Build A Body Of Steel In Minutes A Day
One of the biggest misconceptions is that it takes long sessions in the gym to build any appreciable degree of muscle. The reality is that building a more muscular, athletic and aesthetic body might take a lot less than you might think.
This volume only really requires nothing other than a set of dumbbells and has the correct pairing and selection of exercises to hit every major muscle in the body in as little as 30 minutes or less.
Optimal Training Frequency Maximizes Muscle Protein Synthesis
If we’re going to take a serious look at packing on muscle as efficiently as possible, we need to factor in the concept of Muscle Protein Synthesis (MPS), which essentially is the biological/metabolic process that rebuilds muscle fibers bigger and stronger after you wreck them in your resistance training sessions.
What is Muscle Protein Synthesis?
MPS is your body’s way of repairing and building muscle tissue in response to training and protein intake. When you lift weights, you create micro-tears in your muscle fibers. In response, your body kicks MPS into high gear, using amino acids (from protein) to patch up those tears and add new muscle proteins—making you bigger and stronger over time.
But here’s the catch: MPS is temporary. After a workout, it spikes for about 24-48 hours due to “protein turnover” before returning to baseline. That’s why how often you train a muscle matters just as much as how hard you train it.
Why Increased Training Frequency Boosts MPS
Science (and real-world anecdata alike) is showing us that hitting muscles 2-3x per week leads to better gains. Here’s why:
- More Frequent MPS Spikes – Training a muscle once only triggers MPS for ~2 days. If you wait a full week before hitting it again, you miss multiple growth opportunities. Training a muscle every 2-3 days keeps MPS elevated more consistently.
- Better Nutrient Partitioning – Frequent training improves insulin sensitivity and nutrient delivery to muscles, meaning more protein gets used for growth instead of storage.
- Higher Total Volume = More Growth – Splitting your weekly volume (sets x reps) into multiple sessions allows you to lift heavier and with better form than cramming everything into one brutal workout.
The Best Training Frequency for MPS
So considering that hitting each muscle group 2-3x per week maximizes MPS, it is suggestive that upper/lower splits, full-body workouts would be the most for natural lifters.
The Caveats
With increased frequency one has to manage that the amount of overall volume doesn’t cause too much delayed onset soreness, which will push back recovery time.
Optimizing for frequency will necessitate lowering the volume so that one could make gains with 2-3 sets per session using moderate resistance. Even though the typical soreness with higher volume sessions isn’t present, it is not a good guide to the productivity of the training session.
With this workout, feel free to experiment and see if breaking the circuits out over two daily workout yields better results for you!
The Workout
These can be done with one or two sets of moderately heavy dumbbells or even one set. Rest periods are ideally as little rest as possible in between sets and supersets.
The supersets are performed by doing the first set of the first pair of exercises and then the second one and repeating the next superset in similar fashion. Once the entire circuit is completed, repeat it again 2-3 times.
You can do these circuits all at once or as micro-workouts throughout the day. (as noted above, there is some speculation that many smaller workouts over the course of the day optimize muscle protein synthesis).
Perform the following 3 days a week with a day of rest in between. Ideally those days can be used for leisurely activities, mobility work or some additional zone 2 cardio. Note, you likely won’t need any intense cardio or conditioning as the routine provides enough of that.
Enough cannot be said about adding loaded carries to every workout either as the benefits cover you for improved muscular strength, both lateral and transverse core stabilization, grip strength in the hand and forearm, and optimize back, spine, shoulder and hip stability. These will also greatly improve daily activities as well while not overtaxing your joints. Everyone should really do these for “General Physical Preparedness”!
The following workout routine targets essentially every major muscle in the body.
- Warmup: Loaded Carries: 500 Feet
- Superset One
- Semi-Sumo Dumbbell Squat
- Lying Dumbbell Triceps Extensions
- Superset Two
- Dumbbell Single-Leg Stiff Leg Deadlift
- Dumbbell 6-Way Raise
- Superset Three
- Dumbbell Rear-Foot Elevated Split Squat
- Dumbbell Curl-to-Arnold Press
- Superset Four
- Dips
- Dumbbell Rows
repeat 2-3x. All Exercises Done for 12-15 Reps Each
Muscle Protein Synthesis Response to Exercise Training In Obese, Older Men and Women