We live in an age where time is a commodity. While we are all well aware of the benefits of a well-rounded fitness routine, at, times we just can’t seem to fit our workouts into our busy schedules. Quite often, we end up putting too much focus on one aspect of fitness, while compromising another. If you are wondering how to tighten up when time is tight, read on!
- Multi Task: Training a number of muscle groups simultaneously is a hot trend in fitness! Examples include lunging while performing bicep curls and squats while performing rows. Multi-tasking also burns a few more calories than isolating muscle groups.
- Add Some Strength to Your Cardio: If you don’t have enough time to do a full leg strength workout, you can up the resistance on the cardio machines. The hill cycles on the elliptical machines provide a great butt workout!
- Add Some Speed Intervals: Although some sports medicine experts believe that long duration, low intensity cardiovascular exercise is the best way to burn fat, if you don’t have enough time for a long workout, you will need to burn as many calories as possible in a short period of time. Although it may be difficult to do your entire cardio workout at a high intensity, interval training will allow you to elevate your heart rate for brief interludes, and burn more calories.
- Try Circuit Training: Circuit training starts with a cardio warm-up. Then, a series of strength training exercises are performed, that are interspersed with periods of cardio. This is a great way to get your strength and cardio accomplished in a short period of time.
- Perform Aerobic Exercise Prior to Strength Training: For one to two hours after your aerobic workout, your metabolic rate will be elevated. Take advantage of this by doing your weights after your cardio.
- Try Pilates: Pilates provides “strength with length,” which means that you are strengthening and stretching simultaneously. Since the core muscles are used in every single exercise, a Pilates workout will shorten the amount of time you spend on your abdominal routine.
- Have a Ball: Or a Bosu or a Wobble Board. Performing your abdominal exercises on a balance device maximizes the benefits, because your deeper core muscles will work in concert with your superficial abdominal muscles.
- Try Integrated Training: You can integrate strength and balance by performing some of your weight training exercises on various balance devices. Examples include push ups on the stability ball, squats on the bosu, cable exercises while standing on a dyna disc.
- Practice Impeccable Form: This should be a no-brainer. Imperfect exercise form yields imperfect results, and ultimately wastes your time.
