(00:00):
Hey guys, this is Cori from Redefining Strength. Welcome to the Fitness Hacks Podcast. This is the show where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips. I’m not going to ever fill this episode with sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a review or leave a five star rating or even better share with somebody you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone. So let’s jump right in. I don’t have enough time. We’ve all made this excuse as a reason to skip our workouts and just not do anything, and there is a finite amount of time in each and every day, and sometimes the day does get away from us, but we can always design for the time we have and we have to recognize the value sometimes in doing something that’s not necessarily our optimal, our planned workout, but still keeps us in the routine and habit because often on those days where we say, I don’t have enough time and we don’t do anything, we end up letting the habit slide and then it’s easier the next day to not do anything and the next day after that and we’re not owning our current situation and we’re not planning for what’s realistic for us, and that’s where we see those habits slide and we get off track and we lose the progress that we’ve made.

(01:12):
And part of it isn’t just the miss workout, yes, the movement itself is key. That build is key, especially if we want to gain muscle, but a lot of it just goes back to keeping in the habit and that success mindset. So as silly as it might seem to just do five minutes, sometimes the fact that we did something when we didn’t want to do something often makes us feel better than even doing what we just had planned because we did something on a hard situation where it would’ve been really easy to let ourselves off the hook. So doing that keeps us in the success mindset. It keeps us the routine, it helps us move forward, but we can also design for the time we have. I think too often we use, I don’t have enough time as an excuse because we have some ideal that we have to hit in our head of six days a week, training for one hour, but you don’t need that ideal.

(01:57):
You can design for the time you have three days a week, 30 minutes. You can make it work five days a week, 15 minutes. You can make it work, but you have to own what actually is realistic for you to design for that time because how you design for those times will be different. How you break down your workouts, what you’re working each workout, how you’re using moves will all be different. But also noting that just because you have an hour doesn’t mean you need to use an hour. I see too often people just filling the hour and in that they do a lot of wasted volume, they do a lot of quantity, but it’s not quality because they’re not staying focused and intentional. Now, when we’re short on time, it can be really hard to be as intentional because a lot of times we feel like we’re going through the motions just to do it or we’re rushing through to get it done.

(02:39):
So I want to really help you find a way to make the most out of those sessions. And the first key I think to designing quick and efficient and effective workouts is using timed circuits and sets and even timed intervals of work over reps. And the reason I say timed is because if you have minutes and you set a timer for 15 minutes, you know you’re going to be done in 15 minutes. There’s no rushing through to make sure that you’re done. There’s no being worried about finishing in time so that you skip certain things and then don’t do your warmup. You can make sure that everything truly fits that time. You can take one minute to roll out the tightest area, you can take one minute to do a dynamic stretch. You can then take even 30 seconds to do an activation move and then you can get into the rest of your workout.

(03:24):
And so you can really have that time, but you’re also secure in that you know are going to be able to fit it into the time that you have. So using those time circuits, using those timed intervals of work can be really key for that reason because it gives us the mental security. Not to mention when we feel rushed, when we have less time, we do need to increase our training density. That means that we need to do more work in the set amount of time because we can’t do more work adding on time. So we want to increase the amount of work done in the set time that we have. So by using an interval of one minute on squats, instead of doing 12 reps and trying to do 15 reps the next week or increase that training density in that way, even if the time goes a little bit longer, we’re going to see can I get more reps in this set amount of time?

(04:08):
And that can increase your training density to help you see results, but it can also help you stay focused and intentional with moves. Again, not rushing through just because you’re short on time when we know we have that one minute to work, we’re going to make the most of that one minute and we’re going to really push through because we have one minute and sometimes that can even push us to do more than we would’ve done had we counted reps, especially when we are short on time and it’s really key that we get the most out of every single movement. When you have that one minute, you might keep going past the point you would’ve stopped. So say you had eight to 12 reps, maybe you stopped at 12 and you could have done a few more with a weight. So you do go up the next round, but with that one minute all of a sudden you’re like, well, I have this whole minute I need to use it.

(04:45):
So you’re doing 15, 20 reps with a weight that you thought you could only do 12 with, even if you use a little rest pause, but it can help you push past the point you would’ve stopped otherwise to getting that really quality progression with movements as well. So consider using time circuits intervals of work that are timed out instead of just counting reps because it can help you make sure you’re confident you can get the workout in that time and stay focused and intentional where you aren’t even counting the reps or trying to rush through. Then also really focus on ways to make the volume that you can do more challenging. Again, you can’t just add on more sets, more reps because you only have a set amount of time, so you have to increase the training density within that time. This also means making fewer reps feel harder.

