In this instructional video, fitness coach Eric Roberts outlines four evidence‑based strategies for achieving strong training results while spending less time in the gym. He first advises selecting big compound lifts (e.g., bench press, squat, chin‑up, Romanian deadlift) that recruit multiple muscle groups, thereby maximizing work per minute. He then recommends lifting heavier loads for fewer repetitions (6‑8 reps) to generate greater mechanical tension and reach near‑failure faster. The third strategy is to cut the number of sets, using 2‑3 high‑quality sets per exercise instead of the traditional 4‑5. The fourth strategy introduces three intensification techniques—rest‑pause, cluster sets, and supersets—that allow athletes to push past conventional failure without extending workout duration. Roberts demonstrates how to embed these techniques into a full‑body program, providing a detailed upper‑body and lower‑body routine designed to be completed in under 30 minutes. Each routine pairs compound movements with the described intensification methods, includes specific set/rep schemes, rest intervals, and brief isolation work. The video also offers a free 45‑workout email series and promotes Roberts’ paid “Clubhouse” online training platform.
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If you're short on time, but you still want to be able to get a workout without sacrificing your results, I'm going to show you the four best strategies that you can use in your workouts to make sure that happens. And if you stick around until the end of the video, I'm going to give you a full upper body workout and a full lower body workout that will take you less. Than 30 minutes, so stick around. First, you are going to want to be picking exercises that are going to be giving you the most bang for your buck, and usually these are going to be your bigger compound exercises like a barbell bench press, for example, any sort of squat variation, movements like a chin-up or a shoulder press, for example, or even a Romanian deadlift For example. And the reason being is these compound bigger movements work multiple muscles at once. A chin-up, for example, is going to work your back, but it's also going to work your biceps. Or a squat, for example, is going to work your quads. It's going to work your glutes. It's going to work your core. So if you're short on time, you want to be able to work your muscles the most possible, right? So instead of only doing isolation exercises like a bicep curl, Or like a lateral raise, for example. Work in the bigger compound movements that can hit more muscle groups. And it can lead to the second point, which is focus on lifting heavier weight for less reps. And here's why. Number 1, doing more weight and less reps just takes less time. If you're doing 6 reps instead of 12 reps, the set is not going to last as long. Number 2, you're going to create more of something called mechanical tension when you're doing heavier weight with a bit less reps. And all mechanical tension really means is you're creating more tension and more stress inside of your muscles. And this is the main thing that you need in order to get stronger and build muscle. Doing a bit less reps with a bit heavier weight is going to produce more of that mechanical tension. And then number 3, You're going to be able to go closer to failure a little bit faster since you don't have to do as many reps and you're lifting heavier weight. This leads into the next point, point number 3, which is doing less sets with your exercises. You've probably seen a workout program before do 4 or 5 sets of an exercise. The more sets you do, clearly the more time the workout is going to take. And so if you do what we talked about earlier, pick more compound movements and lift heavier weight for less reps with them, you won't need to do as many sets in your workouts because the sets that you're doing are actually better quality sets and sets that you're taking much closer to failure. So 2 or 3 sets at heavier weight is much better than 4 or 5 sets at more moderate weight. Now that we got those 3 points down, let's dive into the 4th point. I'm going to show you some special secret techniques you can use in your workouts to ramp up your intensity, spend less time in the gym, yet still see great progress. Oh, and by the way, if you want 45 totally free workouts, I'm going to go ahead and link them in the description of this video. Yes, it's totally free, no strings attached. I just want to help you have better workouts. All right. I'll send them right over to your email. Just go ahead and input it and you'll get them. Now let's get back to the video. For this 4th tip, I'm going to give you 3 of my favorite, what we call intensification techniques. These are techniques that you can throw into your workouts on specific exercises and specific days. So again, you can ramp up your intensity of your workouts, push closer to failure, without spending a ton of extra time in the workouts. As you can imagine, if you're doing this, you'll spend less time in the gym and yet still get really good results. The first one is going to be called a rest-pause technique. And basically what you're going to do is get an exercise and try to get anywhere between 5 to 10 reps. Now again, these 5 to 10 reps should be very challenging and you should be pushing Really close to failure. Once you do those 5 to 10 reps, here's what you're going to do. You're going to rest about 15 seconds. Take a couple of big deep breaths. After you've taken the 15-second break, you're going to go try to get 3 to 5 more reps in the rest-pause set. So this is basically continuing on with the set you were just doing, Taking it a little bit even farther than failure. After you do those extra 3 to 5 reps, you're going to stop and you're going to rest for about 15 seconds again, taking some big deep breaths. And then you're going to get right back into it and you're going to try to get another 3 to 5 reps. And basically you're going to keep doing that until you can't get 3 to 5 reps on whatever exercise you're doing. And so if you have to go, you know, 2 times, 3 times, 4 times, whatever it is, go as many times as you need to. Usually it'll end up being about 2 to 