Full Body Weight Day that Doesn't Take 2 Hours?

ShowPoodleGirl

Since I've been on this fitness journey (Sept 6th will be a full year!), once I figured out my weight lifting routine I have been lifting weights 4 days a week (2 upper body, 2 lower body). I don't powerlift or anything but I do push myself hard. However I am expanding my cardio related goals (running/cycling/etc) with soft goals for specific things next year.
To ensure my body is getting proper rest, I think I'll need to cut back to 3, maybe even 2 days a week of weights. I'm going to start with 3 days (1 upper body, 1 lower body, and one full body), but I'm not sure how to go about the full body day without being at the gym for 2 hours. Right now my gym sessions are about an hour each (a little more with warm up and such).
I generally do 3 sets of each exercise, should I cut that down to 2 sets? I generally rest about 2ish mins between sets. Or do I eliminate any isolation exercises like bicep curls?
Right now my exercises are lat pulldown, machine row, bench press, shoulder press, bicep curl, skullcrusher, lat raises, hip thrust, RDL, bulgarian, squat, abduction.
Would you eliminate any of those?
Any advice? I don't want to lose too much of the progress I've been making at the gym with weights but would also like to keep my weight sessions under an hour and a half if possible.

Retroguy2000

You definitely won't lose progress, unless you are also in a >500 calorie deficit.

To maintain progress, you may only need 3 or so working sets per week.

To make progress, you should be aiming for at least 10-15 working sets weekly, with more than that bringing more returns, though also more diminishing returns (and more fatigue). It sounds like you exceed that with your 3-day split, so there is room to cut back a little.

Your split choices are excellent. On the full body day I'd lose a couple of leg exercises (take your pick, you can do squat and RDL twice weekly, or keep the accessories twice, the latter may be your better option here). And on full body day I'd keep all the compound uppers but go from 3 to 2 sets. And on isolation arms, super-set those together. If time is an issue you can also super-set some antagonist compounds with lower than normal rest, e.g. lat pulldown, rest for 80-90s, bench press, rest for 80-90s and repeat.

Are you doing too much warmups? 5 mins cardio at start, and then a few lower weight sets for the first exercise only for that muscle group should be enough. You shouldn't need multiple warmup sets for every single exercise, if that's what you're doing. In the middle of a workout, one feeler set for a muscle groups second or third exercise is probably enough.

ShowPoodleGirl

Thanks for the reply!
You say on full body days to drop compound arms to 2 sets, would you keep the lower body movements at 3 sets (and save time by cutting down the number of exercises)?
I don't generally do much in the way of warm up sets. Mainly for RDL's cause I have a bad lower back and try to prep my body for the movement.
I'm trying to not be in too much of a deficit. I lost a bit more weight than I was expecting this month so I may need to up my weight loss cals (I'm currently a week into a maintenance break, which may still be a deficit but a couple hundred more a day than my deficit cals)

Retroguy2000

Yes:

You say on full body days to drop compound arms to 2 sets, would you keep the lower body movements at 3 sets (and save time by cutting down the number of exercises)?

Figure you're doing more leg work with your running and cycling anyway, so you can afford to reduce the weights volume more than upper body. Like I said, on full body day either do squat + RDL, or hip thrust + Bulgarian, depending on your goals and fatigue etc. Or even mix it up, alternate them each week if you want.

Make all those changes, incl superset the arms, you should shave off 30 mins easily on full body day. You could cut the arms work too if time is still an issue. You're still getting some arms work indirectly anyway. Basically, I'd cut isolation exercises before compound exercises, in general.

Don't neglect core work. Some abs, and something like back extensions (which you can do at home with a bench if need be), maybe Pallof press if you have bands or cables.

ShowPoodleGirl

Thank you again!

nossmf

All good advice from @Retroguy2000 .

When I did a 3-day split like yours (upper-lower-full), my full body day was limited to one exercise for each of the body's movement planes:

Horizontal Push
Horizontal Pull
Vertical Push
Vertical Pull
Hip Hinge
Leg Extension

Squats hit both hinge and extension, so I'd start the workout with 4 sets of squats as my only legs of the day. After that would come three sets of the horizontal movements in a superset (with warmup sets), then three sets of the vertical movements in a superset (without warmup). This finished up with enough time for some abdominal work, and still done inside an hour.

If I was really feeling like a glutton for punishment I would throw in 2 sets of isolation moves, but that was time- and energy-dependent.

ShowPoodleGirl

Thank you!