The most common objection I’ve read and received over my years of blogging about fitness and building muscle is definitely this…
“I don’t have enough time to workout.”
And I’ll admit, when you’re in college, finding time to workout is tough.
There are a number of high-priority things that demand your time and attention like class, studying, labs, guidance counselor visits, and hanging out with friends.
It’s amazing that you have time to take care of yourself at all really.
If this sounds like you, then keep reading to the end of this post because I’m going to share 3 very simple ways you can shorten your workouts and still make great muscle gains.
This way you don’t have to sacrifice your goals of having a shredded body while you go to school.
1. Split a Longer Workout into Shorter Ones
I once had a subscriber send me an email and make a comment about a workout program that I recommended to him.
I told him to try a minimalistic, bodybuilding program that only demanded 3 hours of workout time each week, but he still had an objection…
“I don’t have enough time to train for a full hour in one session. Is there any way to make those workouts shorter?”
First of all, whether you believe it or not, everyone has an hour each day to workout.
If you’re shaking your head “no” right now, you need to check out my ultimate guide against saying “I have no time to workout”.
(You’ll find out that you have more time than you actually think.)
Secondly, no one said that you have to commit all that workout time all at once.
Why not split a large one-hour workout into 2 shorter ones?
For example, you could take a workout that originally looks like this:
- Bench Press – 3 x 5
- Incline DB Bench Press – 3 x 10
- Overhead DB Tricep Extensions – 3 x 12
- Tricep Push-Downs – 3 x 15
And you could split it into these 2 workouts:
Workout #1
- Bench Press – 3 x 5
- Incline DB Bench Press 3 x 10
Workout #2
- Overhead DB Tricep Extensions – 3 x 12
- Tricep Push-Downs – 3 x 15
You could do the first workout early in the morning when you have a spare 30 minutes.
Then, when you’re finally free from your last class, you can head back to the gym to finish up.
This allows you to still make great muscle-gains without having to find a full hour to do it.
But not I have a radical suggestion to shorten your workout that doesn’t even appear to be related to your time in the gym, but I promise you it does…
2. Fix Your Diet
Now you may have read this suggestion and thought to yourself…
“What the hell does fixing your diet have to do with shortening your workout?”
Well, when I was in my first couple years of college, I had a routine that I would go through after I got out of my morning classes.
First, I would head to the campus rec center for a workout.
I’d change in the locker room, get out on the weight room floor and do an hour-long workout.
This included 4-5 exercises with heavy compound lifts and a few accessories.
It was nothing fancy, but I was able to maintain a decent strength base because of it.
Then, I’d head over to the ellipticals and I’d do about 30-60 minutes on low to medium intensity before I decided to call it quits.
In my head, it was important to get that cardio time in.
Finally, I’d pack up my stuff, change my clothes, and go to Taco Bell across the street for my post workout meal.
What’s wrong with this picture?
The strength training was a good start…
…but then I’d do a half hour of cardio and then fill my body with garbage when I was done.
This wasn’t a good system I had.
And that’s the point of this suggestion.
You may be doing a bunch of unnecessary cardio in order to compensate for a poor diet that you don’t realize you have.
Had I just counted my calories and macro nutrients better and put myself in a caloric deficit, I could have completely abandoned the cardio and saved myself 1.5 – 3 hours each week.
If this sounds like you, take a few minutes to evaluate your entire fitness plan.
How are you training?
There may be something in their that you’re overcompensating for and a few tweaks could save you some time and effort.
But going back to your workout, here’s a trick that you can use in your very next workout without even changing your exercises…
3. Shorten Rest Times with Supersets
An effective way of increasing the size of your muscles through strength training is by adding accessory exercises to the end of your workout.
First of all, your workouts should revolve around major compound lifts like:
- Barbell Squats
- Bench Press
- Deadlifts
But when you’re finished with one of these exercises, you can work on lagging muscle groups or build strength in areas to support weaknesses in your major lifts.
And a very common rep setup would be 3 sets of 10 reps, 3 sets of 12 reps, or something similar.
But by the time you do 3 accessory exercises…
And you add about 1-2 minutes of rest between sets…
And add 1-2 minutes of rest between each exercise…
You’ve added another 15-20 minutes to your workout!
So, a simple solution to shorten your workout in regards to accessory exercises is through the use of supersets.
Supersets are a string of 2 or more sets of different exercises performed one after the other with virtually no rest in between.
The idea is you take a set of each of your accessory exercises, perform them one after the other in succession, rest for 1-2 minutes, and do it again.
This allows you to cut out a lot of rest and wait times in order to shorten your workout.
For example, if you have these accessory exercises planned:
- Incline DB Bench Press – 3 x 10
- Overhead DB Tricep Extensions – 3 x 12
- Cable Tricep Push-Downs – 3 x 15
You could superset them together like this:
- Incline DB Bench Press x 10
- Overhead DB Tricep Extensions x 12
- Cable Tricep Push-Downs x 15
So you essentially take only one set of each, string them together, and only rest when you’ve completed the superset.
This is another simple way to reduce your workout time and you’re not even really changing your workout to do it.
What Do You Think of These Ways to Shorten Your Workouts?
If you found this post helpful, be sure to share it on social media or send it to a friend who you think would benefit from this information.
Then, leave a comment below and tell me if you plan to use one of these methods to shorten your workouts.
I’d love to hear your feedback and your story could help someone else in the process.