The Quick & Easy Fitness Regimen for the Busy Professional
The clock hits 5 PM. You’ve had a busy day full of meetings, collaboration, and individual focus work. You take a look at your calendar, and see that you’ve scheduled a laundry list of chores and social events: from meeting your significant other for dinner to vacuuming your floors to finishing a chapter of the personal-finance course you’re enrolled in — all important tasks to enhance your relationships, lifestyle, and finances.
And then it hits: the thought that you’ve buried deep into the abyss of your mind perseveres its way to your amygdala — “I need to work out!”
You groan, moan, ache — everything you can to let your mind know that you’d rather do something else. And finally, the guilt settles in.
It’s not like you don’t want to be fit and healthy. It’s not like you don’t want a better physical body. It’s just that you have other things on your plate that you want to get done — and you don’t want to feel fatigued from the gym to where you push off your to-do list.
I’ve found myself feeling this way many times and with a lot of trial and error, I’ve compiled a 3-Day workout split that has helped me stay fit by losing fat and building muscle.
A QUICK DISCLAIMER:
I want one thing to be very clear here: working out 6x a week will affect your body differently than working out 3x a week. You’ll probably see faster results with the former given you’re burning more calories per week. But the point is to fit a fitness regimen within your busy lifestyle that you can stick to. Got it? Cool, let’s get into the workouts.
THE WORKOUT SPLIT
Day 1 — Chest & Back on Friday
The exercises below are intentionally dumbbell-based so that you can knock out half of the workout while remaining on the same bench. This eliminates the wait time for coveted exercise stations — such as the flat bench and incline bench — to open up.
Complete the following exercises for 8–10 reps:
Why Chest & Back on a Friday? I am least mentally productive on Fridays since I’ve already given 32 hours of knowledge work to my employer. To offset that, I’d rather be physically productive by working body parts that I personally enjoy.
Day 2 — Legs on Saturday
Have you ever hit your legs so hard that you can’t do anything else for the rest of the day? Or worse — you’re so sore that you’d rather lay in bed for the next day or two while you recover? The following workout was designed to get my legs working hard while minimizing fatigue.
Complete the following exercises for 10–12 reps:
Why Legs on a Saturday? Legs are my least favorite body part to hit, and I can easily come up with excuses during the week to skip it: “I’ve had a long day at work, I’ll hit legs tomorrow” to “Legs will make me too tired — and I have other things to do for the day”. On Saturdays, I don’t have much planned besides social events so it’s the perfect time to burn some calories in preparation for an eventful Saturday.
Day 3 — Shoulders & Arms on Sunday
I’ve found that pairing Shoulders with Chest, Back, or Legs is not optimal for me to minimize fatigue. My Chest works so hard while Benching that I’m totally gassed by the time I have to hit Shoulders! My Leg exercises demand so much energy out of me that I’m guaranteed to skip Shoulders if paired with Legs. Finally, pairing Shoulders with Back doesn’t give me the same pump as pairing Chest with Back.
Shoulders paired with Arms, however, is a quick workout that will leave you with an amazing pump primarily due to the heavy reliance on super setting.
Note: The colored bars below represent a superset. For instance, complete 10 reps of Lateral Raises immediately followed by 10 reps of Upright Rows for the first superset. That makes 1 set.
Complete the following exercises for 8–10 reps:
Why Shoulders & Arms on Sunday? Sundays are my reset days. I’ll be either cleaning my home, meal prepping for the week, doing finances, or simply relaxing. I wanted something quick and easy that will allow me to reset while providing me with the confidence to tackle the week ahead of me.
Q&A
1. WHY ARE YOU WORKING OUT ON THE WEEKENDS?
I want to spend my post-workday hours on developing my relationships, and working on my personal goals.
I’ve reserved Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for working out because I can give my 100% attention to my fitness regimen. Plus, the gyms are usually empty on the weekends, and I can get through my workout very quickly!
2. DO I HAVE TO WORK OUT ON THE SAME DAYS THAT YOU WORK OUT?
No. I’ve listed out my rationale for choosing Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. If you identify with my situation, then these days might work for you. If you think working out on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays is better for you, then you should do that.
3. WHY DON’T YOU HAVE BARBELL BENCH PRESS OR BARBELL SQUATS IN THIS REGIMEN?
The beauty of a sample fitness regimen is that you can switch out workouts with whatever you’d like. If you prefer Barbell Benching to Dumbbell Benching, then do that instead.
4. WHAT ABOUT DIET?
Without a proper diet, you won’t see the changes in your body that you desire even if you follow this split. Diet is King. Stay tuned for an article where I break down how to create a diet that works for you and my approach to dieting.
5. HOW LONG SHOULD I REST WHILE DOING THESE EXERCISES?
Honestly, you should rest for however long it takes for you to recover. Ideally, I keep my rest times between 1.5 to 2 minutes mostly because I feel recovered enough and I want to get out of the gym as soon as I can!
If you’re interested in importing the workouts into the Strong app, here are the links: