Time: it lasts forever, but somehow there never seems to be enough of it. Especially if you’re juggling work, kids, attempting to maintain some modicum of a social life and trying to build enough strength, muscle and fitness to actually enjoy all of the above – and look good while doing it.

The good news? You don’t need to spend hours and hours in the gym each week to make progress.

The workout below leans heavily on legendary strength coach Charles Poliquin’s German Body Composition (GBC) philosophy, using resistance training to create a huge systemic demand – AKA build an engine – while still moving enough weight to provide a serious muscle-building stimulus. Then it adds a slight CrossFit twist.

The only caveat? If you want to get it done quickly, it’s going to be seriously hard.

But nothing worth having comes easy, and all of that…

You’ve got three full-body compound movements, performed for relatively high reps with challenging loads. As fatigue sets in, you can break those higher-rep efforts into smaller ‘micro-sets’ to keep the work moving without allowing your technique to fall apart.

Work your way through 25, 20, 15, 10, then 5 reps of:

B. Barbell Push Press @50kg

Perform 25 deadlifts, followed by 25 push presses and 25 pull-ups. Then go back to the deadlifts and perform 20 reps of each movement, followed by 15, 10 and finally 5.

Rest only as necessary to change your plates, catch your breath and keep your form intact. This should sting a little.

That’s 225 total reps, so don’t be fooled by the relatively simple-looking prescription.

If you can’t hit all 25 reps unbroken – and you probably shouldn’t be able to – simply drop the bar or come off the pull-up bar, take a few deep breaths and jump back in as soon as you’re ready.

Think 15 reps, breathe, 5 reps, breathe, 5 reps. Or 10, 5, 5, 5. Whatever gets the work done without letting your technique deteriorate.

Conversely, if you cruise through every set completely unbroken, especially those opening rounds, you’ve probably gone too light. Add weight next time.

The magic here is in the exercise selection.

You’re alternating between three large compound movements that emphasise different areas of the body: a heavy lower-body pull, an upper-body press and an upper-body pull.

That means that while your entire system – heart, lungs, grip and morale – remains under pressure, the muscles doing most of the work are constantly changing.

Your deadlifting muscles get a relative break while you’re pressing. Your pressing muscles get some respite while you’re pulling. Then you’re back to the deadlift.

This is one of the principles behind Poliquin’s GBC method: alternating non-competing movements allows you to maintain a relatively high local muscular output while simultaneously creating a massive full-body metabolic demand.

Traditional explanations of GBC leaned heavily on lactate and the hormonal response to hard training as the secret sauce for fat loss. We now know the physiology is a little more complicated than that.

But the practical premise remains solid: cram a lot of work involving a lot of muscle into a relatively short space of time, while still lifting loads heavy enough to provide a meaningful muscle-building stimulus.

In short: lift weights like you mean it, but move through them fast enough to build an engine at the same time.

The prescribed weights of 100kg for the deadlift, 50kg for the push press and bodyweight pull-ups are an RX target, not an entry requirement.

Scale aggressively enough that you can maintain good form throughout, but don’t turn this into a lightweight cardio circuit. Those opening sets should be challenging enough that breaking up your reps is likely.

As a starting point:

Beginner: Aim for a deadlift around 75% of bodyweight and a push press around 50%, using as much assistance as necessary on the pull-ups.

Intermediate: Work towards bodyweight deadlifts, heavier presses and unassisted pull-ups.

Advanced: Build towards the full 100kg/50kg prescription – or scale those numbers appropriately to your own strength and bodyweight – before eventually experimenting with weighted pull-ups.

Don’t get overly hung up on hitting arbitrary numbers, though. The goal is to find loads that make the workout genuinely challenging without turning every set into a fight for survival.

After all, there are 225 reps to get through. Save something for the final 5.

If there’s one thing Kori Sampson knows, it’s how to optimise your body composition for performance. To tap into his knowledge as an elite athlete and coach, we asked him to create a 4-week plan to help you move faster, recover quicker and keep pushing when the fatigue sets in – all while improving your muscle-to-fat ratio.

Ready to build muscle, burn fat and come out the other side looking, feeling and performing better? Click here to get 14 days of free access to the plan via the Men’s Health app.

With almost 18 years in the health and fitness space as a personal trainer, nutritionist, breath coach and writer, Andrew has spent nearly half of his life exploring how to help people improve their bodies and minds.    

As our fitness editor he prides himself on keeping Men’s Health at the forefront of reliable, relatable and credible fitness information, whether that’s through writing and testing thousands of workouts each year, taking deep dives into the science behind muscle building and fat loss or exploring the psychology of performance and recovery.   

Whilst constantly updating his knowledge base with seminars and courses, Andrew is a lover of the practical as much as the theory and regularly puts his training to the test tackling everything from Crossfit and strongman competitions, to ultra marathons, to multiple 24 hour workout stints and (extremely unofficial) world record attempts.   

 You can find Andrew on Instagram at @theandrew.tracey, or simply hold up a sign for ‘free pizza’ and wait for him to appear.