50 Ways To Cut Down Your Workout Time

We all live busy lives and it can be hard to squeeze in enough time to workout to fit into your busy lifestyle.

If you’re short on time, you can still have great workouts, possibly even better than a longer workout.

We’ve compiled 50 ways that you can decrease the time it takes to finish your workout so that you can keep your busy schedule and have more free time.

50 Ways To Cut Down Your Workout Time

1. Do combination exercises, which incorporate both upper and lower body movements
2. Choose structural, compound exercises like squats vs. biceps curls
3. Incorporate plyometric exercises into your routine
4. Use strength circuits^TM, where you combine strength exercises into a circuit
5. Do a metabolic conditioning circuit at the end of the workout, or as the workout
6. Do Dumbbell Complexes as your workout
7. Don’t talk in between exercises, or watch the gym TV
8. Wear a stop watch and set a specific amount of time you can rest between exercises
9. Use the GymBoss interval timer for interval training
10. Bring a water bottle so you don’t need to go to the water fountain
11. Warm up or cool down with cardio instead of setting extra time aside
12. Do high intensity interval training vs. steady state cardio
13. Set a specific amount of time for the workout, and don’t go over it (i.e. 30 minutes)
14. Do tabata training, with 8 rounds of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off
15. Do core exercises in between normal strength training exercises
16. Do 2 exercises back to back which work the same muscle group
17. Use Dropsets for more muscle stimulation in less time
18. “Run the rack”, which is a dropset technique. For example, start out with 6 reps of 60lb DB Rows, then with no rest do 55lb for 6 reps, then 50lb for 6 reps until you get to 30lb.
19. Limit your warm up to 5 minutes – 2 minutes foam rolling, 3 minutes dynamic stretching
20. Wear headphones to avoid interruptions from other gym members
21. Wear a watch and keep rest time between 30 second to 1 minute
22. Pre-write your workout plan so there is no extra time spent thinking about what exercises to do
23. Change before you get to the gym so you don’t need to change in the locker room
24. Have 1 back-up exercise for each of your planned exercise – that way if someone is using the equipment you can default to your secondary exercise
25. Pair exercises and supersets together that use the same weights or machines
26. Perform compound exercises so you can target several muscle groups at once
27. Superset your exercises: s superset is two exercises “paired” together, often done immediately after the other
28. Don’t wander to machines you don’t know how to use
29. Do less abs exercises, especially if you spend 10 or more minutes doing them. They are overemphasized in most programs and routines.
30. Prepare your workout clothes beforehand
31. Perform a ladder¹ of an exercise in order to burn calories faster
32. Use non-competing² exercises in order to maximize time in your lifting session
33. Warm up with “catch all” movements: Inchworms, walking Spider-Man’s, etc.
34. Consider dropping some volume. Not every exercise needs to be 3 sets of ten. One intense set may do the trick.
35. Emphasize compound movements with exercises you already do
36. Consider working out fewer times each week if you workout 5-6 times a week
37. Don’t bring your cell phone into the gym
38. Do hill sprints instead of sprinting on a track, or jogging
39. Increase the incline of workouts to work harder faster
40. Alternate between sets of Bench Press & Squat or work overlapping muscle systems like combining Kettle Bell Swings with Good Mornings
41. Workout for shorter time periods twice a day
42. Run stairs instead of doing the elliptical
43. Use the ergometer instead of the elliptical because it burns more calories and is more intense
44. Select exercises that are close together – while there’s nothing wrong with walking back and forth across the gym between sets, if you’re in a rush it may not be the best use of your time
45. Complete 5 sets of basic exercises like squats, deadlift, power cleans, and Turkish get-ups
46. Instead of upping the weights to increase intensity, try cutting down on rest intervals if you’re short on time – it’s an under-appreciated way to boost intensity
47. Alternatively, try lifting heavier weights with the same rest interval, and cut out a set or two.
48. Use strength training instead of cardiovascular exercise; with the “afterburn effect” your muscles can continue to burn calories following your workout
49. Do Squat Press or Step-up with Shoulder Press
50. Do Density Training: where your sets are timed instead of by the number of reps (trying to get as many reps done within that time frame)

We hope these tips will help you on those days when it just seems like you can’t fit everything into your schedule. If one of these ways to cut down on time works for you, or if you have another way to make time to exercise, we would love to hear from. Just leave a comment.