Powerlifting in 30 Minutes or Less? Seriously? Seriously.
Short on time? Don’t think you can fit in a lifting session in 30 minutes or less? Although you may not be able to get as many lifts in or as heavy lifts in, I still think that, for me anyway, some lifting is better than none at all.
There are many weeks where my morning workouts just don’t happen. I get very poor sleep due to the painsomnia and med reactions associated with my illnesses. It’s not uncommon for me to get 2-3 hours of actual sleep a night and suffer through my day. Although I may set my alarm for a morning workout, I may not even have enough spoons first thing in my day – much less throughout my day as I struggle to work and then be mommy when I get home.
But what about after work? Well, some days I’m out of spoons well before the work day is done, much less afterwards when I’m caring for my toddler, making dinner, cleaning up, and prepping her and my things for the next day (my husband works shift work and is not home in the evenings to assist, but he’s amazing and does a lot of it during the day for me). On those rare days when all the stars align and I have an agreeable 2.5 year old and I have some spare spoons and time, yeah, I make it to the gym. But more often than not, my mornings and evenings are shot.
So what to do? What does that leave?
The lunch workout.
I get an hour for lunch. So between driving to my gym, changing my clothes, working out, quick shower/refresh/clothing change, and driving back, it leaves me about 30 minutes MAX for a workout. That might seem like plenty of time for a nice treadmill or elliptical cardio workout, but for a lifter? That hardly seems like enough time to do some warm-up sets! If I’m relegated to a lunch hour workout, I tend to focus on accessory work – lower weights, higher reps, and much less rest in between. But sometimes the heart wants what the heart wants, and sometimes the heart just wants iron.
You can still do lower weight/less rest lifts. On these days, like today, I will focus on one of my main lifts, and then do some accessory work surrounding it. For my main lift, I will do 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps at lower weights, so that way I do not need as much rest in between. I then follow that with work on the same muscle regions. Here is an example of a workout that I actually did today that took me 31:45 according to my FitBit timer :)
Squats
155x5
165x3
175x3
175x3
Leg Press
285x8x3
Hamstring Curls
85x8x3
Calf Raises
210x20
205x20x2
Did I work up to a max? Not even close. Did I get more work done than I would have sitting at my desk? Absolutely.
Some people have way more flexibility and can put in a longer workout on their lunch. For others, this simply isn’t an option. But regardless of if it’s lunch time or any other time where you only have 30 minutes OR 30 minutes is all the spoons you can spare, you can still get some lifts in if you want to!
Even after 30 minutes I still got a mini booty-pump, so I'd say it's worth it!
