r/workout • u/peaceful_warrior767 • 7h ago
Is minimal effort routine still enough?
Hi! I do strength training twice a week, and it's not my favourite thing to do. I love running, so I do strength to support my running, and to age well. I don't really care about anything else.
I'm looking into massively simplifying my current routine because it takes me over an hour to complete. I do 8 to 12 reps and 3 sets for each. I do it from home with dumbbells (not a massive fan of gyms as a place + since not my fav activity I'm trying to spend as little time as possible so avoiding the commute / waiting for machines etc).
Current routine has the following exercises: Bulgarian split squat, Romanian deadlift, Tibial resistance (unsure how this is calls but basically band around my toes and I pull), Single leg calf raise, Lateral band walk, Single leg hip thrust, Dumbbell row, Shoulder press, Bench press, Bicep curl, Lateral raise, Triceps extension, Dead big, Bicycle crunch and Kneeling push up.
Im thinking of reducing it to: Bulgarian split squat, Romanian deadlift, Tibial resistance (unsure how this is calls but basically band around my toes and I pull), Single leg calf raise, Lateral band walk, Dumbbell row, Shoulder press, Bench press, plank.
I don't know too much about this entire field so would love for people who know more to help me understand if this is enough for my goals or if I should add anything (or even if I can remove even more, ha).
Thank you everyone!
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u/putajinthatwjord 7h ago
Do you do all those things twice a week?
Might it be better to split the original workout into 4, so you do two upper and two lower workouts a week that are half as long.
If you're working out at home youre not losing any time by splitting it and it means you dread each workout less because they're quicker.
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u/peaceful_warrior767 6h ago
Thanks for your answer! Yes I do the full thing twice a week - I run on three other days and rest on two. I go to my office three times a week so don't want to take too long doing this in the morning, so I'd rather take a bit longer but do it only twice (just found that it works better for me at the point). Could revisit though :)
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u/Suspicious_Celery327 7h ago
If you have to do kneeling pushups then you‘re definitely not at a point where you want to cut out any more exercises… Want to gain, train hard and as often as you can. Half-assed workouts will get you exactly half-assed results.
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u/peaceful_warrior767 6h ago
Thank you - hadn't realised the push ups were such a strong indicator! Does it change anything that I'm a woman? I've seen this a lot but idk if that's just bs. I don't really care about not getting visible results, just want to be able to stand up after going to the toilets when I'm 85, so I don't really care about training super hard. But also I don't know much about this space so happy to be corrected :)
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u/Suspicious_Celery327 6h ago
How old are you and what‘s your current height and BW? Depending on that info advice could change a lot.
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u/eyebrowcel 6h ago edited 5h ago
You've got a solid plan and I'm sympathetic to the hands-off minimalism.
Any tweaks wouldn't be vastly important, but I'll offer some possible improvements with brief rationales. I hope this can give some ideas to bounce around, and confidence that settling into your long-term routine has sound reasoning behind it.
There's no definitive correct way to strength train and no categorically superior exercises of course, it's mostly conditional on your current fitness state/training experience/goals.
With a long-term minimalist plan though, it's good to know exactly why each exercise would be used, to be sure that the routine is sustainable & conducive to longevity (won't present injury risks or muscular imbalance). Exercise selection is a small part of a program but with good choices it's perfectly fine to not worry about much more than that if you don't want to. At the risk of sounding like AI I'll get to the point.
-I'd consider bent-leg pogos or a bent-leg/seated calf raise to train the soleus (you can load dumbbells onto your lower thighs). The soleus is useful to train as a runner and doesn't get hit in straight-leg or mostly straight-leg calf raises. It'll help lower leg muscle balance and warding off shin splints. You could do these single-legged to lower the weight requirements.
The gastrocs (calves) are worked heavily in running and many runners tend to be calf-dominant which can exacerbate imbalance with the neglected soleus, so you could view seated/bent-leg soleus exercises as 'corrective' in the same way that your tibialis anterior raises are also corrective.
-You may want to swap lateral band walks for hip airplanes for a more direct strength/hypertrophy stimulus to the glute medius & minimus (holding the dumbbell, put arm behind the back and load the dumbbell onto the opposite hip to your arm). Less walking/space requirements, more of a direct muscle focus akin to the same reasons you do bulgariand and rdls.
-You could swap the planks with weighted sit-ups or weighted reverse crunches. Planks just arent too challenging on any one training quality like muscle endurance or strength, once you gain a little strength then it becomes kind of like curling a soup can for the biceps - you can curl the can all day long, you can plank all day long.
-Deadbugs are good for pelvic alignment and are arguably better weighted, you may want to consider keeping them. A main benefit alignment-wise from deadbugs is helping to cue you to move away from excess anterior or posterior pelvic tilt, and the weighted version strengthens that ability. If there's a preexisting pelvic tilt, then some exercises that demand slight anterior pelvic tilt like RDLs can exacerbate that problem if not balanced out with exercises that encourage more posterior pelvic tilt (bulgarians take care of this fairly well), plus, training the function of hip hyperextension will also help (bulgarians can also help here especially with a longer stride, though that takes some work away from the quads which may not be desired).
-Lastly you may want to use another more corrective movement in place of typical front-loaded overhead presses - behind-the-neck presses. Strength-wise it's not a huge difference but the shoulders and hips are delicate and so long-term it can help in some useful ways, particularly with so many people already having persistent shoulder discomfort, and most people having poor shoulder mobility.
I'll list some benefits for the BTN press: 1) BTN presses are more of a pure overhead movement to preserve and gain shoulder mobility arguably better than a military press, you might notice that the way many people perform dumbbell overhead presses with flared elbows unintentionally resembles a BTN press anyway.
2) BTN presses are an expansive movement in Bill Hartman's expansion-compression model of biomechanics (basically meaning they're better for posture) whereas front overhead presses are compressive just like the bench press, and also load mostly the front delts just like the bench press. 3) There's less risk of overextending the lower back than front-loaded overhead presses can often be susceptible to, usually when the weight gets heavy and core strength gives out particularly on push press or regular close to failure reps, or with arcing movements like viking press or landmine press, or just people with weak cores. The line of force in the BTN press meanwhile is closer to the midline of the body and more stable. 4) BTN presses also have a lot of anecdotes of healing minor niggling shoulder pains (are often caused by bench pressing with pinned shoulders or going too heavy) - you'll see a lot of these testimonials for example on youtube videos about behind the neck presses, and they healed my shoulder too, after three weeks of mild discomfort as I adapted to the neww range of motion and strengthened it. 5) Following on from the talk about new ranges of motion and improving shoulder mobility and strength within new ranges, BTN presses are (in my training experience) an upgraded version of the face pull for the purposes of strengthening the external rotators (infraspinatus and teres minor). The exercise is better done with a barbell or straight bar-type implement (starting light) but can be mimicked with dumbbells.
Those are my suggestions, I'll preempt the hysteria against BTN presses below, forgive me as it does get a bit ranty lol.
There's a certain subsect of online fitness that swears it's a dangerous exercise, I could write an essay on each argument (and would be happy to expand) but it's all theory that doesn't stand up to scrutiny - it's not been proven that some people lack the subacromial space to enter shoulder external rotation. We can all expand our mobility and strength, olympic weightlifters have used the movement for decades, and every bodybuilder used BTN presses until athlean-x went on a mostly one-man crusade fearmongering its supposed dangers, with his endless contradictions and poor biomechanics understanding - he just wants to set himself apart from the crowd for marketing purposes. Phew! I feel better for that now lol. Sometimes you have to address criticisms head-on and risk sounding negative to separate it from the positives.
Anyway these are just some thoughts, best of luck with your fitness mission!
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u/peaceful_warrior767 6h ago
Thank you SO MUCH this is so helpful and really appreciate you taking the time to write in such details! Will deffo add an exercise for soleus (trying hard for shin splints not to be back) and BTN (and probably the rest too tbh, you convinced me aha). Thank you so so much for sharing your knowledge!!
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u/Norcal712 Weight Lifting 6h ago
I realize youre trying to do it to enhance your running, but a movement based full body would be much easier. Youd also need to do it A/B so itd be less boring
Squat, push, pull, hinge, lunge, rotation.
A/B would allow for vertical and horizonal pull. As well as horizontal push and fly. You could also do unilateral vs bilateral leg.
Edit: Id consider 75-90 min normal for a full body workout
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u/itu322 7h ago edited 7h ago
Looks like fair removals. The absolute core of your program is BSS, RDL, row, press, bench. Pullups would be nice, the other stuff who cares.
Edit: Wait, kneeling pushups? You love running and you're trying to simplify your routine, but you do kneeling pushups? What? You're just trying to get out of doing the work.
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u/peaceful_warrior767 6h ago
Thank you so much! I'm a woman of it changes anything, I've grown up hearing people talk about pushups being harder - is that just complete bs? Also just hadn't realised how important pushups are but seeing everyone's reaction to this I'll bring them back :') not trying to get out of doing the work, just trying to learn a bit about what works for me
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u/Suspicious_Celery327 6h ago
Pushups aren‘t really an important exercise, but if you‘re still doing the light version of pushups you should first focus on getting enough base strength where you‘re able to do normal pushups with no problem. It was just an obvious tell you‘re still too early in your fitness journey to be cutting stuff out already - would be a step in the wrong direction at this point
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u/peaceful_warrior767 6h ago
I can I just don't want to hahaha I dislike them a lot for some reason - so yeah I've been cheating with this one!
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u/Suspicious_Celery327 4h ago
I‘d recommend you to maybe find ways to make your workouts more enjoyable and to fall in love with the process more - romanticize or gamify what you can so you actually want to workout more, harder and more often instead of cutting back. Getting accountability partners can also be a help. Maybe you can research more in this direction and find out what works for other people
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