A sample workout plan for busy people

Like I said in my previous post, exercise is something that is important to me.  While there are times that I would like to dedicate more time to keeping in shape and (in theory) looking good, but there's just too much going on right now.

I know I'm not the only one in the world with a long commute.  I know I'm not the only one with young kids.  That's why I wanted to write this up.  For all of us busy people out there, we need to squeeze in as much exercise as we can.

It's not about doing the bare minimum in a week, but about doing the maximum you're allowed in the time you have. 

The first thing I learned was to give up the idea of a training split.  That's where you train a specific group of muscles (or an individual one like chest) each day.  I got my best results from a four-day split, but if I can't be guaranteed to make it to the gym four days a week, that type of workout is a bust.  Same things for 3-day or 5-day.

What I do instead now is just a simple full-body lifting routine.  I shoot for lifting twice a week and doing cardio twice a week.  With no fixed schedule, it doesn't throw the entire system off if I miss a day.

Here's what my current full body plan looks like.   The type of exercise doesn't matter so much as the body part I'm training.  For example, sometimes I'll use machines and sometimes I'll use free-weights.  The order of lifts doesn't matter too much, with the exception of keeping the isolated, smaller muscles at the end (biceps & triceps.) 

I either do 1set of 15 or 2 sets of 12 pending on how much time I have. This is the order I prefer.
1. Chest: Barbell, dumbbells, or a machine.
2. Legs: Leg press or squats.
3. Back: Lat Pulldowns (wide grip or close grip), pull-ups, or chin-ups.
4. Hamstrings: Lying leg curls, seated leg curls, RDLs, or Good Mornings.
5. Shoulders: Press with dumbbells or machine.
6. Quads: Leg extensions.
7. Rows: Machine, cables, or bent-over barbells.
8. Calf raises
9. Flys, either dumbbell, machine, or cables.
10. Shoulders: Dummbell or cable lateral raise
11. Biceps: Any variety of curls.
12. Triceps: Any variety of triceps extensions.
13. Crunches (sets of 25) or leg-lift.
14. Lower back extensions.

And that's it.  This workout takes about 30 minutes.  I also do a little bit of cardio for warm-up and cool-down.

This is really just a sample.  What's most important is finding some exercise you like to do and making sure you do it at least four times a week.