Minimalist training is an approach to working out that emphasizes efficiency. The general idea is to get a very good workout in in a relatively short amount of time. One thing to keep in mind here is that these workouts optimize for efficiency, and they won’t yield optimal hypertrophy, strength, or cardio results.

Principles

  • ditch lifts that require long warmups
  • ditch lifts that require lots of setup/teardown
  • use as many compounds as possible
  • low reps-in-reserve (RIR)
  • supersets, particularly antagonistic supersets
  • dropsets (go close to failure on a set, reduce the weight, then immediately go close to failure with the reduced weight)

KB Workout Design

a solid workout could be something like:

AMRAP 20

  • lower body push
  • lower body pull
  • upper body push
  • upper body pull

example

  • 15 goblet squat
  • 15 kb swings
  • 10 kb pushup
  • 20 gorilla row

another variation of a full-body KB workout is a tabata-style with 2 circuits. Each circuit could have 3 exercises, 45s on/15s off, and you do each circuit for 4 rounds. This means you can get through the whole workout in ~25 mins. An example is:

Circuit 1

  • KB swing
  • Goblet squat
  • Gorilla row

Circuit 2

  • KB overhead press
  • KB RDL
  • KB pushup