How to Build Muscle on a Tight Schedule

Hey Jay

I’ve been following your newsletters for a long time; you give some great advice.

Wanted to run an idea by you. I’ve been following your lifting routines for a while and was thinking of breaking it down so that instead of doing 4-5 different exercises 3 days a week, I’d do like 2 exercises each morning. Reason being is that time is a little precious for me; I’m a doctor and I’m in my surgery residency and, as you could imagine, time isn’t exactly a commodity I have a lot of. I was thinking that either before going to work, or after coming home, I’d bust out a couple of workouts, eat, and crash before having to get up and do this shit all over again. Just thought I’d get a pro’s opinion.

Cheers
Matt Dixon

Matt,
You could do that. I actually wrote about that for Muscle & Fitness not too long ago. You have a few different choices. Since frequency is important you will still want to hit each body part at least once every 4-5 days. So you could do three days on, one day off. Or you could go six days on, one day off. Or just five days straight. Not sure what option works best for you so I will give you an example of each.

Three days on, one day off:
Day 1- Vertical pushing & pulling
Day 2- Lower body
Day 3- Horizontal pushing & pulling
Day 4- Off
Day 5- Repeat Day 1 using different exercises

Or

Day 1- Chest & Biceps
Day 2- Legs
Day 3- Back & Triceps
Day 4- Off
Day 5- Repeat Day 1 using different exercises

If you are going to go six days straight you don’t want to be doing pressing exercises on back to back days which would happen with either of the above options so you may be best doing the old push/pull.

Day 1- Chest & shoulders
Day 2- Back width (chins) & back thickness (rows)
Day 3- Legs
Day 4- Repeat Day 1 using different exercises

If you are going to go five days straight just do this:
Day 1- Chest & shoulders
Day 2- Back width (chins) & back thickness (rows)
Day 3- Legs
Day 4- Repeat Day 1 using different exercises
Day 5- Repeat Day 2 using different exercises
Day 6- Off
Day 7- Off
Day 8 (the following Monday)- Repeat Day 3 with different exercises

Depending on how much time you have you could throw in a set or two of triceps at the end of day one and biceps on day two.

Now as far as sets and reps go, this really depends on how much time you have. As does exercise selection. In time pressed situations like this I like to start with higher reps and work your way down. This way your work sets become your warm ups and vice versa. So instead of needing to do more warm up sets to start with a set of five, you should start with a set of 10-12 and take that to near failure. Count that as your first set and then drop the reps and up the weight for one or two more sets. This saves you time.

If you are really in a rush you will also have to do the opposite of what I normally recommend. Instead of choosing exercises that allow you to use the most weight, you will actually have to choose the exercises that allow you to use the least weight. That way your warm up time will be cut way down. Warming up to a 405 squat takes a hell of a lot longer than warming up to a pistol squat with no weight. Same can be said of deadlifts versus glute ham raises or inverted rows versus heavy, cheat one arm rows. So choose accordingly.

Hopefully that gives you some ideas and options to play with.

Good luck

Jason

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