Workout Less and Get Better Results!

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When you are juggling work, kids, friends, family, social responsibilities, personal tasks and more, it’s easy to understand why a lack of time is the number one reason people don’t exercise. We are busier as a society than we ever have been and there just doesn’t seem to be enough time in a day to get everything done. With that said, one thing we’ve learned over the last couple years is that your health is something you shouldn’t neglect.

Here are 10 quick and easy tips to help maximize your time while exercising….

…..so you can workout less, get better results, and look and feel your best.

Focus

If you want to maximize your workouts, put away the books, magazines, cell phones, TV, and other distractions while working out so you can focus on what you’re doing and get your workouts done more quickly.

Crush It

When you don’t have a ton of time, replace long duration and easy intensity cardio with short and hard interval training. You can accomplish the same workload in a shorter time.

Integrate Your Training

When you’re strapped for time, start combining muscle conditioning movements. For example, instead of doing one set of squats and then one set of overhead shoulder presses, do a squat with an overhead shoulder press. Or instead of a separate set of lunges and bicep curls, do them at the same time. You’ll save a ton of time.

Keep Moving

Sequence your exercises in a manner that allows you to eliminate any rest periods. So, for example, instead of doing 3 sets of bench press with a minute rest in between, try doing your core training in between your Bench Press sets. Or perform lower body and upper body exercises back-to-back with no rest in between.

Lift a Little Heavier

Instead of doing high-repetition muscle conditioning, which takes longer, increase your weight load and keep your repetitions between 8-12 reps.

Have a Plan

One of the biggest timewasters is not knowing exactly what you’re doing so you find yourself just wandering through the gym using whatever equipment is available. If you want to be efficient and effective, know exactly what you’re doing and stay focused. That’s why personal training is so popular – you don’t have to worry about anything. Just show up and the workouts are ready to go. Even if you just see a trainer once every 1-2 months to design a program that you do on your own, that can be a huge timesaver.  

Less Talking, More Working

It’s good to have friends to workout with because it helps with adherence. But if you notice half of your time is spent chit-chatting, you’ll get a lot more done in a shorter period if you keep the conversations short.

Rise and Grind

Busy people have a much better time adhering to a workout program if they do it first thing in the morning – before other responsibilities distract them and get in the way!                                                             

Active Quality Time

Schedule workouts and active adventures with friends and family so you can get in your workout while spending quality time with your loved ones – it’s positive multi-tasking!

Exercise When You’re Not Exercising

Focus on increasing your overall activity more throughout the day. If we all just took the stairs more than the elevator, parked further from our destination and walked to do errands, we wouldn’t have to spend hours in the gym!

Bonus

When you’re too busy to get to the gym, make sure you are setup for home workouts and have access to effective online training or virtual classes. You’ll save time from not having to drive or find parking!

Being too busy is never an excuse to skip out on your health and fitness. In fact, exercise will actually give you more energy so you can be more productive. Instead of exercise taking up too much time, it will give you more time and energy. So, no matter how busy you are, workout smarter and carve the time out so you can reach for your personal best. 

Yours in health & fitness,
Sherri McMillan