Make Your Efforts Count

I hope your Love Day was LOVEly. Mine looked something like this...

Last week I had a client that was running behind due to the chaos that life can bring, and she ended up being able to make it for about 20 minutes of her session with me. At first she was bummed because she thought she missed out on burning lots of calories. I assured her quickly that you don't always need lots of time to get a great workout in. You can easily put 100 percent effort into a short workout and get some intense work done. Heck, I think sometimes people who spend three hours at the gym are wasting their time. I bet if you asked my client if she felt like her 20 minute HIIT workout was efficient she would say yes.

My tips for a quick and effective workout...
- Go big or go home. Use heavier weights, put forth maximum effort, and really make sure you are pushing yourself. (Safely, of course)
- Add in some cardio intervals. By adding in some cardio bursts you will be keeping your heart rate as high as you can. This helps you to burn the maximum amount of calories possible. Some good cardio burst exercises are jump squats, burpees, mountain climbers, or a quick sprint.
- Alternate exercise sets. I ALWAYS do this. ALWAYS. While one muscle group is resting I work another muscle group. I never just sit and recover. That is time wasted. If I just worked my legs doing squats, I'll allow my legs to rest while I am doing pushups, working my arms. Get it? Got it.
- Make your exercises multipurpose. This is another thing I ALWAYS do. Squats with an overhead press or doing an arm exercise while balancing on one foot to engage the core. When you make the most of your exercises you can fit a ton in to a short time period.

Don't let time be an excuse for not exercising. You don't have to have hours to spare. You just have to be willing to push yourself for the time that you do have.

Click HERE to see some of my previous circuit workouts that include all of these principles!

Do you include HIIT training into your workouts? How do you make your workouts as effective as possible?