How to Lose Weight and Build Muscle on a Tight Schedule
If you’re like most adults in today’s world, your schedule is packed. Between meetings, family responsibilities, and trying to have a life, fitness often gets pushed to the bottom of your priority list.
Over time, you’ve found that in the pursuit of your career, family, and doing your best to handle the busyness of life, your health has fallen behind and it’s time to do something.
But how? There’s no possible way you can work out every day with your schedule. It seems completely impossible to begin prioritizing workouts again, while juggling everything else you have going on in life. But something has to give if you want your health to improve.
What do you do?
That is what I’m going to help you with today.
I am going to rip a page right out of my coaching playbook and hand it to you. This “page” is called the 4-Day Fit Formula.
It’s what I use to help my busy clients reclaim their health without living in the gym for hours every day of the week.
Let’s dive in.
You Don’t Need More Time
When it comes to working out regularly again, it’s not more time that you need.
And even if you did need more time, trying to find it wouldn’t be a worthwhile endeavor because you cannot add an extra second, minute, or hour to your day. You’re not some sort of magical time bender.
The only thing you can do is better manage the 24 hours you have in a day.
I’m not going to sit here and tell you that we all have the “same” 24 hours in a day. We all have 24 hours in a day, no doubt.
But what those 24 hours consists of looks a lot different for a 19 year old fitness influencer with zero responsibilities than it does for you.
Regardless, we all must face this fact and accept it : everything in life has a trade off.
And when you have responsibilities that you must attend to and a desire to work out more, it means that other things will need to be sacrificed to make it happen.
This likely means one or more of the following will need to be cut or reduced:
Scrolling on social media
Streaming your favorite show every night
Playing video games
Reading your novel for hours
None of these things are bad.
I scroll on social media
I’ve watched The Office all the way through at least 30 times
I’ve got no shame in admitting that I play my college roommate in Mario Kart on occasion (and I whoop his tail every time)
I love reading and will get lost in a book, too.
But I also understand that I cannot have my cake and eat it too.
I cannot watch two hours of Netflix and then proceed to say I don’t have time to ______.
That’s just a complete lie, and it keeps me from realizing that I do have time to make the change I desire in my life.
The same goes for you.
Without a brutally honest audit of your priorities (based on your actions, not your words), it will be impossible to make fitness a priority once and for all.
So, your first action step before moving on to the rest of this article is to do a brutally honest audit of your day.
In 15 minute increments, write out how you spend every waking minute Monday through Sunday.
From there, you need to figure out where the most time is spent that doesn’t form you into the person you want to become.
Then, reduce or eliminate that thing so you can create space to take care of your body.
Without this step, the rest is meaningless. You need to first see where you truly have time so you can buy into the truth that change is within your control.
You Need a Better Strategy
After your time audit, you may realize that you don’t have all the time you wish you did have to work out.
That’s ok.
This isn’t about maximizing total time.
This is about maximizing the time you do have.
One of the most common misunderstandings about getting in great shape is that it requires an insane amount of time in the gym.
But in reality, you can get in incredible shape with just 3-4 workouts per week, anywhere from 45-75 minutes per session.
So, without further ado, let’s go over some effective ways to improve your workout strategy by shortening your workouts without sacrificing results.
More Effective Warm Ups
As mobility has gained popularity over the years, so has wasting an enormous amount of time warming up.
That’s no knock on mobility - it has it’s time and place - but too many people waste valuable time doing unnecessary warm ups that have very little payoff.
Instead of doing 15-30 minutes of foam rolling, stretches, and the fancy mobility exercise you found scrolling on social media, we’re going to use warm up sets to get you ready for your first exercise of your workout within five minutes of walking through the door.
You, when you waste time flopping around and call it a “warm up”
There is no hard and fast rule for this, but I’ve found the following guidelines to work very well for both myself and my coaching clients.
Guideline #1: Do 1-3 Warm Up Sets
Depending on how you feel before the exercise, do 1-3 warm up sets. Fewer sets if you feel good and ready for your first working set (the first hard set in your workout), more if you don’t.
I’ve found that 2 warm up sets works really well.
Guideline #2: As Weight Increases, Reps Decrease
I like to start my first warm up set with 50% of the weight I plan to use for my first working set.
Let’s say you’re about to do the leg press. Last time you did the leg press, your rep target was 10 reps and you lifted 90 pounds. Since you hit your rep target the first set, you need to increase the weight this workout. You want to do 100 pounds this time.
For your first warm up set, do 50 pounds for 4-6 reps and see how you feel. Control the whole range of motion, mentally and physically engage your muscles in each rep. Get connected with your body.
For the second warm up set, do 75% of the weight you plan on lifting for your first working set. Since you plan on lifting 100 pounds, do 75 pounds in your second warm up set for 3-5 reps.
Note that the closer you get to your first working set’s weight, the lower the reps need to be. We do this to get your body primed without tiring it out.
If you do a ton of weight for a ton of reps, you’ll go into your first working set too fatigued, significantly reducing your chance to set a personal best.
Think of it like warming up for a sprint. Ramping up to full speed can help, but doing a full on sprint multiple times before your official sprint is only going to negatively affect your performance.
Use those two guidelines and over time you will find what works best for you.
Another thing to consider is the exercise you’re doing. The more complicated the exercise is, and the more load needed for that exercise, the more warm up sets you may need.
For example, warming up for a 3 rep max squat for 300 pounds is going to take more warm up sets than a set of bicep curls for 12 reps with 20 pounds.
