Time-Efficient Strength Training For Busy People

Using time-efficient strength training strategies can easily cut your workouts down to 30 to 35 minutes with no drop in gains compared to spending an hour (or more).
If you go “minimalist” you really can finish effective muscle-building workouts in 20 minutes, or even less.

You can also make superb gains with only 3 workouts per week, and believe it or not, you can make small gains or at least maintain the muscle you have with only 1 or 2 workouts a week.

It’s all about knowing how to train smarter and that’s what you’re about to learn.

The 9 time-efficient strength techniques below come straight from research published in exercise science journals, plus insights from over 40 years of my own lifting experience.

If you’re busy but still serious about getting results, give these a try. As long as you’re willing to train with intensity, I promise you’ll be surprised with the results you can get in a fraction of the time.

1. Superset Your Exercises: Best Time-Efficient Strength Training Workout

A superset is where you do two exercises back to back with no rest in between. After the second exercise, you take a brief rest interval, then repeat that pair of exercises for your desired number of sets.

All supersets save time, but the best kind are antagonist supersets. This is where you pair opposite muscle groups like chest and back, biceps and triceps, or quads and hamstrings.

Here are three sample superset workouts:

1. Superset chest press to row
2. Superset bicep curl to tricep extension
3. Superset leg extension to leg curl

Studies confirm that antagonist supersets can cut training time in half while maintaining or even improving strength (Robbins et al).

Personally, I believe this is the number one time-saving workout strategy for busy people. The reason I say that is because you can dramatically cut your training time with little or no compromise in muscle or strength gains.

I’m such a fan of this technique, I’ve created entire training programs based on superset training and written extensively on the subject if you want to learn more. Click here to check out T.N.B. Turbo: Ultra-Time Efficient Strength Training

2. Use Drop Sets or Rest-Pause Sets for Time Efficiency

Both of these “set-extension” techniques build muscle fast without extra workout time:

• Drop Sets: Do one set, then quickly reduce the weight 20–25% and continue to do more reps without resting. You can do one drop or multiple drops.
• Rest-Pause Sets: After reaching failure, rest 15 to 20 seconds, then continue with a few more reps using the same weight. Repeat for up to 3 or 4 of these “mini-sets.”

Studies show that drop sets and rest-pause sets can produce the same gains as traditional sets in far less time (Fink et al, Prestes et al).

Drop sets can be used on any exercise but are most commonly employed on isolation lifts such as curls, lateral raises, and extensions, where hypertrophy is the goal.

Rest-pause sets can also be used on any exercise, but more often on compound lifts where both strength and size are the goals.

3. Train in the 6 to 15 Rep Range

Low-rep training builds strength, and high-rep training can build muscle, but high rep sets take longer.

That’s why the 6–15-rep range is a sweet spot for busy lifters. In fact, you may want to focus on the 6 to 12 or 5 to 10 range if that suits you.

Using these medium rep ranges puts enough total tension on your muscles to build strength and enough time under tension for muscle growth.

For busy people, the idea is to avoid wasting time grinding through high-rep sets that take longer to do. Remember, it takes twice as long to do 16 reps as it does 8 reps, and three times as long to do 24 rep sets.

It’s true you can build muscle with high-rep sets and people with joint pain or injuries may have no other choice than to use light weights and high reps. But moderate reps with moderate weights are the most time-efficient strength training method.

4. Prioritize Big, Compound Strength Movements

I admit it – I love doing bicep curls. I also never skip calves. But if you’re a busy person, it makes sense to do fewer isolation exercises and focus more on the multi-joint lifts that work the most muscle all at once. That includes exercises like squats, presses, rows, and deadlifts.

These compound exercises recruit large areas of muscle, burn more calories, and build total-body strength better than isolation moves. And by dropping some isolation exercises, your workouts are shorter.

If you have time left, go ahead and finish with smaller assistance exercises like curls, laterals, or calf raises, but never sacrifice your big lifts for them.

Bonus tip: Do bilateral exercises instead of unilateral exercises. For example, train both legs together and do two arm rows instead of one arm rows. Two arm and two leg exercises are more time efficient. If you include isolation exercises like tricep extensions, always do them both arms at the same time, not one arm at a time.

5. Keep Your Reps Controlled – But Not Super Slow

Slow reps have their place for beginners learning technique or lifters protecting sore joints. But beyond that, super-slow training just wastes time.

A moderate tempo – about one second up, two seconds down – is ideal for most exercises when you want time efficiency.

Research shows that as long as you control the weight and train close to failure, rep speed doesn’t affect muscle gains (Schoenfeld et al). What it does affect is how long you spend in the gym.

6. Rest Just Enough Between Sets

Rest periods between sets are an important training variable, but if you do them wrong, it can make or break your time efficiency.

For maximum strength, you’ll need at least 2 and up to 3 minutes between sets. That might seem like wasted time, but the reality is, if you don’t take a long enough rest interval, you simply won’t be able to lift as much weight or get as many reps.

For optimal muscle gains, 1–2 minutes is enough for compound lifts, and 60–90 seconds for isolation work.

