How long should a workout be?

What actually decides how long a session takes

Work backwards from the sets. A beginner session of six exercises at three sets each is eighteen working sets. Each set takes under a minute, and rest takes one and a half to three minutes, so the whole thing tends to land in the region of an hour with a warm-up included. Change the number of exercises and the time changes with it — that is the whole mechanism, and it is why a fixed target time is the wrong thing to aim at.

• More exercises, or more sets per exercise, lengthens the session
• Longer rest between sets lengthens it, and that rest is worth keeping
• Waiting for busy equipment adds time that is not training
• A long general warm-up adds time a couple of light sets would cover
• Unfamiliar exercises take longer while you are still learning them

As a rough shape, a beginner session might be a short warm-up, five to seven exercises at two to three working sets each, with sensible rest between sets. How many sets you should be doing in the first place is answered in our guide to how many days a week to train, which is where that number is set for the whole library, and the full programme lives in the beginner gym plan.

Do not cut your rest to save time

Rest is what allows the next set to be hard for the muscle rather than for your lungs. Cutting rest to finish faster usually means fewer reps at a lighter weight, which is the opposite of what you came for.

• Big compound lifts: 2 to 3 minutes between sets
• Smaller isolation work: 1 to 1.5 minutes
• If you are still breathing hard, wait a little longer
• Short on time? Remove an exercise, not the rest

Training well in 30 minutes

1. Step 1

   Pick three exercises

   One lower body, one push, one pull. Between them they cover almost everything.

2. Step 2

   Three sets each

   Nine hard sets is a genuinely productive session for a beginner.

3. Step 3

   Pair exercises that do not compete

   Alternating a leg exercise with an upper-body one lets each muscle rest while the other works.

4. Step 4

   Warm up on your first set

   A light set of the first exercise is enough. Long general warm-ups eat the time you have.

Signs the session is dragging

The number that matters is weekly, not daily

Session length is the wrong thing to optimise on its own. What muscle responds to is how many hard sets it receives across the week, and there are several ways to arrange the same total. A short session three times a week and a long session twice a week can deliver identical work (Department of Health and Social Care, 2019).

This is genuinely freeing if your week is unpredictable. Rather than cancelling a session you cannot fit, shorten it and let the week take care of the total.

Where the time in a session actually goes

Most people who feel their sessions take too long are not doing too much work. They are spending a surprising amount of time doing nothing in particular. Timing one honest session is usually a shock.

• Write the session down before you arrive, so no decisions are made on the gym floor
• Set a timer for rest rather than guessing, which usually runs long
• Keep a second exercise in mind for anything likely to be busy
• Leave the phone in your pocket between sets, or log the set and put it away