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Strength training is brilliant for ageing well – articles on nearly every corner of the internet (including this corner) stress this point. It strengthens your body, bones and joints, improves heart health and helps combat age-related losses in muscle and mobility. And there are ways to enjoy all of these benefits in less time.
If they box smart, most people can enjoy all the perks they’re after from lifting weights with just a couple of 20-minute sessions per week.
“Whenever we talk about working out, people assume that, to get the benefits, you have to spend hours and hours in the gym,” says Dr Milo Wolf, a strength training specialist, fitness coach and founder of training app MyoAdapt.
“In reality, you don’t need to spend that much time training to see results. And if you employ certain strategies, you can get away with as little as half an hour to an hour in the gym each week and still see really solid progress.”
The time-savvy workout below uses several of these strategies to deliver plenty of perks with just a couple of dumbbells.
The 20-minute full-body dumbbell workout for building strength at home
Superset 1
Exercise 1A: Dumbbell bent-over row 2×10 (or a challenging number of repetitions, depending on the weight of the dumbbells you have available)
Exercise 1B: Dumbbell walking lunge 2×10 on each leg (or a challenging number of repetitions)
Rest: one minute
Immediately after your final set of dumbbell walking lunges, drop one dumbbell and complete as many dumbbell goblet walking lunges as you can. Immediately after this, drop the remaining dumbbell and complete as many unweighted walking lunges as possible, then rest before superset two.
Superset 2
Exercise 2A: Dumbbell Romanian deadlift 2×10 (or a challenging number of repetitions)
Exercise 2B: Press-up 2×10 (or a challenging number of repetitions)
Rest: one minute
Immediately after your final set of press-ups, complete as many kneeling press-ups as you can. Immediately after this, place your hands on a sturdy elevated surface and complete as many hands-elevated press-ups as possible.
The higher your hands, the easier press-ups become. You can also start with hands-elevated press-ups, then move to a slightly higher surface with each drop set. For example, switching from a chair to a table to a kitchen counter.
This workout works every major muscle group, and should provide your body with the stimulus it needs to become considerably fitter and stronger in just 20 minutes.
Read more: Expert coach shares five kettlebell workouts to get you in ‘the shape of your life’
Techniques for more time-efficient strength training
Supersets: “In traditional strength training, you do a set of an exercise, take a rest interval, usually of one to two minutes, then do another set,” explains Dr Wolf. “You do all sets of one exercise, then move on to the next one.”
But a superset involves pairing two exercises together, then performing them back to back with no rest in between. If you choose your exercises smartly, so there is little overlap in the movement patterns being used, one set of muscles can rest while the other works, and vice versa, slashing your workout time by almost half without blunting its effectiveness.
That is what has been done in the workout above.
Drop sets: Successful strength training involves the body shifting challenging loads, then adapting so it will be better at moving such loads next time it faces them. These adaptations include building bigger muscles, strengthening bones, joints and tendons, boosting coordination, improving heart function and more.
Drop sets are an efficient and effective way of ensuring the body is sufficiently challenged during your workouts, making a more persuasive business for it to initiate these desired adaptations. This means you can do fewer total sets with similar results.
“With drop set training, you start with a heavy set of an exercise then immediately pick up a weight that’s about 20 per cent lighter and do another set,” Dr Wolf explains.
“You repeat this process several times – so you might start by lifting 50kg, then 40kg, then 30kg, and so on, taking each set to failure [the point at which you can’t perform another repetition with good technique].
“…In some studies, we’ve seen that drop-set training leads to the same muscle growth in anything from 30 to 70 per cent less time [than traditional strength training].”
Read more: How to start a fitness routine with just 10 minutes per day, according to a fitness coach
