Working out, while a very worthwhile pursuit that can have many benefits to your looks, health, and confidence, can be quite time consuming. Not everyone has the time to spend an hour in the gym multiple times per week. Maybe you don’t have this time available, or you don’t live near a gym, or you simply don’t enjoy working out, but you still want a great body. Luckily there are simple exercises that you already know that you can perform in minimal time, at home, that will still allow you to build a great physique.
Exercises like pushups, pullups, bodyweight squats, and a basic abdominal exercise like sit-ups are really all you need to build a quality physique and reap the health benefits of working out and staying lean. In this post I will lay out a plan that allows you to continue to improve your looks and muscle mass, while barely making a dent in your daily schedule or negatively affecting your time constraints. Simple yet effective. Here’s how to space these exercises out in your day to maximize results and minimize the added burden it puts on your time.
Why these particular exercises? When should you do them? Let’s continue.
Which Exercises Are Totally Necessary For A Minimal Muscle Building Routine?
If you break the trainable body parts down into their most basic groups, and assign one exercise to each, you could end up with:
Upper Body “Push” – Pushups
Upper Body “Pull” – Pull-ups
Lower Body – Squats (and calf raises)
Core – Crunches (this is an example, there are a number of appropriate ab exercises such as sit-ups, planks etc. that you could do, find one that works for you).
These wouldn’t offer a sufficient variety of movements to train for a bodybuilding contest, but it covers most of your major bases.
Unless you are already trained to an advanced level, one all-out set to failure of each of these exercises will be enough to stimulate muscle growth and keep your physique headed toward improvement.
When Should I Do These Exercises?
This is the key to minimizing the effect on your time. I like to space these out throughout the day so no large chunk of time is required to dedicate to work out. Instead you can slot them into your existing routine and keep your metabolism fired up throughout.
I would suggest doing the pushups and crunches as soon as you wake up. Upon rising from bed, go to the bathroom, chug a glass of water, then bang out as many pushups as you can do (with good form) in one set. I like to use push-up handles to increase the range of movement and reduce strain on my wrists.
Wait a minute or so to catch your breath then perform a set of crunches (or abdominal exercise of your choice) of as many reps as you can do in one go, or for one minute of continuous reps. Stretch for a couple of minutes, then head about the day’s business.
Exercising as soon as you rise from bed can help jumpstart your metabolism and help clear your mind of the ‘fog’ you may experience at the beginning of the day.
When you return home from work or whatever the day’s activities were, before you eat dinner perform a brief warm up set of 2-5 pullups, rest a minute or two, then do a set of pullups to complete failure. If you can’t do pullups, practice by doing a bent-arm hang for as long as you can to build your strength.
Assuming you shower in the evening, I would recommend doing your squats (and calf raises) right before you bathe. The best type of bodyweight squats will be prisoner squats (hands clasped behind your head) or ‘praying hands’ style squats where you lower yourself until your elbows touch your knees. Be sure to descend until your knees are bent at a 90 degree angle.
Again, one all-out set of bodyweight squats will do the trick and will be a great boost to your metabolism as well as unleashing more testosterone and growth hormone to accelerate the overall process. If you are really pressed for time, you can even perform these in the shower, just be careful and make sure you have a shower mat in place so you don’t slip.
Calf raises can be performed either with both legs, or with one leg at a time for increased resistance and some balance training.
It is important to stretch the involved muscles after each of these exercises to avoid blood pooling and to lengthen the muscles.
How Often Should I Do These Exercises?
This minimal routine can be done every day. With such a low amount of volume, it is best to do it daily, and building the habit of doing them this often will help you stay on track and see results. If you are new to working out, you may experience some soreness the following day from one or all of these exercises, so if you are very sore you can skip a day of that particular exercise until you are no longer getting sore from it. Then start doing it daily.
Be sure to consult your doctor before starting any new exercise program, especially if you have been inactive for a long time or have had injuries in the past, to make sure that you are healthy enough to workout.
The Workout, In Summary.
| Morning | Push ups | 1 set to failure |
| Morning | Ab exercise | 1 set to failure/1 min nonstop |
| Before Dinner | Pull-ups | 1 warmup set of 2-5 reps1 set to failure |
| Before Shower | Squats | 1 set failure |
| Before Shower | Calf raises | 1 set failure |
Remember to stretch the involved body parts for a few minutes after each exercise.
It is important to track your progress with other metrics besides just weight and what you look like in the mirror. The scales will not tell the full story of what’s going on with your body composition. I highly recommend you track your body fat using a body fat monitor, and use a retractable tape measure to keep track of the size of your waist, hips, arms, and legs. This will give you a more complete picture of your progress.
How Should I Expand This Workout If My Results Plateau?
Training to failure on each exercise will ensure that you are continuously challenging yourself. As you progress, your maximum number of repetitions will increase, so you’ll continue to push yourself further.
Once you are doing more than 50 squats in one set, you may want to add some lunges to your leg workout. These will target the hamstrings more than squats as well as adding a different type of challenge for your quads, start with 10 per leg after the squats, and increase the number as needed.
For abs, once you can do the exercise you choose for more than a minute straight before failure, or over 50 reps, you may want to add an additional set of a different exercise. For example, if you are doing situps, add leg raises or a 30 second plank afterward.
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How Many Squats A Day Will Make A Difference?
While nearly any number of squats will make some difference, the higher the number you do, the greater the results. This carries true until you get to really high rep numbers, i.e. over 200 squats. If you are out of shape, even 10-20 squats per day will have a significant impact on the strength of your legs, back, and on your energy levels. It is difficult to overtrain with bodyweight squats, so do plenty of them. 100+ squats a day is a great level to be at. If you want more muscular legs, try to work your way up to at least 50 per day, every other day and you will not regret it!
As a type of resistance training, push-ups can help you gain a good amount of muscle. Just like lifting weights. If done correctly, push-ups can result in much larger arms, shoulders, and chest. Of course it will take some time, and your initial gains may be better than later ones. But by using intensity-increasing techniques, such as training to failure, and slow-reps, you can keep the muscle growth coming for years and get a lot bigger.
