The Beginner's Guide to a Simple Workout, pt 2

Breaking down a time conscious workout at the gym


    In my last blog post, I discussed some tips on finding a quick and efficient at workout to do at home. Today, I wanted to talk about workouts at the gym and how you can design one that won't take hours to complete. A lot of time, my workouts can end up becoming more complicated than they need to be and take up a significant portion of my day. Finding a quick and effective workout is important, especially if you are constantly on the move and have other priorities and obligations.
    
    I like to have a plan for my workout before I get to the gym so I know exactly what I want to do once I get there. Since I mostly like to strength train, I break down my workouts by muscle groups. The four separate 'days' I have are back and biceps, shoulders and triceps, and two different leg days. In my notes app, I have a list of the exercises that I prefer to do for each group. When I first started at the gym, I found myself bouncing from one exercise to another and usually ended up doing 10 exercises in total. Eventually, I found that this was not necessary, and you can still achieve a good workout with 4-5 exercises if you train with enough intensity. As an example: here is what one of my leg days looks like:

Hack squat: 3x 8-10 reps
Bulgarian Split Squats: 2x 8-12 reps
RDLS: 3x 8-10 reps
Leg extensions: 2 sets until failure

    This may seem minimal on paper, but this is definitely one of my hardest workouts. I have found that decreasing the quantity of exercises in my workouts has significantly helped me save time, but still helped me reach my fitness goals. Planning a time conscious workout is important for people like me who also need to devote their time to classes, work and other components of their lives. 




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