Most of us don’t have hours to spend in the gym each week. Fortunately, building muscle and strength doesn’t require an encyclopaedic exercise list – especially if you choose movements that train several muscle groups at once.

That’s the case three-time Mr Olympia winner Frank Zane makes for building your workouts around compound exercises.

Rather than spending what little time you might have – 20 minutes, half an hour – working through a long list of isolation exercises, Zane recommends prioritising big movements that allow you to train multiple muscle groups simultaneously.

‘Want to get the most out of a shorter workout? Do exercises that work more muscle groups at a time. Engage multiple muscles at once, helping you build strength and make that workout more efficient,’ Zane says. ‘Build your routine around these essentials.’

With that in mind, Zane highlights four exercises worth building your workouts around when time is tight.

Why?

There’s a reason the squat has stood the test of time. It places a serious demand on your quads and glutes, while recruiting other muscles throughout your lower body and core to stabilise the load.

Leg extensions can isolate your quads effectively, but if you’re short on time, squats allow you to challenge far more muscle with a single exercise.

Your core also has to work hard throughout each rep to keep your torso stable under load.

How:

• Stand with your feet a little wider than hip-width apart.
• Keep your chest up and brace your core.
• Push your hips back and bend your knees, allowing them to track in line with your toes.
• Descend until your thighs are at least parallel to the floor, or as deep as you can comfortably maintain good form.
• Drive through your feet to stand back up, squeezing your glutes at the top. Repeat.

Why?

Few exercises allow you to challenge as much muscle with one movement as the deadlift.

Your glutes, hamstrings and back do much of the heavy lifting, while your forearms, core and quads all contribute to getting the bar from the floor to standing.

That makes the deadlift an extremely efficient strength builder – although heavy sets can also be demanding, so more isn’t necessarily better.

How:

• Stand with the bar over your midfoot, then hinge at the hips and bend your knees to grip it with both hands.
• Brace your core, keep your back strong and drive your feet into the floor.
• Push the ground away as you extend your knees and hips, keeping the bar close to your body.
• Stand tall at the top without excessively leaning backwards.
• Reverse the movement under control and repeat.

Why?

If you want to train several major upper-body muscles in one hit, the bench press is difficult to overlook. Your chest does most of the work, with your shoulders and triceps also contributing heavily to every rep.

It’s easy to progressively load and works equally well for building strength and accumulating muscle-building volume, making it an obvious choice when efficiency is the goal.

How:

• Lie back on a flat bench and grip the bar slightly wider than shoulder-width apart.
• Plant your feet firmly into the floor and pull your shoulder blades back and down against the bench.
• Unrack the bar and position it above your chest with your arms straight.
• Lower the bar under control towards the middle of your chest.
• Drive the bar back up until your arms are straight, maintaining your position on the bench throughout.

Why?

The chin-up rounds out Zane’s selection with a vertical pulling movement that trains your back and biceps simultaneously.

Pull-ups are another excellent option, but the palms-facing-you grip of the chin-up generally allows your biceps to contribute more heavily. If you’re trying to cover as much upper-body muscle as possible with relatively few exercises, that’s no bad thing.

How:

• Hang from the bar with an underhand grip, hands around shoulder-width apart.
• Brace your abs and glutes to keep your body stable.
• Begin the rep by pulling your shoulders down away from your ears.
• Drive your elbows down as you pull your chest towards the bar.
• Lower yourself under control until your arms are straight, then repeat.

You don’t need to limit yourself to these four exercises, and isolation work still has plenty of value when building muscle is your goal.

But if time is tight, Zane’s approach is difficult to argue with: prioritise movements that give you the greatest return on the time you’re able to spend training.

Squat. Hinge. Push. Pull. Get progressively stronger at each and you’ve covered a considerable amount of ground before you’ve even thought about adding anything else.

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