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Why You Should Prioritise Strength Training - Even with a Busy Schedule

Implementing strength training into an already busy schedule can be extremely hard. Between family responsibilities, work, social occasions and commuting, it is understandable that finding time for fitness is challenging. However, the overarching benefits of strength training highlight exactly how important it is to prioritise it, even with a busy schedule. 

Resistance training is well known to increase skeletal muscle mass and improve physical function, while reducing mortality and the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes, and improving mental health and sleep quality (Source). As such, integrating strength training into your schedule is essential. With that said, your sessions don't necessarily need to be long. You can still gain sufficient benefits from just a couple of time-efficient workouts per week (Source), and having the ability to do this in your own home will improve time-efficiency and subsequent motivation to train. Therefore, this blog post will help you implement strength training with a busy schedule.

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How Strength Training Can Be One of the Most Time-Efficient Forms of Exercise

Despite popular belief, strength training doesn't necessarily require 1- to 2-hour sessions. You can complete an effective session in 30-45 minutes if you optimise your training, and here's how. 
First of all, you should prioritise compound exercises. This will allow you to recruit a broader range of musculature in fewer exercises. This is due to compound lifts placing a greater amount of mechanical tension across multiple muscle groups, thus causing the body to recruit a greater amount of type II (fast-twitch) muscle fibres. The recruitment of type II fibres indicates a greater neural drive from the brain stimulating certain muscles, which over time adapts, leading to increased strength. Furthermore, type II fibres are anaerobic, meaning they produce byproducts such as lactate and hydrogen ions when activated, which increases metabolic stress in the muscle. Considering that metabolic stress and mechanical tension are both drivers of muscle growth and subsequent strength, compound lifts are great for inducing full-body training adaptations. 
Additionally, certain training methods can help you maximise the time efficiency of your training sessions. For instance, including supersets, compound sets, or tri-set training can help improve your time efficiency. These are all similar concepts, though they have distinct differences:
  • Superset training: Pairs exercises that engage opposing muscles (agonist vs antagonist). E.g., bench press & barbell rows.
  • Compound-set training: Pairs exercises that target the same muscle group(s), compounding the effects on the same muscle. E.g., incline bench press & push-ups
  • Tri-set training: Three exercises are performed for the same muscle group(s). E.g., incline, flat & decline bench press 

An image of a man performing bicep curls with the Exersci hex dumbbells to illustrate the blog post "Why You Should Prioritise Strength Training - Even with a Busy Schedule"

    The Benefits of Training at Home When Time Is Limited

    Part of the inconvenience when it comes to training when you have limited time is the journey to the gym. Although this may only take an extra 30 minutes, this can feel significant when you are busy. Furthermore, this may impact your motivation to train. By having a training space available in your own home, you will significantly improve your time management. Not only do you not have to deal with the commute to the gym, but you also have greater flexibility with your work hours, and you are not limited by other people using the equipment you need. Having your home gym also means you are not limited by the gym's opening hours, again allowing you to better work around your schedule.

    Having a training space in your own home also allows you to tailor the environment to meet your needs. You can purchase equipment that supports your training goals and preferences. In addition, you can plan and prepare your training space for your morning or late-night session to optimise your time spent training. You can also organise your equipment storage so that your popular items are easy to grab and use to further optimise your time-efficient training session. 

     

    Build a Home Gym That Grows with Your Training

    So, with this information in mind, what equipment do you need? 

    As always, you should opt for versatile equipment that can support multiple exercises and long-term progress. This will save you money and mean you have less equipment to set up before your session. By choosing versatile equipment, you are still able to perform full-body exercises to support a wider range of adaptations. Luckily, Exersci offers a range of versatile equipment that you can include in your space. Our range of dumbbells can be used to perform upper, core and lower body exercises, for example, shoulder press, curls, russian twists, goblet squats, RDLs, etc. Pair this with our workout bench to allow for seated/laying exercises such as bench press, incline press and flys. Similarly, you could include our hip thrust multifunctional bench to provide a larger base for step-ups, split squats and of course, hip thrusts.

    An image of a man performing a bench press with the cast iron adjustable dumbbell & barbell set, to illustrate the Exersci blog post entitled "Why You Should Prioritise Strength Training - Even with a Busy Schedule"

    Importantly, you should choose equipment that allows you to overload progressively. Progressive overload refers to gradually increasing the stress placed on the body during exercises to stimulate adaptations continuously. The most common way to accomplish this is by increasing the resistance lifted, so having a range of resistances available is ideal here. For instance, adjustable dumbbell, barbell & kettlebell sets are a prime example of a piece of equipment that supports full-body training and progressive overload. Likewise, we offer a range of gym bundles that will allow you to overload and maximise your training adaptations progressively.

    Lastly, it's always important to include the correct flooring in your space. With strength training, we recommend including flooring > 15mm thickness. Happily, most of our options exceed this thickness, providing added protection for your flooring and equipment. Furthermore, having the correct storage will keep your space clutter-free and save time from sorting through all of your equipment.

    Conclusion

    Understandably, a busy schedule can have you feel like you dont have time to train. Some days this may actually be the case, but with the importance of strength training on overall health and mortality, prioritising some time to train is important. But remember, your sessions dont need to be 1-2 hours long. By including some tips and tricks that we have discussed in this blog, for instance, thoughtfully planning your home gym, setting your equipment up early, using super/compound/tri sets and focusing on multi-joint compound lifts, you can complete a high-quality session in just 30-45 mins. Once you start to realise how possible it is to complete your resistance training session while remaining busy, it will become easier to remain consistent and start reaping the benefits of strength training. 

    Make strength training work for your schedule. Explore Exersci®'s range of versatile home gym equipment and create a training space that works for you.

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