6 Ways to Get A Workout in Even When You’re Busy
Simple strategies to keep your fitness goals on track
They say time is money, but time is also health and if you don’t carve out a little bit each day to keep yourself fit and healthy, you’ll find yourself paying for it further down the line.
This will mean different things for different people and whilst it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to set aside a full hour to hit the gym every day it does mean you need to do something.
Most of the time, most people will be able to find a way to fit exercise into their routine at least a handful of times a week.
However, when shit hits the fan and things get busy it’s often the first thing to go.
In this article, we’ll look at some of the best ways to get in a workout even when you’re absolutely slammed at work, busy at home and trying to juggle a lively social life.
#1: Reduce Your Weekly Workout Frequency
Frequency refers to the number of workouts you do each week, with most people choosing to train 3–5 times a week for 45–90 minutes depending on their fitness goals.
Obviously, when you’re busy this can be hard to maintain, but that doesn’t mean you can’t maintain the progress you’ve made by training less.
Research (1, 2) shows that you can successfully maintain both muscle and strength with as little as 1–2 weekly workouts.
This means when you’re busy you can scale back the number of workouts you do per week without worrying whether or not you’ll lose all your hard-earned gains.
#2: Skip Your Isolation Exercises
Isolation exercises are any exercise that trains a single muscle group with movement at a single joint. Good examples include bicep curls, triceps extensions, lateral raises, reverse flys and calf raises.
These exercises typically make up the later part of your workout routine and help to provide direct stimulation to some of the more stubborn muscles of the body.
However, when you’re busy and need to reduce the duration of your workout they’re also the best place to cut back and save time.
This is because all the smaller muscles these exercises train also get trained when you do your big compound movements like squats, presses and rows.
#3: Do A Tabata Workout
Tabata is a method of training developed by Dr Izumi Tabata when testing to see if short bursts of high-intensity exercise were more effective than steady-state cardio at improving performance.
He found (3) that short bursts of high-intensity exercise, followed by short rests and then repeated improved both the duration (14%) and intensity (28%) of the skaters' performance i.e. how long they could work for and how long they could sustain the maximum effort.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that they were able to achieve this in as little as 88 minutes of training per week. Making Tabata training not only more efficient at improving fitness but much less time-intensive too.
Tabata training is done in rounds with each round lasting for 4 total minutes, split into 8 sets of 20 seconds of max-effort work followed by 10 seconds of rest. For example:
- Round 1: 20 secs all-out sprint followed by 10 secs rest
- Round 2: 20 secs all-out sprint followed by 10 secs rest
- Round 3: 20 secs all-out sprint followed by 10 secs rest
- Round 4: 20 secs all-out sprint followed by 10 secs rest
- Round 5: 20 secs all-out sprint followed by 10 secs rest
- Round 6: 20 secs all-out sprint followed by 10 secs rest
- Round 7: 20 secs all-out sprint followed by 10 secs rest
- Round 8: 20 secs all-out sprint followed by 10 secs rest
With research (4) showing that “recreationally active” individuals using exercises like burpees and squat thrusts were able to replicate Dr Tabata’ results, when busy you can work out for as little as 4 minutes and still see improvements in your fitness over time.
#4: Schedule Your Workouts
Hands up if you’re guilty of saying “I’m going to work out this week” only for the week to pass you by with a distinct lack of working out.
The truth is we are all so busy that making fitness a priority that we stick to can be difficult at the best of times let alone when we’re busy. To try and overcome this you want to get organised and schedule your workouts.
By getting out your phone or diary and writing I will work out at [LOCATION] on [DAY OF THE WEEK] at [TIME] you stop working out from being a vague notion of intent and make it something set in stone, drastically increasing the chances of you following through.
Sometimes making this happen might mean taking time from one area of your life and giving it to another i.e. getting up an hour earlier or watching an hour less tv in the evening.
#5: Workout from Home
With the current state of the world, this might not be so relevant as many people don’t have a choice but as things slowly return to normal it’s still something to bear in mind when you do go back to the office.
If you’re busy at work then moving your workouts from being in the gym to being in your home can help save you time by cutting out the travel time as well as the inevitable social interactions that bookend your workout.
Sometimes saving this pocket of time can be enough to allow you to squeeze in a quick 30-minute bodyweight workout from home and help you stay on track when things are hectic.
All you need to do is clear a little space so you can stretch out fully and jump up without banging your head. Alternatively, head into the garden or a local park and get your fix of vitamin D as you work out.
#6: Superset Your Exercises
A superset is a type of training set where you perform 2 exercise back to back with no rest.
They can be done with:
- Separate Muscle Groups: chin-ups and squats
- Opposing Muscle Groups: bicep curls and triceps kickbacks
- Same Muscle Group: lateral raises and front raises
Supersets can be fantastic for saving time when you’re busy but still want to get a workout in. By partnering up the exercises in your workout you can cut your total workout time without needing to drop any exercises.
When you’re busy this way of training works particularly well with compound movements which train multiple muscle groups with movement at multiple joints.
This includes exercises like the bench press, squat, deadlift, row, lunge, etc…
This is because they not only train a lot of the smaller muscles at the same time as well as the big ones, but they also allow you to lift more weight which translates into more progress over time.
Final Word
When life gets hectic it can be tempting to let your fitness routines fall by the wayside, but this is a mistake.
Not only will maintaining your fitness routine benefit you physically but it’ll help you offload some of the stress of being so busy too.
By using some of the strategies in this article, even the busiest CEO, family man and social butterfly will be able to find time to work out and continue towards their fitness goals.
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References
[1] Can J Appl Physiol. 1993 Mar; Maintenance of Strength Gains While Performing Endurance Training in Oarswomen. G J Bell, D G Syrotuik, K Attwood, H A Quinney
[2] Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2011 Jul; Exercise Dosing to Retain Resistance Training Adaptations in Young and Older Adults. C Scott Bickel, James M Cross, Marcas M Bamman
[3] Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1996 Oct; Effects of Moderate-Intensity Endurance and High-Intensity Intermittent Training on Anaerobic Capacity and VO2max. I Tabata, K Nishimura, M Kouzaki, Y Hirai, F Ogita, M Miyachi, K Yamamoto
[4] Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2012 Dec Extremely Low Volume, Whole-Body Aerobic-Resistance Training Improves Aerobic Fitness and Muscular Endurance in Females. Gill McRae, Alexa Payne, Jason G E Zelt, Trisha D Scribbans, Mary E Jung, Jonathan P Little, Brendon J Gurd