(05:28):
So even though you could do eight to 12 reps with a front lunge, maybe you don’t have weights and maybe you don’t have a time to get out four sets of 12 reps. So how can you make it so that you fail at six reps instead of just doing a front lunge? Maybe you do add loads if you have it, maybe you add a pulse when you launch forward. Maybe you make sure that you’re doing a variation where there’s more instability or there’s a bigger range of motion because you’re having to do that front lunch stepping up onto a step to sink with your back knee down to the ground. But you have to find a way to make the volume more challenging if you want to see results from your training. But 15 minutes if you’re making every move, the hardest move you can do is going to feel devastatingly challenging at points and not in a bad way if you’re just trying to slaughter yourself from your workouts, but that you are trying to drive that progression, drive that growth.

(06:15):
When I know I have 10 minutes, I’m finding ways to make myself fail at a move with five reps over trying to do 10, and if I can do 10, I’m going to find ways to make it more challenging. So really think how can I make this move so challenging that I don’t want to nor can’t necessarily do more than five reps, especially with those times circuits too. If you’re then cycling areas worked, which is another way to make workouts very efficient when you’re short on time because then you don’t have to fully rest. You want to think, okay, how can I keep moving this entire interval, this 10 minute circuit? How can I keep moving by doing a really heavy lower body move then a really heavy or challenging upper body move so that you’re using the other areas being worked as rest to keep moving, but you’re also able to really work that area because you’re then cycling out of it, but it is challenging you for the reps that you do and you’re building up that volume over time.

(07:02):
Five reps done over 10 minutes is going to add up to 25 reps, 30 reps, so it’s going to add up to that volume you need within that set amount of time and then the next week you’re going to try and either get a few more reps or go a little bit heavier or advance the move in some way, but going now into that next phase. So you’re trying to find ways to make the volume challenging that you can do, but you’re also going to try and find ways to include rest without including rest. We don’t want to just cut out rest. Rest is very important for us to be able to maximize the movements, be more intentional, train harder. You don’t want to try and lift really heavy and then cut out the rest however you do want to design so that you’re not doing that one rep max lifting or that maximal strength work necessarily during workouts like this while you’re short on a time, you can save that for longer workouts, but you do want to find ways to still lift heavy and create that progression.

(07:47):
And that means giving areas rest before you go back into that advanced variation because otherwise you’re going to hit that point of diminishing returns. You’re not going to be able to work at the true a hundred percent intensity, but with shorter time just standing around is not necessarily going to be an option. So maybe you do use it as that mobility work. Maybe you use it as a little activation, maybe you just cycle areas. Work the less frequently we can train, the shorter we can train for the more we want to focus on more full body esque splits that could be anterior, posterior or full body where we are touching on everything. But we want to do that because that allows us to work more big muscle groups in a session which can help us build muscle. It can help us burn more calories. It helps us get in that training frequency for areas while training less frequently.

(08:29):
It also gives us the opportunity to use other moves as rest so that we’re maximizing the time we have because if you work legs, then upper body like a chest, then you do even legs, but the opposing muscle groups, so quad and then hamstring in one and then you do back, you are cycling. The areas work to be able to go hard on each of those movements and work each of those areas intensely, but you’re giving other areas rest. And again, this is where you can also add in mobility work, especially if you tend to skip it because that can be active. Rest could potentially, depending on how you’re designing your workouts, if you’re doing more metabolic strength, include a cardio move and then also include a strength move to sort of change up the intensity at which you’re going. You can use more intense moves, less intense moves, even depending more isolated moves with more compound, but you want to think, how can I rest without rusting?

(09:14):
And those are some of the different ways that you can do it. Even knowing that using unilateral moves, so if you do a single leg deadlift, one side is resting as the other is working, so that can even be a way to add in rest as well. While even getting in that focused work or making a move more challenging by the instability of the unilateral exercise, it’s a great way to also correct imbalances if you are dealing with any imbalances, which most of us we’re not fully balanced creatures. And then just remember with this, you’re not making everything cardio. You want to think about using that strength to cardio continuum and that one rep max lifting, you’re going to need more time for that really steady state long endurance training you’re going to need more time for. So when we’re short on time and we might even be training less frequently, we need to use that middle ground of that metabolic strength type work, that strength conditioning.

