Fitness expert Jeff Nippard shares 3 work out tips to spend less time in the gym without hurting your workout quality.
When you think of the biggest excuse people give for not working out, what is it? If you said, “I don’t have time,” then you’re correct! Not having enough time to workout is often the excuse people give when they’re not making it to the gym. We all live busy lives, some busier than others. So it can be overwhelming and hard to find the time you need to workout and hit your fitness goals.
The good news is that there are strategies you can implement to complete effective workouts in less time. Bodybuilder, powerlifter, and fitness guru Jeff Nippard shares 3 tips on Instagram that you can use to complete efficient workouts and save time.
| Full Name: Jeff Nippard | ||
| Weight | Height | Date Of Birth |
| 155-165 lbs. | 5’5’’ | 10/06/1990 |
| Profession | Era | Nationality |
| Bodybuilder, Powerlifter | 2010 | Canadian |
Jeff Nippard is a Canadian natural pro bodybuilder and international-qualified powerlifter. And he holds a Bachelor of Since in biochemistry. He won the 2012 Mr. Junior Canada title and has grown a massive social media following since then, where he’s regarded as an influential fitness expert.
If you have followed Jeff Nippard, you’ll know he strongly believes you can do great workouts without spending too much time in the gym. He knows that people live busy lives, and it’s unrealistic for everyone to give a couple of hours of their day to the gym. Therefore, he’s been creating content for the general public, teaching them how they get quick, effective workouts throughout the week. Nippard coins this as “minimalist training,” which Nippard says can be done in under an hour. Keep reading to learn his three time-saving tips to sculpt your physique to Greek God status.
Drop Sets
The first tip Nippard gives to save time and crush workouts is to incorporate drop sets. A drop set is when you perform a set until failure, then lower the weight by 10-30% and rep the weight until failure again; there is limited to no rest between sets. Studies show including drop sets in your training plan can improve muscle hypertrophy (growth) (1). Nippard stated:
“Drop sets are a great way to squeeze more effective volume into a shorter time frame. That’s because they allow you to get in more reps close to failure without killing time by resting between sets or doing a bunch of lower-tension reps that aren’t close to failure. For drop sets, I’ll usually hit failure once for around 10-12 reps, drop the weight back by 30-50 percent and then go to failure again. Drop sets are best reserved for machine exercises that can be taken to failure safely and should be kept for the last set of an exercise.”
Jeff Nippard on Antagonistic Superset Workouts
Nippard also said you should incorporate antagonistic supersets if you want to finish more in less time without hurting your workout performance. Supersets are when you do two back-to-back exercises with little to no rest (2). And antagonistic supersets are when you do two exercises subsequently of opposing muscle groups—for example, performing a set of barbell curls for biceps and then cable tricep extensions for triceps with no rest.
Nippard says you’ll run into issues with supersets of the same muscle group exercises. Therefore, he recommends antagonistic supersets. The fitness expert said:
“They are a great way to squeeze more sets into a shorter time frame, however, there’s an issue. If you superset exercises that train the same muscles, those muscles will not be able to recover sufficiently in between supersets, meaning you won’t be able to handle the same load/volume. For this reason, it is generally smarter to do supersets that train antagonistic (“opposite”) muscles like biceps + triceps or chest + back.”
The 2014 Canadian national bench press record holder said you can also do “separated supersets.” He says this is when you perform supersets of different muscle groups—for example, performing a set of leg presses and seated lateral raises.
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Reduce Sets But Increase Weight
In addition to supersets, Jeff Nippard says focusing on increasing your weight lifted rather than increasing the sets you do will save you time and result in ample muscle growth (3). Nippard claimed:
“Research shows that even just 1-4 sets per muscle per week, taken to failure, will result in measurable muscle growth. If you’re limited on time, consider dropping your volume back and pushing your sets all the way to failure (or at least within 1 rep or so of failure). Failure is the point where you couldn’t possibly get another rep with good technique, no matter how hard you tried.”
He went on to say:
“In weight training, there’s always a trade off between volume and intensity (effort). The more volume you do, the lower intensity should be (to ensure recovery). The less volume you do, the higher intensity should be (to provide a sufficient growth stimulus). Since lower volume workouts are faster, doing lower volume training with a higher intensity may be the single most effective way to cut down on training time without significantly cutting down on your gains.”
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Wrap Up
Not everyone has the schedule of a bodybuilder to put in 2-3 hours of workouts 5-6 days a week. That doesn’t mean you can’t still get quality workouts in, though. Incorporating drop sets, antagonistic sets, and reducing your sets to focus on lifting heavier weights are all effective strategies to complete an explosive workout in less time. If you follow these 3 Jeff Nippard “minimalist training” workout tips in this article, you’ll crush any fitness goal by spending no more than 45 minutes in the gym.
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References
- Varović, D., Žganjer, K., Vuk, S., & Schoenfeld, B. J. (2021). Drop-Set Training Elicits Differential Increases in Non-Uniform Hypertrophy of the Quadriceps in Leg Extension Exercise. Sports (Basel, Switzerland), 9(9), 119. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports9090119
- Peña García-Orea, G., Rodríguez-Rosell, D., Segarra-Carrillo, D., Da Silva-Grigoletto, M. E., & Belando-Pedreño, N. (2022). Acute Effect of Upper-Lower Body Super-Set vs. Traditional-Set Configurations on Bar Execution Velocity and Volume. Sports (Basel, Switzerland), 10(7), 110. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports10070110
- Ralston, G. W., Kilgore, L., Wyatt, F. B., & Baker, J. S. (2017). The Effect of Weekly Set Volume on Strength Gain: A Meta-Analysis. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 47(12), 2585–2601. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-017-0762-7
