When I first took over as Fitness Director at Men’s Health, one of my central edicts was that I wanted to get rid of the idea of any ridiculous, time-frame-based fitness solutions.
Personally, I love a quick workout. I very rarely train for more than 30 to 40 minutes at a time, and commonly spend less than 20 minutes on any given workout. But the idea of 'seven-minute shreds', 'six-minute abs', 'five-minute legs' and so on? A big no-no from me.
That being said, as part of a larger programme the below workout – and the 21-15-9 CrossFit protocol in general – really can offer the prospect of real muscle, strength and engine building in as little as five minutes.
The only catch is that you have to work for it. Really, really hard.
Why Does It Work?
Once you reach the end of this workout, you will have accumulated 45 pull-ups, 45 dips and 45 squats.
If you’ve got access to a dumbbell, you could even perform the latter as goblet squats for additional load, bringing the stimulus more in line with the challenge you’re getting from the dips and pull-ups.
What to read next
Let’s break that down for a minute. Forty-five pull-ups? That’s more than the three sets of 10 you might have traditionally done in a standard workout. A fair amount more, in fact. It’s closer to five sets of 10 – a fairly decent volume. The same goes for the dips and squats.
Three moves at close to five sets of 10 each? Not a shabby workout.
And if you’re doing this for time (although you shouldn't sacrifice quality; keep those reps clean), it means you’ll most likely be chunking these sets up into small ‘microsets’, working incredibly close to failure in the process: a pivotal ingredient for muscle growth.
But as I say, if you want this workout to be quick, then, well, you have to do it quick. I’ve personally thrown this one in when I’m in a huge rush, and it’s over so quickly that the sweat doesn’t seem to catch up with you until afterwards.
The Workout
21, 15, 9 reps of:
Pull-Ups
Dips
Squats
Perform 21 reps of each movement, followed by 15 reps of each, followed by nine reps of each.
Break down the 21s, 15s and even the nines as necessary into smaller chunks, but complete all of the prescribed reps before moving on to the next.
Move quickly, but don’t sacrifice your form just to shave a few seconds from your time. The goal is fast, high-quality graft.
Record your finishing time, and next time, go faster. Aim to get it done in under five minutes.
The floor is yours.
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.