(10:00):
And so we want to think about how we can make sure that we are getting our heart rate elevated, but also not just turning everything into being so out of breath that we can’t challenge ourself with progression in the lifts, especially to build that strength. So that’s again where cycling the areas work, cycling the intensity, including even an AB exercise in that circuit as active rest can be very valuable. But make sure that you are designing everything with a purpose too. You don’t want to just think about making your workouts hard to burn more calories with these sessions. You want to think about how is this truly moving me forward towards my goal? Do I need more mobility work? So if you’re short on time and you’re not able to do your usual six days a week, one hour of training and you have five minutes this one day, maybe you’re like, Hey, I think it’s better that I shift my workouts, but I’m going to put in a five minute workout to still do something that’s mobility work to keep me moving forward.

(10:48):
Again, it goes back to that success mindset. Something is better than nothing and we don’t often value that, but we have to remember that one minute today, one minute tomorrow, one minute the next day, that one minute adds up over time and generally does get us to do 2, 3, 4. And it goes back to even the way our momentum is going. The less we do, the more our momentum goes towards doing less. The more we’re keeping our momentum towards doing something, the more we tend to want to do and the more we even find that we get re-motivated to do a little bit more. If we are finding our motivation has sort of faded. So if you’re finding it a struggle to push yourself to do your usual routine, embrace shorter workouts. If your schedule is dictating that right now, you need to embrace shorter workouts.

(11:29):
Again, focusing on designing for the time you have, using those intervals or time circuits can be a great way to make sure that you’re getting in the workout, you’re increasing the training density to see results. Really maximize the volume you can do by finding ways to progress moves. And guys, I love loads, but they’re not the only way to advance movements, tempos, ranges of motion unilateral, so that instability, there are so many different ways to do that. Even creating hybrid moves and touching on that too, when you’re shorter on time, as much as we want to include some isolation moves for those stubborn areas, you need to be very strategic in how you do that because compound moves are going to give you more bang for your buck. Hybrid moves, which might work upper and lower body together. So those are things like where you can even do a lunch curl and press that you could do a single leg deadlift with row.

(12:12):
Those things can be very efficient when we’re short on time. And yes, there’s going to be a limiting muscle group with some of those things where if you do a single leg deadlift with row, you’re going to be basing it off of the weight. You can row over just the deadlift. There’s benefit to those things too because we’re working more muscle groups at once. So you want to think about how you can work more muscle groups at once, use more multi-joint movements when you are shorter on time using maybe one isolation move for a specifically stubborn area strategically, but it’s not better or worse. It’s just designing for the time you have and you can see fabulous results and the more you embrace that, the better the results you’re going to see. But again, using even that strategically designed rest so that you are able to go at a true a hundred percent intensity, not just turning everything into cardio, but even using the fact that these are going to be a little bit more metabolic to your advantage, but still creating that progression in your training.

(13:01):
But again, it goes back to always designing for the time you have and also not just using the hour because you have it. If you’re doing a sprint workout, stretching it out to an hour is probably a lot of wasted volume and you’re going to see a point of diminishing returns and you could have saved your time, especially because most of us do at some point use the excuse, I don’t have enough time to do other things. Maybe you meal prep then so you have more time on another day to do that strength workout. That should have more rest, more mobility work needs to be a little bit longer. So always design for the time you have and remember that something is better than nothing because part of this is not just what you’re actually doing in your workout, but the mindsets and routines and habits you’re creating. So jumping into the group to see if there are any questions, comments or concerns or even thoughts on how you are designing your quick workouts, making things really work for you.

(13:53):
It doesn’t look like anybody has posted anything and hopefully it’s just because I gave such fabulous tips. Everybody’s writing them down and ready to really implement them, but I would love to hear how you guys design workouts that really fit your schedule, how you are embracing maybe doing more full body splits, anterior posterior splits when you’re training less frequently and have a little bit shorter to train versus doing more potentially body parts splits or hemisphere training with longer to train. Remember, you can always design for the time you have. If you are watching the replay and do have any questions, comments, or concerns, don’t hesitate to write in. I will go back through and even try and link out to any other helpful resources to get you guys rocking because I know especially during the summer, we can find ourselves a little out of that consistent routine. Finding reasons not to work out traveling where we don’t have as much time, but I don’t have enough. Time is not an excuse. You can always design for the time you have. Thanks for listening to the Fitness Hack podcast. Again, this is the place where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips.

(14:50):
I’m going to run sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a rating, review or share it with someone you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and it would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone.