Dense and Intense
“I don’t have enough time.” We’ve all said it, we’ve all heard it. Sure we’re all busy with work, kids, housework, etc, but I have a hard time believing that someone can not find ½ hour in their day, 3 days a week to do some kind of exercise. That is 1.5 hours out of 168 hours per week, less than 1%. How much time do you spend in front of the TV or computer? How much time do you spend on Facebook? If you can’t make it to the gym, then do it at home, in front of your TV, on your porch, in your backyard, at a playground, anywhere will do. Who cares how you look or what other people think when they see you. I’ll guarantee when they see you banging out pushups, jump squats, maybe even pull-ups they will look at you in another light. I guarantee when they see you at the beach they’ll wish they had been doing what you were doing while they hide under their umbrella and beach blanket.
Loosen up your schedule to allow for 20 minutes. What is more important than your own health? Many wait until something happens then we start hearing “why is this happening to me”. Partly because you’ve been lazy and apathetic when it comes to managing your health, that’s why! With that all said, there is always enough time to do something. 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, doesn’t matter. You can get a great workout in any amount of time as long as you keep them dense and intense.
“Intensity”, in the weight room, is often used to describe the % of your 1 rep max. The higher the % (of your 1 rep max weight being used,) the more intense the workout. I’m not using it in that way for this article. Intensity is simply being used to describe how hard you are pushing yourself as far as your effort goes.
If you only have 10 minutes, pick two unrelated exercises in terms of what muscle groups they work. It could be an upper body/lower body pairing, or a push/pull pairing, lower body/trunk pairing, or a combination exercise where you do 2 or 3 exercises all together like a clean, squat, and press. If you’re limited to 10 minutes do a set of reverse lunges for a certain number of reps or time (:30-1:00) then without resting move onto the upper body exercise like pushups, pull-ups, etc. Keep alternating between the two exercises until 10 minutes is up without resting. That’s a dense 10 minutes. While your legs are resting your upper body is working and vice versa. Meanwhile your heart hasn’t stopped pumping in ten minutes. If you have more time than ten minutes than you could use a little heavier weights with your exercises, lower your set time or reps and put in a :30 second rest in between exercises. This way your legs will actually get 1:30 rest if your work/rest periods are :30 but your respiratory system will only get :30 rest (legs for :30, rest :30, upper body for :30, rest :30, repeat). Or you can do two 10 minute pairings. It’s not easy but it’s only 20 minutes and best of all you can do this type of stuff anywhere. If bodyweight squats are too easy, try 1 ¼ squats, single leg squats, walking lunges around a park, try pushups with your feet up on a bench, try pausing at the beginning or ending of a movement every rep, etc. All these tips can make your 10 – 20 minute extremely effective and you don’t need equipment, or 15 minutes to drive to the gym, 5 minutes in the locker, 60 to workout, then drive home.
The same goes for cardio. Instead of doing 45 steady minutes on a treadmill or bike, try 20 minutes filled with :30 second sprints, and 1:30 active recovery periods. That’ll give you 10 sprints and you’ll be done in half the time of your normal cardio workout. Trust me you will not want to do a minute more if your work intervals are intense. Another bonus of these types of workouts is that they ramp up your metabolism for hours after your workout. This “afterburn” is really what you’re after. It’s much more important than calories burned during the exercise. Just think about how many people you know or see at the gym year after year pounding away slow miles on the treadmill. Do most of them look any different than they did 5 years ago? If it didn’t work the first time, odds are it’s not going to work the second time.
So suck it up, find 10-20 minutes and keep it dense. You don’t have to make your workouts longer to be more effective. Density and Intensity!