How to work out with no spare time!
Knowing how to maximise those 5, 10. or 30 minutes of your day!
You’ve just spent an entire day at work, attempted to drive home in rush hour traffic, finally made it home, now have to make dinner, walk the dog AND find the time to get that workout routine in, all because you were too tired to fit it in this morning when you woke up. We all struggle with the concept of working out on a busy schedule, whether you’re in between shifts, dropping kids off, catching up on episodes of Game of Thrones, or just don’t have the energy!
Reality Check
We all make excuses (yes, excuses) for not having the time to work out. For a vast majority, we go through life with the belief that working out should take hours out of our busy schedule. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s about working out intelligently, knowing how to maximise those 5, 10 or 30 minutes of your day!
Intelligent fitness
It’s about working out intelligently. For me, this has been CrossFit.
Officially, the definition of CrossFit is ‘constantly varied, high intensity functional movements’, incorporating Olympic weightlifting techniques, gymnastics & functional body exercises. Most of the workouts are done in a set time, be it 7 minutes, 12 minutes or up to an hour long. The beauty of this? Some of the hardest workouts I’ve ever done have taken me less than 10 minutes to complete. Why? Because the methodology is smart. I can turn up to a CrossFit Gym, stay for an hour at most and my work out for the day is done. I don’t have to spend half a day building up a sweat to feel like I’m improving on my fitness.
But like anything you do in life, you must be dedicated to the process. If there’s any part of you that doesn’t commit to the process, then you will be sadly disappointed with the results. Now I’m not here to shamelessly plug CrossFit, this is one example of a fitness regime that works for a lot of people. Emergency service workers tend to find it extremely helpful because they know it’s quick, smart and time-efficient.
In 10 minutes, complete as many rounds as you can of:
(no rest in between rounds, record the number of rounds you complete)
Obviously, you can choose the kind of movements you’d like to do, if there are some you are more physically capable of or if you have injury limiting movements, you can certainly change it up. This is very Crossfit-esque, however this works wonders for me, and is just a taste of a range of workouts available to you.
Eat right and exercise
No fitness blog would be complete if I didn’t mention everyone’s favourite pasts-time; EATING.
Yes, working out is essential to achieving fitness goals, but no fitness routine is complete without paying super close attention to the fuel you’re putting into your body. As the saying goes, abs are made in the kitchen, not in the gym. With that in mind, here are some ideas of how you can effectively and time-efficiently set out your meals for the day so that you’re not rushing to prepare meals on the go!
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Prepare your meals the night before
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Never leave food prep till the morning of, or impulse buy during the day (expensive and generally when unhealthy choices are made due to lack of time)
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Make sure breakfast is the biggest meal of the day, with lunch and dinner progressively becoming smaller (metabolism slows as the day goes on)
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Prepare a snack or two in between meals to keep your metabolism running at a constant instead of spiking every couple of hours (will help with burning stored fat)
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Freeze your meals a week or so in advance and defrost them the night before so they’re ready to go when you go to work
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Make sure you’re getting some form of protein in every meal (vegans and vegetarians know this all too well)
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Drink water, water, water!!
The process can seem daunting, and you may still leave this space feeling a little overwhelmed, but don’t fret; because the reality of the situation is if you had the time to read this entire post about working out with no time, there’s a pretty good chance you already have the time to do a workout.
Author: Christopher Aiello
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect the view of the ESSSuper.