The Best Short Free Weight Workouts

Weight training is a vital part of any healthy lifestyle. With benefits such as an increased metabolism and better flexibility and durability, everyone should make strength training a part of their exercise program. Getting these benefits, however, does not mean that you need to spend hours in the gym lifting heavy dumbbells. You can have a successful strength training session with just a few simple exercises and not a lot of time.

  1. Choose Compound Exercises

    • When you are short on time, the best exercises to perform are ones that involve multiple muscle groups, which means you can work more muscles in a less amount of time. Compound exercises such as the lunge and bicep curl or squat and shoulder press combine a lower body exercise with an upper body exercise. Engaging multiple muscle groups at the same time also keeps your heart rate up and can burn more calories than doing isolated exercises alone.

    Add Supersets

    • Supersets are one of the best ways to get all of the benefits of strength training in a short amount of time. Your workout will be intense and your heart rate will remain high throughout the workout, because you are hitting muscles with back-to-back exercises. For example, combine one biceps exercise and one triceps exercise. This could include biceps curls followed by triceps extensions or hammer curls followed by triceps dips. The key is to move immediately from your biceps exercise to your triceps exercise without any rest.

    Set Structure

    • The structure of your weight training sets determines your workout results. For example, aim for one to five repetitions per set if you want to build strength. Additional repetitions per set are ideal for muscular endurance training. Also consider the amount of rest you give yourself in between sets. If you are resting for only 30 seconds before moving on to your next set, then your heart rate will remain elevated and your calorie burn will be higher. Plan your sets and repetitions according to your personal goals.

    Sample Set

    • Use a weight that is heavy enough so the movement burns on the last repetition but is not too heavy that it compromises good form. Perform 10 repetitions of each exercise before dropping the weight and resting. Do three total sets. Take a day of rest at least once a week for recovery, which will help you gain greater benefits from your workouts and prevent injury.