After a long day at work, you finally get to go home and relax. Open up Instagram/YouTube, and you see a plethora of videos of people working out. I’m sure at some point, you’ve thought to yourself “Man. If fitness was my job, I’d be so much more willing and motivated to workout.”
Well, many of these influencers on platforms like these have fitness as their job, thus making it that much easier to workout. While this is not realistic for many of us, it certainly makes us wonder.
Life gets in the way
And it is completely normal! The vast majority of us work, go to school, have families, and other obligations/hobbies that make it difficult to workout. Schedules often get pressed with other competing priorities.
Surely, things like attending your child’s sporting event or spending time with a close family member you haven’t seen in a while should take precedence over your training/workout routine. After all, events like this don’t come up too often, so it’s best not to miss out.
Well—what if there was a way to fit in a workout amidst your hectic lifestyle? There are several ways to still grind through workouts, and believe me when I tell you—training sessions do not have to be two hours long.
I see and hear people all the time working out for two hours or more. These are commonly the individuals who start working out just to quit a few months later. Many make up the excuse that working out is consuming too much of their time, so they have to stop.
I’d like to preface this post with the following:
Determination is paramount for success
Without determination and a will to succeed, you will not enjoy the journey that comes along with fitness. The feeling of constantly improving and breaking past barriers is so motivating and should certainly be enough to keep you moving in the direction for success in your journey.
Need help getting motivated? Check out this post on 5 Life Changing Reasons to Start Working Out.
Consistency Is Key
The phrase “Consistency Is Key” may seem like a somewhat cliche term, but it could not be more true. As mentioned before, the reason many individuals halt their fitness journey is because they believe to get a “good workout” in, their training has to be super long. This is not true!
Not only is this not true, but it is unreasonable for people with busy lives. This is the main reason I’m writing this post—to appeal to those of you with busy lives, and show you how to make it work more efficiently!
Rather than working out for an absurd period of time (2+ hours), trimming down your workouts to 45-75 minutes is much more likely to keep you motivated. (There are even workouts that could be done in 15-30 minutes! Keep reading to find out.) When motivated, you are more likely to stick with it, and sticking with your training is being consistent. And we know what being consistent does.
Consistency produces the best results in the long-term, as opposed to going all out for a shorter period (say, a few months). It is commonly mistaken that you have to go to the extreme every time you train to achieve the best results, but this is simply not true.
Without further ado, here are the best and most common ways to get in your workouts with a busy schedule!
HIIT Training/Cardio
HIIT training, also referred to as High Intensity Interval Training, is characterized as periods of intense, all-out efforts, followed by an equal amount of rest. The main benefit with this style of training? You guessed it—time efficiency!
Performing exercise in this manner allows you to complete workouts in a shorter period of time. The trade-off here is, of course, higher intensity. Let me explain.
Taking cardio as an example, there are generally two types: LISS (Low Interval Steady State) and HIIT. LISS is characterized as a slower, less demanding movement for a longer period of time as opposed to HIIT. An example of this could be walking on the treadmill at speed 4 for one hour.
Comparing the two different style of training, let’s take a 130lb female walking at 4mph for one hour as an example. This workout would burn approximately 295 calories in one hour. This would be the LISS version.
Jumping over to the HIIT version, if this same female alternated between sprinting at 11mph for 30 seconds, followed by a 30 second walk, for 20 minutes, this would lead to approximately 300 calories burned! The key component to realize here is that roughly the same amount of calories are being burned, but in half the time.
Not to mention, performing HIIT grants access to the afterburn effect. Training intensely increases your metabolic rate for several hours after your workout, meaning more calories burned at rest! Not bad for a shorter workout, right?
Check out the below infographic for a great representation on this:
Sample HIIT Workout
- Locate your nearest outdoor track. If you can’t find a track, a football field or open park will work just fine.
- Aim to sprint for 100m along the straights, walk/jog the 100m bends, and continue to sprint the straights again. If performing in a park, use a landmark (two trees, park benches, etc.) evenly spread out from one another, and perform in the same fashion.
