THE ARTICLE
Let’s face it, we live in a busy world! It is not uncommon for work, family and/or social factors to interfere with our training routine, even when we have the best of intentions to exercise regularly.
When you’re trying to juggle everything at once, something has got to give – and more often than not, it’s your training routine that suffers. By skipping workouts, this will likely result in you carrying the burden of guilt, discouragement and de-motivation.
Outstanding results from exercise will only come about as a consequence of a consistent approach to your training. Sporadic workouts in isolation will not yield great changes. Rather, the cumulative effective of multiple and frequent workouts spanning over a sustained period of time will significantly improve your quality of life. So a sustainable attitude to exercise with a long-term mentality is a necessity.
The question becomes, how do we create a sustainable approach to exercise when we are so time-poor?
Although you may realise the importance of exercise, it may be that you just need those additional few minutes in the day to schedule in that exercise session. While you obviously can’t extend the 24 hours in the day, you may be able to manage your hours more effectively. Two main considerations can help you in doing so include:
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Prioritising exercise in your lifestyle
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Reducing your total exercise time
Exercise is a critical component to leading a healthy and happy life. In both the short and long-term, the benefits of exercise far outweigh that of being sedentary. Exercise has been shown to lift your mood, prevent the onset of chronic disease, manage your weight, boost energy levels, enhance productivity, improve brain function and promote better sleep1. Setting aside some time for exercise really is critical.
Therefore, you must consciously decide to make time for exercise. Make it a top priority of your life. Trying to exercise when you have spare time is not going to work if you don’t ever have any spare time. By definition, the “I’ll exercise when I have time” mentality identifies exercise as a very low priority activity.
Reducing your total workout time can assist you with integrating exercise into a regular weekly routine. Although this may seem obvious, it is not always commonly applied in practice.
It is often assumed that an exercise session will necessarily be more effective if your workout duration is longer. After all, if you exercise for twice as long, you’ll burn twice as many calories, right? Interestingly, this is not necessarily the case, as a shorter training session can often produce greater results with respect to weight loss, toning and fitness.
A large amount of research has confirmed this concept and here are two very well respected studies:
In 1994, a research team lead by Angelo Tremlay confirmed that a 10 minute cardiovascular high intensity training session led to nine times more fat loss results than a lower intensity session at 30-45 minutes at a steady state.2
In 1996, Tabata demonstrated that a high intensity four minute cardiovascular exercise session was 1.4 times more effective at improving participants VO2max relative to a sixty minute exercise session at a steady state. The shorter and more intense exercise approach also resulted in a 28% improved sprinting capacity. 3
Why is this so? It comes down to the effect that a higher intensity workout has on the body. With weight loss, your body has a greater capacity to expend more calories after your training session has concluded, rather than during the bout of exercise. With fitness, your body will respond according to the exercise stimulus that you place upon it. If you train at a more demanding level of intensity, your body will have to adapt more aggressively in order to cope better next workout.
Your workout duration is inversely proportional to your workout intensity. Hence, a workout spaning over several hours will have a much lower maximum intensity than a 15 minute training session.
But that’s not to say that you have to perform high intensity workouts if this is not something that you could realistically see yourself sustaining! Consistency with your training is far more important than the intensity at which you exercise. In fact, some recent research has demonstrated that exercising just once per week at a moderate intensity had highly beneficial effects upon insulin sensitivity relative to no exercise at all! 4
Planning and Implementing this Knowledge
Let’s now focus on getting practical and overcoming the lack of time that is preventing you from training regularly.
1. Commit
Commit to exercising at least once per week. 3-4 times per week would be excellent, though if this is not realistic, then there is no point in committing to this frequency of training.
2. Determine Your Exercise Days
Next, allocate a certain number of days to training. For the greatest chance at success, you must predetermine which days you are going to exercise. Not only does this assist you in developing a routine, it will also help you to maintain consistency by avoiding the possibility of other time intensive tasks from deterring you from following through with your scheduled exercise.
3. Plan Your Training Times
If you’re time poor, consider training first thing in the morning before the day gets the better of you. Of course, your lifestyle will be unique and you need to ascertain what the best training time is for you.
4. Develop a workout!
It’s not advantageous to get into the gym without any clue of what you’re actually doing – so you need a training plan! Here are four full-body workout options that you can employ based on the amount of time you have available!
15 Minute Workout
Reps: 15
Format: Circuit
3x Flat Leg Press ->Lat Pulldown -> Knee Pushups -> 30 Second Rest
5 Minutes Interval Cardio (30 second sprints, 30 second rests)
30 Minute Workout
Reps: 15
Rest time: 30 seconds
2x Flat Leg Press
2x Standing Dumbbell Lunges
3x Lat Pulldown
3x Knee Pushups
2x Standing Barbell Upright Rows
10 Minutes Interval Cardio (30 second sprints, 30 second rests)
45 Minute Workout
Reps: 15
Rest time: 30 seconds
3x Flat Leg Press
3x Standing Dumbbell Lunges
3x Lat Pulldown
3x Seated Row
3x Flat Barbell Press
3x Knee Pushups
3x Standing Barbell Upright Rows
10 Minutes Interval Cardio (30 second sprints, 30 second rests)
60 Minute Workout
Reps: 15
Rest time: 30 seconds
3x Flat Leg Press
3x Standing Dumbbell Lunges
3x Lat Pulldown
3x Seated Row
3x Flat Barbell Press
3x Knee Pushups
3x Standing Barbell Upright Rows
10 Minutes Interval Cardio (30 second sprints, 30 second rests)
15 Minutes Steady State Cardio (maintaining the same pace)
5. Put it into practice!
Now you have your training plans and your weekly routine in place. It’s now just a matter of execution! Good luck!
References
1http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/exercise/HQ01676
2Tremblay, et al, Metabolism (1994) Volume 43, pp.814-818
3Tabata, et al, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise (1996) 28, 1327-1330
4http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070614170302.htm
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