – and thus reduce your workout time – while still giving you the benefit of a dynamic full-body training programme that can push your limits.

Increase rep or weight volume

Another really easy way of performing quick daily workouts to try to up the volume total. This means doing a lighter workout with higher reps and a shorter rest period.  Doing so will shorten your session, but can still be intensely challenging if you find a balance between weight loading and repetitions that is going to continue to push you.

Adjust your rest periods

Beyond that then you can look at having short break periods. Shortening your rest period in between sets is a very simple way, albeit a very taxing way, of increasing the volume in your session. If you do that, you’ve got to realise that the total weight that you lift in each set has to be realistic. You’re going to have to pull back a small bit with the weight loading and in place of this, increase the volume of either exercises or reps.

Increasing volume and reducing rest times can be a lot, so one of the best ways you can approach this is by supplementing a weight training session with a cardio element.

• Perform strengthening exercises that require stability and are going to push your aerobic threshold as well as strengthen.
• Perform exercises where you have to have motion at the same time as lifting your weights.
• Rather than have separate weight training and cardio workouts, combine the two and utilise equipment like battle ropes, sleds and slam balls.

Adding a cardio element will allow you diversify a tough weight session, especially if you’re cutting down on break time.

Key takeaways

So in conclusion, there are a number of different ways you can go about shortening your training times while still taking the most benefit from each workout:

• Reduce exercise variation and perform compound movements with giant sets
• Increase repetitions with reduced weight loading and shorter rest times
• Reduce repetitions and rest times but focus on higher weight loadings and retention times
• Reduce your rest times and if this poses as too much of a challenge, mix up your weight training sessions with cardio elements