Weight Training For People With Limited Time

One of the biggest excuses I hear from people when I try to get them started on a weight training program is that they don’t have time. If you’re one of those people, I have good news for you. Weight training is not as complicated as some make it out to be and it doesn’t require that much time.

Don’t believe the myth that you must spend endless hours at the gym to get results. I overtrained for many years, believing that more training was better than less training. I was wrong!

Because of that, I suffered a bad case of tendonitis. And, just as bad, I probably didn’t make the progress I would have made had common sense guided my training.

Don’t get me wrong! I’m not saying that you shouldn’t train hard. I’m all for training hard. The key is to know when ‘enough is enough.’

5 PIECES OF ADVICE

How do you know when that is? The answer won’t be the same for everyone. So, my first piece of advice is to listen to your body. Know the difference between discomfort and pain, and between pain and injury. Ignoring or dismissing an injury will only make it worse. I’m speaking from experience! Inflicting pain upon yourself is not the way to obtain gains in lifting.

My second piece of advice is to understand that not everyone recovers from a heavy workout in 24 hours. It’s a matter of how your body responds. Some people heal faster than others. Again, you need to listen to your body.

Don’t be stubborn! Ignoring an injury will not make it go away.

My third piece of advice is this. Not everyone wants to (or needs to) spend 2 or 3 hours a day at the gym. The amount of time you devote to training involves what you prefer personally — including (of course) what you can fit into your schedule/lifestyle.

My fourth piece of advice applies to most things, not just lifting: one size doesn’t fit all. Just because a particular workout routine works for one person doesn’t mean it will work for you.

Getting to where you need to be involves a process of trial and error — trying several options, evaluating each, and (over time) settling on what’s right for you.

It means that you’ll learn your way into what’s right for you. It’s not as easy as searching the internet to find ‘that perfect routine’ (it doesn’t exist) or copying what somebody else is doing (even if the source is an expert).

When you add up what I’ve been saying, my thoughts lead naturally to the fifth piece of advice. Be honest with yourself! While it’s essential to have goals, you need to be realistic. Your goals should be challenging yet attainable.

To get there, be honest about what you are trying to accomplish. Then, match those goals with an assessment of the time you want to put into your training.

You won’t be able to set realistic and attainable goals unless you answer this question: How important is weight training to you? Yes, lifting can become your life, but at what cost? Weightlifting has been a big part of my life, but it never became my sole purpose. I’ve tried my best to bring balance and moderation to lifting.

MY LAST PIECE OF ADVICE

Once you’ve responded to my last piece of advice, you can move to my sixth piece of advice, deciding which form of weight training will be your specialty. Bodybuilding, Powerlifting, and Olympic Weightlifting are the three main forms of weight training.

Bodybuilding focuses on building up your body with muscle.

Powerlifting — Squat/Bench/Deadlift, focuses on developing brute strength.

Olympic Weightlifting (my favorite of the three) focuses on Olympic events — the Snatch (lifting the bar overhead in one motion) and the Clean & Jerk (lifting the bar overhead in two movements).

Beginning lifters need to understand that technique and hip extension are of the utmost importance in Olympic Weightlifting. In Olympic Weightlifting, you aren’t likely to gain as much muscle mass as you would from Bodybuilding or Powerlifting. But you will gain in many other areas, including speed, flexibility, balance, coordination, reflex action, strength, and explosive power.

I’m partial to two of those benefits — strength and explosive power. Strength is the state of being physically strong. Explosive power pertains to speed of movement, specifically involving a quick burst with maximal effort.

With that in mind, there’s a reason why many strength coaches teach Olympic lifts to athletes in other sports. It’s because explosive power and hip strength are essential in many of those sports.

SO, WHERE DO YOU WANT TO SETTLE?

To answer that question, you need to answer another question, which constitutes my seventh piece of advice. Are you interested in entering competitions? If you are, pick the form of lifting that you think is best for you, including the one that will give you the most satisfaction and enjoyment.

If you aren’t interested in competing — and I’ve found that most people aren’t — then I suggest combining the three forms.

If you’re truly serious about lifting, you’ll need to follow my eighth (and last) advice: Don’t get serious about lifting unless you want to get stronger and gain muscle.

Weight training also has other benefits, but at its core, lifting is about getting stronger and gaining muscle!

Here are fifteen of my favorite weight-training exercises. Most are full-body movements, often known as functional training or compound exercises. These tried-and-true exercises work numerous muscle groups at once.

THE BIG SIX

First, we have what I call the BIG SIX. If you only have enough time in your busy schedule to spend one to one and a half hours a week on weight training, here are the six exercises I recommend.

1 — Full Depth Squats

Muscles worked — quadriceps, hamstrings, gluteus maximus, adductor, hip flexors, and calves.

2 — Traditional Deadlift (not sumo)

Muscles worked — lower back, lats, traps, hamstrings, quadriceps, gluteus maximus, and abdominals.

3 — Overhead Press

Muscles worked — front deltoids, triceps, rotator cuff, upper back and chest, and the core.

4 — Incline Bench/Flat Bench (alternate week to week)

Muscles worked — pectoral muscles (upper chest on inclines), triceps, deltoids, and biceps.

5 — Power Cleans

Muscles worked — glutes, hamstrings, quadriceps, lower back muscles, shoulders, core, calves, biceps, and trapezius.

6 — Situps

Muscles worked — abdominals (rectus & transverse), hip flexors, and obliques.

THE OTHER NINE

Here are the other nine in no particular order.

Front squats

Muscles worked — quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, lower back, and abdominals.

Leg Extensions

Muscles worked — quadriceps

Leg curls

Muscles worked — hamstrings

Hanging Knee Raises

Muscles worked — abdominals (rectus & transverse), obliques (internal & external), and hip flexors.

Wide Grip Lat Pulldowns

Muscles worked — latissimus dorsi, rear deltoids, and biceps.

Upright Rows

Muscles worked — trapezius, upper back, shoulders, and biceps.

Pull-Ups/Chin-Ups

Muscles worked — latissimus dorsi, biceps, forearms, and trapezius.

Parallel Bar Dips

Muscles worked — chest, triceps, and shoulders.

Wrist Rolls.

Muscles worked — forearms, wrists, and hands.

For more advice on weight training, check out my book No Nonsense, Old School Weight Training (A Guide for People with Limited Time). It’s available on Amazon.

I’m a certified personal trainer and competed in Olympic lifting and Powerlifting for 16 years.

No Nonsense, Old School Weight Training (Second Edition): A Guide for People with Limited Time

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01/25/2025 07:32 pm GMT

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Mark Morthier is the host of Yesterday’s Sports, a podcast dedicated to reliving memorable sports moments from his childhood days and beyond. He grew up in New Jersey just across from New York City, so many of his episodes revolve around the great sport’s teams of the 70s for the New York area.

He is also an author of No Nonsense, Old School Weight Training (Second Edition): A Guide for People with Limited Time and Running Wild: (Growing Up in the 1970s)