4, somewhere in between there. I would do this on the last set of your exercise because once you do this, you're, you're going to be toast. You're not able to— you're not going to be able to do anymore. So make sure it's on the last set of your exercise. And you can use that rest-pause set, is what it's called, to ramp up your intensity, decrease your time in the gym. Number 2, this is one of my personal favorites, and it's called a cluster set. This is one of my personal favorite ones, and I program this often inside of my Clubhouse for all of our members. And if you don't know what the Clubhouse is, it's just my, my online training program that I have. You can check it out right here if you'd like to. What you're going to do is you're going to pick an exercise and instead of doing, let's say, 12 reps in a row, you are going to split it up in a cluster set where let's say you do 4 reps, rest 10 to 15 seconds, 4 reps, rest 10 to 15 seconds, 4 reps, and then that is done, the set. Because now since you only have to do 4 reps and you get a little bit of a break, you can usually lift a bit heavier weight, which— what did we talk about earlier? If you lift a bit heavier, you can go closer to failure, get more of that mechanical tension, and be able to see better progress. Let's just say you're doing it bench press, for example. You would perform 4 reps at the given weight. This is 3, 4. I did upper body earlier, so I'm tired. You would rack it, and let's say you wait, you know, 10 to 15 seconds, get some big breaths. Again, you're probably doing a little bit heavier because you only have to do 4. Once you get to about that 10 to 15 second break, unrack it again. You're then going to perform 4 more reps. I think that was 4, just 3. If not, you get the point. Rack it, take some deep breaths, and now you would go into your final cluster set of 4. 1, 2, 3, and 4. 4. And then bam, that is one set. I'm not gonna lie, my chest is pretty pumped up from that one set. If you're gonna do a cluster set, I usually wouldn't go over 5 reps per cluster. The 3rd and final one you may have heard of before, but they are simply going to be supersets. A superset is where you perform 2 exercises back to back with minimal rest in between. Usually it works good if it's 2 different types of movement patterns. For example, if I was doing a chest press, let's say I'm gonna do 5 to 8 reps on a chest press, and then let's say I go immediately into these chest-supported dumbbell rows. All right, so I do 5 to 8 reps of the press, And let's say I do 6 to 8 reps of these dumbbell rows. In the first exercise, working my chest, that's a pushing movement. In the second exercise, working my back, this is a pulling movement. One of my favorite supersets you can do, by the way. Or let's say, for example, you are doing a hip thrust and then you immediately go into these Romanian deadlifts. That would be a killer superset to work your glutes. And then after you do the 2 exercises back to back, that's when you would go ahead and take your normal rest time. I would say anywhere between 2 to 5 minutes. But because you're pairing the exercises back to back, you can work in a bit more exercises without having to take more time in your workouts. All right, now that we've got the 4 main things, let's dive into what an upper body workout and a lower body example workout would look like that should take you under 30 minutes. Let's do a superset of chest press for about 5 to 8 reps, and then you're immediately going to go into these chest-supported dumbbell rows for 6 to 8 reps. Do about 3 sets of that superset, resting for 2 minutes in between each superset. Next, you're going to move to a standing dumbbell shoulder press. We're going to superset this as well. You're going to do about 5 to 8 reps of the shoulder press. And then if you have a barbell, we're going to use a barbell. If not, you can use dumbbells. But you're then going to superset with an underhand bent-over row. Your palms are facing away from you, and you're going to do about 6 to 8 reps of this underhand row. You're going to do about 2 to 3 sets of that superset right there. And then since we got 4 main compound movements out of the way— chest press, row, shoulder press, row— we're going to move into just some slight isolation work. It depends on what you want to work. I'm going to pick to work biceps and side of the shoulder, and we're also going to work in some of the intensification techniques that we learned earlier. So let's superset a side lateral raise. You're going to perform a rest-pause set on your last set. Do about 8 to 10 reps and then do the rest-pause set again on the last set. And you'll superset that with a bicep curl, again doing a rest-pause set on the last set. Do 2 sets of that superset. And that's your upper body workout. Now, lower body. We're going to start with a barbell back squat. You're going to do about 3 sets of 4 to 6 reps. And if you don't have a barbell, don't worry. You can just do what we call a goblet squat instead. We're then going to go to the superset I showed you earlier. So you're going to start with hip thrust, and you're going to do about 6 to 8 reps. And you're going to superset that with a Romanian deadlift for anywhere between 6 to 10 reps. Do 3 sets of that superset. And then to finish off, since we already did 3 big compound movements, You're going to get set up. We're going to do a lying dumbbell hamstring curl with a cluster set. So you're going to get set up, get the dumbbell between your feet, and you're going to perform a cluster set of 4 reps. So you'll do 4 reps, 1, 2, 3, 4. You get the deal. At 4, you're going to rest for 10 to 15 seconds. You'll get 4 more reps. Just imagine I did 4. You're going to rest for 10 to 15 seconds, and then you'll get 4 final reps, and that'll be the entire cluster set. You're going to do 2 sets of that cluster set. I hope this video helped you. If it did and you want more help with your workouts, you can look into joining my clubhouse. I write new workout programs every single month. That has exact exercises, sets, reps, exercise videos, everything that you could need to take the guesswork out. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and I'll see you on the next video.
