A Fitness Plan For The Super Busy Person
We don’t ever have enough time. We’re constantly pulled in a thousand different directions; work, clients, family, personal obligations, and kids activities. I’m guessing you probably don’t have enough time to read this article! Yet if we somehow make time to workout, we’ll have more energy, right?! But here’s the issue: everyone agrees its good for us, and it’s important, but by the time you leave the office, drive to the gym, change clothes, workout, maybe change again, and head home or back to work that’s two hours of your day you could’ve used to get some other pressing issue done or spent at your child’s game. What if I told you it didn’t have to be that way?
The answer to the problem is something I like to call “Exercise Snacks”. In other words thirty minutes in and out of the gym. I can tell you without hesitation, this works!
A couple months ago I realized I couldn’t spend an hour lifting weights, swimming or running in the middle of the week. I have responsibilities just like everyone else. I was falling behind and it was incredibly frustrating. I didn’t want to give up my workouts because I need to be in shape and I’d like to do another triathlon this summer. I decided I needed to shorten my workouts down to the bare essentials. What are the most important boxes to check off? I need to work on upper body pulling strength, strong abs, strong hamstrings and glutes, lower body endurance, and running and swimming efficiency and technique. I set a limit that no strength session will exceed 30 minutes and no swim or run during the week will exceed 20 minutes. These will be my “exercise snacks”!
I was excited to try this new experiment on myself, not just because I knew it would help me free up time to be more productive but I was hoping I would see some fitness progress. You might be surprised to know that two years ago when I trained for my first triathlon, I finished with the highest body fat percentage I’d had in a long time! Despite logging some serious workout hours, plus my muscle mass was the lowest it’d been in quite some time! A recent study in the American Journal of Physiology examined this exact workout duration question. They examined three groups; those that didn’t exercise, those that worked out for 30 minutes and those that trained for an hour. In the end, the 30 minute group actually lost 2 pounds more per week over the course the 13 week study.
So how did it work for me? So far it’s been a success. After 12 weeks, I’m down 3% bodyfat and up 3 pounds of muscle mass and I’ve added distance to my 20 minute swim time while averaging the same heart rate. This is huge for those of us that want to see some physical benefits and maybe sign up for a 5k, 10k, or a triathlon in the future. If structured correctly we can still see huge benefits and have a life!
If you’re interested in learning more or trying out Results Personal Training’s customized 30 minute workouts, call us at 605.310.6591, or fill out the information on our contact page.