Excellent 30 Minute Full Body Template

What's up brothers and sisters of swoleness?

I often get asked how to train full body in just 30 minutes. There's many different ways that I've experimented with to do this, but, with most of my clients who see me 2-4 days per week, I use the following template.

It's fun, it's efficient, it's very effective at building muscle and strength without requiring more than 30 minutes.  

For clients who have bone density issues, I'll typically replace the arm isolation exercise for the day (C1) with a farmer carry, suitcase carry, or sled drag/prowler push.

Even if you trained just 1 day per week, each of these sessions covers all your strength and muscle building bases. Yes — even just lifting 1 day per week (if you hit each of the main 4 movement patterns) is actually enough to build strength, muscle, and increase lifespan according to studies – and more importantly – according to the laws of common sense.

Each session checks the following boxes:

1. Squat/quad dominant exercise

2. Upper body pull/back and bicep exercise 

3. Hinge/posterior chain/hamstring dominant exercise 

4. Upper body push/chest, shoulder, and tricep exercise

5. Upper arm isolation exercise

Excellent 30 Minute Full Body Template

Warm up: glute bridge variation or clam shells x 10 reps; ab/core exercise x 10 reps; calf raise x 10-20 reps or kettlebell haloes or band pull aparts x 10-20 reps. Pick 3 exercises and do 1-2 quick rounds. If you have shoulder issues, make sure to do haloes or band pulls at least 1 day per week. If you want to grow your calves, be sure to include a set of calf raises in your warm up 1 or every training session. (This warm up should take less than 5 minutes)!

Session A 

A1: squat/lunge/split squat/step up variation-2x8-12 

A2: pullups-2x6-12 

B1: single leg RDL or other RDL variation-2x10-15

B2: pushup or bench press variation-2x6-12 

C1: bicep curl (any variation)-2x6-12

Session B

A1: Bulgarian split squat/reverse lunge/box step up/goblet squat variation-2x8-12

A2: single arm row-2x6-12 

B1: single leg hip thrust or kettlebell swings-2x10-15

B2: overhead press or lateral raise variation-2x6-12

C1: tricep extensions (any variation)-2x10-15 

Supersetting antagonistic compound exercises makes it more time efficient. 

If you don't have a 30 minute cap, you could do straight sets and take your time resting between sets. 

With that said – even when doing "supersets," I generally like to rest 30-60 seconds between exercises/sets. So if I'm supersetting Bulgarian split squats and single arm rows, I'll do right leg, rest about a minute, left leg, rest about a minute, row left arm, rest about a minute, row right arm, rest about a minute, repeat.

Give this a shot. 

The optimal frequency for this plan would probably be training every other day, on a cyclical 3-4 day per week cycle. 

If you manage your intensity, you could probably train 4 days per week, even hitting a couple sessions back to back on consecutive days. Doing 2 days in a row may be tough – especially on the lower body exercises, but again, the frequency depends on the intensity dosage. If you do different squat and hinge variations one day to the next, leave some more reps in the tank each set, and manage your other recovery factors (calories, protein, sleep, sauna if possible), you can probably train on consecutive days.

There's really not any long term benefits of training to absolute failure. It just creates more soreness and fatigue, limiting your ability (and your motivation) to train frequently and consistently, so I urge you to leave 2-3 reps in reserve with each exercise when using this program. The sets should be difficult and your rep speed should slow towards the end of each set, but you don't need to keep going until you're using bad form or failing to complete a rep. Over time, you should be adding reps and weight, but these increases shouldn't be forced every session. They should rather happen organically, as your muscles get stronger and bigger. Basically, you want to strive to be completing more reps, or using more weight, while still leaving 2-3 reps in reverse each set. That's how long term progress works, especially when using a program that trains each muscle/movement pattern 2-4 times per week. 

If you're using a bro split combined with low volume training and only hitting each muscle once per week, then the rules change. But with full body training and/or high volume training – any training where you accumulate a decent amount of volume per workout and per week – you are getting enough stimulus to grow simply from the weekly volume and frequency. Super low volumes and frequencies are the only time training to absolute failure is beneficial. But low volume, infrequent, absolute failure training is no fun anyway. So why bother being a triple extremist (low volume + low frequency+ super high intensity)? The moderation plan is more enjoyable, sustainable, and productive long term (regardless of training split used).

I don't want this to get lost in the 3-4 day or every other day frequency debate: 2 days per week works great, too.

I like frequency and I like accumulating training volume by way of higher frequency training, so I, personally, train every other day when using this program for myself.

Hope this is helpful for those of you tasked with creating effective training programs for your clients 1-4 days per week AND for those of you wishing to take advantage of the efficiency and frequency benefits of full body training. Take this template, apply it, be consistent with it and watch the strength and hypertrophy gains flood in over time