How to Build Muscle & Stay Fit with a Busy Schedule: The Minimalist Guide To Fitness
Last Update: 2025-03-28 (over 1 year ago)Fitness
We all know that maintaining our health and fitness should be a top priority, yet many people find it difficult to find the time and energy to devote to a rigorous exercise routine. Furthermore, some of us wish to look out best without basically living in the gym. So, how can we effectively gain muscle while having a job, a family, and a busy schedule?
In this blog, I will share a simple strategy that will help you build muscle & stay fit with a busy schedule. I will provide you a simple guide to be at your best possible shape.
By following these simple strategies and concepts, you can build a personalized exercise routine that fits your lifestyle and helps you stay fit and healthy. However, if you're just looking for a quick fitness routine, I'll provide that at the end. You can click here to skip straight to it, but I highly recommend reading the rest of the blog to get the most out of your workouts.
I believe every one knows about the 80/20 rule also known as also known as the Pareto Principle. It basically states that that roughly 80% of outcomes or results come from about 20% of the efforts. As it turns out that rule apply to fitness as well. Research show that, performing just one set of exercise per muscle group once or twice a week is enough to significantly gain muscle. And for health its even less, as research show that exercising just 30-60 minutes a week is enough to improve health.
As stated earlier, one set of exercise once or twice a week is enough to gain muscle. So, we don't need to do endless sets of bench presses to build a decent chest. It is better to focus on the quality of that one or two sets that you do. So, instead of doing 5 sets of bench press, do 1-2 sets and push it as hard as you can close to failure. If you know the concept of RIR (Reps In Reserve), you should train at 1 RIR which is 1 rep shy of failure. If you don't, no need to worry, just push your sets as hard as you can.
In a recent study, researchers found that training 3 days per week is better than 1 day per week for building muscle when volume is the same. You might be wondering Doesn't that mean I have to train more days? Well, yes, but we don't need to train as long, so we can fit more muscles on the same day. So we can program our workouts in a way that is easy to fit into our busy schedule and still be effective. I'll explain this in my next point.
As we already discussed earlier, one set of exercise once or twice a week is enough to gain muscle. We also discussed how it is better to do 1 set 3 times a week than 3 sets once a week. Full Body workouts are the best way to implement this concept. We can just hit each muscle group with 1-2 sets, 2-3 times a week and push it as hard as we can. This will give us the best results in the shortest time possible.
It is well established that any where between 5-30 reps is enough to build muscle. However, I still recommend doing the lower end of that range. This is because lower reps are easier to recover from and causes less muscle soreness and fatigue. As a result you can complete your workout in less time and also be recovered enough to do it again in a few days. If you are a beginner, I recommend doing 8-12 reps to start with since you don't have a lot of experience. But after you have some experience, and have learned to push yourself with close to proper form, I recommend doing 4-8 reps.
As we keep working out for a long time, our muscles get stronger and bigger. This will make the load feel lighter and easier to handle. Instead of just doing the same rep at the same weight, we should increase the weight or the reps over time. What I suggest is, start with a weight that you can do lets say 4-8 reps and push it as hard as you can. Lets, say we got to 5 reps. Now, next time, you should keep pushing that same weight maybe you got 5reps, or 6 reps, or 7 reps. Keep pushing until you can get 8 reps. Once you can get 8 reps, you can increase the weight by maybe the minimum amount you can increase the weight and repeat the process.
Lets say, You are hitting Bench Press with a weight of 100 lbs on session 1.
Always choose a exercise that is the most stable which will help you push yourself to the limit without injuring yourself. For example, if you want to build your legs, a squat or leg press is million times better than Bosu ball squats.
General Rule for Stability: Machines are better than Barbells, which are better than Dumbbells. So for example, Leg Press, Hack Squat, and Leg Curl are better than Barbell Squats which are better than Lunges etc.
This is a very important point. If you want to spend less time in the gym, pick exercises that you can easily easily recover from while still giving you a good workout and you can push yourself to the limit. For example, for legs, Squats are great but once you get strong enough, it will take you close to 10 minutes to complete a set of Squats. But it will probably take you only 5 minutes to get ready for a Leg Press. And even less time for a Leg Extension
You can follow this exercise routine, twice or three times a week. I'd recommend doing it three times a week.
You can use the minimalist approach and gain significant results. Or if you have more time you can use the not so minimalist approach and gain a bit more. You can also switch up the exercises, for example, you can hit the incline bench press and chest fly (optional) and hit machine side raise for shoulders. Since incline bench press already targets some of your front delts. You can also hit the squats, leg curl and leg extension for legs and skip the deadlifts. You can pick one set of exercise for Workout A and another for B. The world is your oyster.
However, if you don't know what you are doing I suggest you to stick to the above program.
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