For former World’s Strongest Man winner Eddie Hall, working out and building muscle are, quite literally, a full-time job. But that doesn’t necessarily mean training for hours every single day. In the most recent video on his YouTube channel, Hall demonstrated the abbreviated workout he uses for his shoulders when he’s short on time.
He warms up with two minutes of dumbbell shoulder circles, before hitting the incline dumbbell press. He starts out with eight reps at 88 pounds on each side. (Yes, he’s still an elite strongman at heart. He’s going to push big weights, even in a pinch). He then ups the weight to 110 pounds and performs another set of 8 reps on each arm, then increases the load again to 137 pounds, 160 pounds, and finally to 176 pounds. All of this takes no longer than six minutes.
Hall’s presses are even more effective because he’s constantly working both sides of his body. Rather than performing a traditional alternating press, he keeps his non-working arm extended, holding the weight aloft. That means that instead of resting, he’s working to stabilize the non-working shoulder.
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“When you’re in a rush try to have no more than one to two minutes rest between sets,” he says. “I must admit it’s quite hard doing it at such a fast pace… But it’s good, getting lots of blood running through the shoulder. Today is an activation day, we’re just trying to stimulate a little bit of muscle growth.”
Next, Hall completes 3 sets of 10 lateral raises, lifting 66 pounds for the first set and then switching up to 88 pounds for the second and third. After this, he takes a pair of 66-pound dumbbells and performs 10 bent-over variations of the side raise, then 10 bent-over dumbbell rows. “You want to train the fast twitch and the slow twitch fibers,” he says. In order to do this, he brings the weights up in a fast, explosive movement, and then lowers them in a slow, controlled motion on each rep.
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“Honestly, I feel pumped,” he says, having completed the entire workout in 19 minutes. “That was enough to stimulate some growth in the shoulders. I must admit, it’s taken it out of me, cardio-wise, but I’m rushing through the day, most people would be like ‘I don’t have enough time to train’… 19 minutes, and I’ve done enough to stimulate the muscles, get what I needed out of today, and at least it’s not a session missed.”
You might not be able to throw around the same amount of weight as Eddie Hall—and you shouldn’t come close to trying to do so—but that’s a solid message that everyone can take to heart. Even if you only have 20 minutes, you can still get good work done.
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