Who has time to exercise these days? Sure, you’d like to lose a little weight or take care of your wellbeing a little more, but where are you going to fit in fitness? Luckily, you don’t have to spend hours at the gym or run for miles; you can do a lot with the little time you have.
According to Judd Handler, author of Living Healthy: 10 Steps to Looking Younger, Losing Weight and Feeling Great, ‘The best way to maximize your workout if you’re short on time is to do shorter bursts of moderate to moderately vigorous exercise. There are highly effective and relatively simple exercises you can do that will help you burn more fat than if you were to do a much longer workout, say a 60-minute jog.’ In fact, research shows that you’re likely to burn more fat by doing shorter bursts of more intense exercise. Writing in the Journal of Applied Physiology, Japanese researchers concluded, ‘[R]epeated bouts of exercise cause[d] enhanced fat metabolism compared with a single bout of prolonged exercise of equivalent total exercise duration.’
So what can you do to maximise your wellness benefits against the clock?
1. Choose the right exercises: Pick movements that will utilise as many major muscle groups as possible.
2. Get your heart going: With your doctor’s clearance, and with the time it takes to build to the right level of fitness, you should aim to have your heart rate a level where maintaining a conversation is slightly difficult.
3. Cool down properly: Let your heart rate come down until you feel almost fully recovered.
4. Bring everyone together: Instead of alternating cardio exercises with muscle-builders – both of which are important factors in health and weight loss – try to find activities that combine strengthening and stretching movements, as well as stimulating your cardiovascular system.
5. Challenge yourself: If you don’t have much time, you need to push yourself a little more than you otherwise would. However, you shouldn’t exercise until you’re completely exhausted, as that will stress your body.
With these top tips in mind, let’s see how you can achieve the workout you need with just 20 minutes of time. Firstly, take three to five minutes and make sure you warm-up properly. Handler advises, ‘Warm up by moving major joints around in different directions such as hip circles, arm swings, knee lifts, ballet leg swings, shoulder rotations, etc. These movements are called dynamic stretches and will help lubricate the joints better than stationary or static stretching.’ Contrary to what some contemporary studies might say, static stretching will not hinder your muscle performance. However, one study in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise notes that this is only true if the stretches are under 60 seconds.
Once you’ve warmed-up, start your 15-minute workout by climbing a deep flight of stairs. Handler recommends, ‘Skip every other step and make sure you are pushing off with your entire foot and activating the buttocks and hips as you push off. If your heart is pounding at the top, rest for 30 seconds until your breathing is back to normal or almost back to normal. Perform a set of push-ups until near failure at the top of the steps (modified if necessary, for example, on the knees). Run back down the stairs. Immediately come back up.’ When you’ve mastered this activity, try sprinting up a segment of steps until your breathing is significantly laboured, pause wherever you are until you get your breath back, and keep going until you reach the top.