Here’s sample breakdown of warming up for a barbell bench press with 135 pounds for the first working set, aiming to hit 8 reps.
Warm up set #1: 5 reps x 75lbs
Warm up set #2: 3 reps x 105lbs
Working set #1: 8 reps x 135lbs
Note that those numbers aren’t precisely 50% and 75% of the first working sets weight. That’s ok. Those numbers are just guidelines.
What about rest periods?
Because warm up sets are well below max output, you don’t need to rest much. You can rest a lot if you’d like, but it’s only going to take more time. I’ve found that 30-60 seconds rest between warm up sets is plenty.
You’ll want more rest 90-120 seconds in between working sets, however.
Now that we’ve discussed how to warm up in a time effective manner, let’s go over a workout “hack” to shave time off your training session without sacrificing results.
Pairing Exercises Together
This one tip will help you take the same workout and help you get the same results in less time.
Here’s how it works.
Instead of doing consecutive sets of one exercise with rest periods in between, you do one set of one exercise, rest a bit, do one set of the next exercise, rest a bit, and start from the first exercise again.
Here’s an example of the “old way” (taking a long time in the gym) and the “new way” wich is much more time efficient:
Old Way:
Set 1 of Leg Extensions
Rest 2 min
Set 2 of Leg Extensions
Rest 2 min
Set 3 of Leg Extensions
Set 1 of Leg Curls
Rest 2 min
Set 2 of Leg Curls
Rest 2 min
Set 3 of Leg Curls
Rest 2 min
New Way:
Set 1 of Leg Extensions
Rest 60 seconds
Set 1 of Leg Curls
Rest 60 seconds
Set 2 of Leg Extensions
Rest 60 seconds
Set 2 of Leg Curls
Rest 60 seconds
Set 3 of Leg Extensions
Rest 60 seconds
Set 3 of Leg Curls
Rest 60 seconds
The idea is that you can shorten the rest periods because the muscle group that was just working (quads from leg extensions) is resting a bit while the other muscle group is being worked (hamstrings from leg curls).
This method allows you to have shorter overall rest, which can shave a significant amount of time off your workouts, especially if you have multiple pairs (or “supersets” of exercises).
You could arguably rest shorter than 60 seconds in between each set, but I would advise against that.
Fit as much rest as you can into your workouts. Your performance and results will only be better.
But, there’s one caveat. This only works well when you have workouts that train multiple different muscle groups.
Here’s why:
When pairing exercises together, it’s ideal to pair exercises that work opposing (or completely unrelated) muscle groups.
If you pair two exercises of the same muscle group together, all you are going to do is drastically increase the amount of muscle tissue damage (which doesn’t result in muscle gain, by the way), and drastically decrease your recovery and performance.
Seeing improvements in muscle isn’t about obliterating the muscle in one workout, but rather, steadily progressing in reps and or weight over time.
Instead of pairing together a leg extension and a squat, it would be wise to pair together a leg extension and a hamstring curl, as the quads and hamstrings are opposing.
Or, you could pair a leg extension with a dumbbell lateral raise, as the quads and shoulders are completely unrelated and one won’t impact the performance of the other.
Just make sure that you’re not pairing exercises in a way that will impact performance in the rest of your workout.
For example, let’s say your workout is as follows:
Deadlift
Leg Press
Bench Press
Pull Up
Triceps Extension
Biceps Curl
You wouldn’t want to pair your leg press with your triceps extension, because your triceps will be gassed going into your bench press, and your bench press performance will suffer.
Now that we’ve ripped a couple pages out of the 4 Day Fit Formula (the programming I use to get my clients incredible results) to address the two things that will drastically improve your workout time while still prioritizing your muscle development, let’s briefly go over how you can lose fat in less time.
Batching
There are several different methods and tools I use to help people lose fat in less time. For the sake of making this lengthy article a bit shorter, I’ll quickly go over one of my favorites: batching.
Batching can be defined as the concept of grouping similar tasks together and completing them at once to save time, reduce decision fatigue, and improve consistency.
Batch cooking will be the most impactful for you if you find yourself needing time efficient methods to lose fat and stay lean year round.
Here’s a simplified version of how this works:
Cook 2-3 proteins (beef, chicken thighs, etc.)
Roast or air fry 2-3 veggies at once
Cook 2-3 base starches (rice, potatoes, quinoa, etc.)
Mix and match the proteins, veggies, and starches for a variety of meals throughout the week
Simple as that.
When you do this, you eliminate 90% of the friction around food decisions, practically putting your fat loss results on autopilot.
By the way, if you want to try this out but don’t know how many calories you need to be eating each day to lose weight, build muscle, or both, you can use my free calorie calculator here.
Bonus tips:
Use your favorite sauces for flavor variety from meal to meal (I like anything that Kinder’s makes)
Use multiple different appliances at the same time. For example, veggies roasting in the oven, rice in the pressure cooker, chicken in the air fryer (this is an underrated tip that will save you an immense amount of time).
Use the “Assemble, Don’t Cook” rule when it applies. If your meal is greek yogurt, apple, walnuts, and some granola, don’t take the time to combine them until you’re about to eat it.
Remember, this isn’t just about mastering your nutrition. This is about following through on the person you’re becoming.
And lastly, keep this in mind: The more decisions you remove, the more discipline you gain.
And there you have it, a quick guide to losing weight, and building muscle on a tight schedule.
As always, if you have any questions, send an email to adam@poehlmannfitness.com. I read every email.
To your health,
Adam
PS. Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help you.