You can cut your rest intervals almost as much as you want. You just have to remember one thing:

If your rest periods between sets are too short, it will reduce your lifting performance (decrease your volume load). That means there’s a compromise – shorter workouts but a little less strength gain.

The good news is, if you gradually reduce your rest intervals, your body adapts, and you may discover that you can maintain your performance with as little as 45 to 90 seconds between sets. That is very time-efficient strength training.

7. Don’t Waste Time Warming Up More Than You Need

You’ve probably been told that warmups are important for helping to reduce the risk of injury, and also for priming your body (muscles, connective tissues, and nervous system) for the workout ahead.

That is true, but most busy people waste too much time on cardio warm-ups, mobility exercises, and static stretching.

To save time, skip the cardio warmups because it’s the least important kind. Skip the pre-workout static stretching too because studies show that doing it before lifting doesn’t reduce injury.

If you must, because you’re concerned about injury, do some quick mobility work. But the best kind of warmup for busy people is called a specific warmup. This consists of simply doing one or two light sets of your first lift for each muscle group.

Is flexibility really important to you? If so, do mobility drills or dynamic stretching in between your sets instead of sitting on a bench for a couple minutes doing nothing, that’s another way to make your strength training sessions more efficient.

8. Use The Minimum-Effective Dose

According to more than five dozen studies, the optimum dose for maximizing muscle gains is about 10 sets per muscle per week. You might gain more with up to 20 sets per week, but busy people can forget about that because beyond 10 sets or so, there are diminishing returns. It’s simply not efficient.

Here’s the good news: research suggests even 6 to 9 sets per muscle per week can produce significant muscle gains if the intensity is high enough (sets are taken to failure or very close to failure). Even 4 or 5 hard sets per muscle per week can produce some gains. It won’t be optimal, but you can still build muscle with lower volume training.

A 2018 study (Schoenfeld) also found that one hard full body workout a week can still build strength and muscle if your intensity is high enough and you’re a beginner.

Even if you’re trained, you can at least maintain the muscle you have.
If you’re advanced, you’ll need more volume to keep gaining at the maximum rate, but you don’t have to train for maximum gains all the time. It’s ok to pull back your volume and go into maintenance mode if you need to. Something is always better than nothing.

9. Use Minimalist Workouts With Only A Handful Of Exercises

You may have seen full body workouts that are literally full body. For example, exercises are done for quads, hams, glutes, calves, back, chest, shoulders, biceps, triceps, abs, even forearms and traps. That could mean 8 to 10 exercises if you’re doing a full body session.

Most busy people don’t have time to slog through 10 exercises in one workout, let alone 8 – or even 6. But when life gets hectic, you don’t have to stop working out, simply scale back your exercises.

A simple Push-Pull-Squat plan covers your entire body in three compound exercises:

1. Push – Bench press or overhead press
2. Pull – Row or pull-up
3. Squat – Squat or leg press

How is this “full body? It’s because when you prioritize the compound exercises like bench or shoulder press, you’re also working triceps. When you do a row or pull up, you’re also working your biceps and forearms. (When you do chin ups with the supinated grip, you’re hitting your biceps hard).

Got a little more time? Go ahead and add a hinge movement like the Romanian deadlift. A little more time? Throw in an abs or core move. That’s still only 4 or 5 exercises for the whole workout and then you’ve covered everything except direct calf work.

Two workouts per week on this plan maintain most of your muscle, and three per week can even build more. That’s not a lot of time required in the gym is it?
Want to make it ultra-efficient? Use supersets (such as bench press alternated with rows) and you’ll be done literally in minutes.

The Bottom Line On Time-Efficient Strength Training

You don’t need endless hours in the gym to build a strong, lean body. Using just one or two of these techniques could easily cut your weekly training time in half with little or no compromise in results.

And if you’re super busy and willing to go more minimalist, you can keep on making small gains or at least maintain the muscle you have with workouts so brief, your gym buddies who spend hours and hours every week training will wonder how you’re doing it.

Once you understand these efficiency techniques, lack of time should never be an excuse again.

Want To Dive Deeper Into Time-Saving Training?

If you were to choose only one time-efficiency method for weight training, I would recommend supersets. It was number one on our list above for a reason: Supersets are scientifically proven (over 30 studies) to cut workout time in half without sacrificing muscle or results. Our premier superset workout program is called T.N.B. Turbo. Click here to see how it works—and why it’s perfect for busy lifters

Scientific References:

1. Iverson M et al, Designing Time-Efficient Training Programs for Strength and Hypertrophy. Sports Medicine, 2021.

2. Schoenfeld B. et al, Effects of Repetition Duration on Muscle Growth. J Strength Cond Res, 2015.

3. Schoenfeld B et al, Resistance Training Volume Enhances Muscle Hypertrophy but Not Strength in Trained Men, Med Sci Sports Exerc, 14;51(1):94–103, 2018.

4. Fink J et al, Drop Set Resistance Training and Muscle Hypertrophy. J Sports Med Phys Fitness, 2017.

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