- For the sprints, you should be running 90-100% of your maximum speed possible. Depending on the distance you choose and speed you run at, your sprints should last between 20-30s. Your rest portion (the walk/jog) should last the equivalent amount of time, depending on your fitness level.
- Perform this routine 5 times around the track (10 sprints total: 5 per straight). This should only take about 20 minutes, but it will be a very difficult 20 minutes! Don’t worry—you got it!
- The goal here is to take as little rest as possible during the walk/jog portions, and pick right back up again with the sprints. This will vary depending on your fitness level, but make sure to push to your limits. Remember, if this is the first time you’re trying something like this, start out with longer break periods. This could be achieved by walking the bends around the track slower. As you become more advanced and conditioned, you will be able to take shorter rest periods. Make sure to progress each subsequent workout!
Circuit Training
Similar to HIIT, circuit training is another excellent way to exercise efficiently and intensely. The benefits here (like HIIT) are the same: more calories burned in a shorter time frame, and improved conditioning.
To avoid spending too long in the gym performing straight sets, incorporating a circuit-style to your training will pose excellent benefits. Circuit training is essentially performing several exercises back-to-back with minimal rest in between. To contrast with straight sets, see the following example.
Let’s say you are training biceps and are performing three exercises. You do straight bar curls, alternating dumbbell curls, and finish with preacher curls. The straight set version of this would be: three sets of straight bar curls, three sets of dumbbell curls, and three sets of preacher curls.
The circuit version of this would be: straight bar curls, immediately followed by dumbbell curls, immediately followed by preacher curls. After performing one round, you would rest one minute, and repeat 3x.
On paper, you are still training nine sets for your biceps, but the rest periods you would normally take for straight sets is much greater than if you were to incorporate a circuit-style of training. The circuit you are performing back-to-back, and back again.
Benefits of Circuit Training
Training like this has been proven to:
- Enhance cardiovascular fitness (Knocking out two birds with one stone!)
- Improve muscular strength
- Increase muscular endurance (sets with minimal rest enhance endurance)
- Help you “stick with it” (Remember, the mental thought in your head of working out more efficiently will make you more willing to train!)
Sample Circuit Workout
- Using a lower-body style of training as an example, you will be performing a series of exercises consecutively.
- Start off performing barbell back squats for 10-12 repetitions. Remember—the idea here is to not train to failure, considering the rest will be minimal, making it much harder to lift with heavier weights. Pick a weight you can complete 10-12 reps with, while leaving 5 or so left in the tank.
- Immediately follow this with a seated leg press and execute 10-12 reps again.
- Find your way to a lying hamstring curl machine, and perform 12 reps. The idea is the same—try not to go too close to failure, as you have to execute 2-3 more rounds (depending on your fitness level).
- Finish up with seated calf raises—setting 15 reps as a benchmark (aim to do 15-20, as calves are more responsive with higher reps).
- Once you complete the above four exercises back-to-back, repeat this circuit 2-3 more times until you feel burned out. I guarantee you the workout will be completed within 15-25 minutes!
The Bottom Line
Working out doesn’t have to last 1.5-2 hours. If you have an outlook like this, chances are it will be more difficult to stick to a routine. Furthermore, knowing that you can still have an effective workout in a shortened time frame can do a lot to your motivation, allowing you to remain consistent and achieve the best results!
Everybody gets pressed for time at some point, but that doesn’t mean that you should use this as an excuse to skip exercise. As you can see at this point, HIIT Training and Circuit Training can augur wonders for your fitness journey.
HIIT burns significantly more calories than other styles of training, allowing you to not only complete the workout fast, but more efficiently in terms of calories expended.
By performing Circuit Training with back-to-back exercises, this works similar to HIIT. Your heart rate will be elevated throughout the entire workout, also allowing you to burn significantly more calories and improve your conditioning/endurance!
“Success isn’t always about ‘Greatness’, it’s about consistency. Consistent, hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.”
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
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