how do you workout when you don't have much time?
are there days where you only train certain parts of your body / only do certain exercises because you simply don't have the time for a full workout?
my ideal workout means stair climbing, running-walking and stretching. It can well last 2 hours.
Some days I don't have enough time to do all that. Would it be better to do less of each kind of exercising or just to fixate on one kind?
Any exercise is better than none :-)
We all have varied, busy lives that never fit the neat structured exercise plans we read about, or make for ourselves. Sometimes we only find 15 minutes free in a day for some quick exercise. And if that's the only time we have available that day, then that's enough.
Ideally you'll find time for more structured exercise at least once a week, but don't beat yourself up if you struggle with your schedule, you're only human, just do what you can, that already puts you ahead of most people <3
Who downvoted you? We can't all escape our responsibilities for 3 hours, or enough to work everything at a strict schedule.
Yeah, this is bad advice for a comp level, or optimal progress, but for 99% of people the habit of going and doing something is orders of magnitude better than finding every excuse not to go that day.
Can you walk to a place instead of drive daily?
I replaced a 10 minute commute with a 45 minute walk. Got me walking nearly 8 hours a week. ~20 miles.
I think building it into your routine rather than making it an event is key.
I think building it into your routine rather than making it an event is key.
Yup, and I'd also recommend planning your exercise around the time your energy peaks during the day. I'm a morning person, so I work out in the morning.
Yup, second on this one. Exact same change made, and the gf and I love it. We even walk when it's minus 20 (though after that we'll drive). Many days afterwards we're both too beat for much more of a hard workout, so I'll hammer out some pushups to failure or smtg
I do 20-30 minutes every second day.
One day - Body weight exercises at home, variations of pushups and tabata.
Two days later - Exercise bike, burning 300 calories in 30 mins.
Nothing special but keeps my heart, arms and legs pretty strong without a huge time investment.
It all depends on your goal. Wanna look ripped, you need hours in the gym. Want to just have a body that doesn't hurt and feels good, then its enough with moderate exercise.
You're aware of low-volume HIIT? Max 15 minutes per day, evidence-based for cardiovascular health same as "normal" exercise. Not for building muscle afaik, and finding your own among the many more-or-less tested ones can be a chore. The popular "Scientific 7-minute workout" and it new versions would probably be a good place to start, and are targeted more for building strength afaik.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37939367/ https://archive.nytimes.com/well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the-scientific-7-minute-workout/
Edit: Oh, and to answer your question, I don't. I do move about by bike and play BeatSaber because it's fun, otherwise decomposing.
Two ways:
For you if you're short on time id focus on running- walking, pushing yourself to run more frequently than if you had the full 2 hours. The idea is to get your heart rate up higher than normal
I switched to working out at home and saved a whole bunch of time I used to spend getting to and from the gym, plus all the faffing about waiting to get on the stations I wanted to use. Its not going to work for everyone but if you can do some sort of workout at home or at work if you lucky enough to work somewhere that has facilitates, then you can save a whole bunch of time.
As others have mentioned switching to high intensity can give you as big an impact in a lot less time. Unless you training for endurance events spending a couple of hours working out everyday can actually be counter productive. I used to train twice a day six days a week, an hours weights in the morning then two to three hours of BJJ/Kickboxing and I never made the same strength gains as when I toned that shit down.
Two hours is pretty excessive, you should be doing 10 minutes stretching tops, unless its an actual stretching workout such as yoga or you are working out an injury. Spending an hour on a stair master or a runner is only good if you actually challenging your heart rate during that time, and then only if you working on endurance for a reason.
For me personally; no excuses. I have nasty ADHD and am very dependent on habit. I have to make a conscious effort to establish any activity as a habit if I want any hope of following through. This forces me to have a 'no excuses' type relationship with things like running, my favourite workout activity, if I want to keep it up in the long run.
Also gym outside of work really helps. Had that not happened I might have found another excuse to not go
You do what you can, when you can.
Like, I'm disabled now, so the days of three hour long dedicated workout sessions are long gone. I can barely manage anything that takes longer than cooking a decent meal, and the more impact there is, the shorter the time gets. So, you know, serious cardio is out.
However, you can exercise anywhere, any time, assuming the situation makes it feasible at all (might have issues at work, etc).
So, you cram things in. Sitting at a desk for fifteen? Keep your legs moving. Reading files, you can do so while finding some kind of activity that fits how you're reading. Laptop on your knees, maybe you do some curls. Have a tablet you can use, or paper files, do some pushups while you read.
If you're going to have only one single session, make it cardio. Nothing else gives the same time/benefit ratio, and you can do different cardio depending on where you are. So, you might only have an hour, use it running since you don't need a specific gym or piece of gear.
Gotta work with what you've got
I can barely manage anything that takes longer than cooking a decent meal.
Yeah, 3 hours.
There's a reason I need the gym
I mean, there's plenty of good meals that only take a half hour to an hour. I'd go as far as to say that if you include stuff where a pot is just simmering and you're waiting, there's a ton of options.
Depends on how fast prep is, I guess. I'm used to just zipping through prep since it's something I've done since I was a kid.
Take something like beef stew. That's twenty minutes of actual cooking, ten of prep, and a bunch of patience.
There's complicated dishes that take more attention as it cooks, along with a lot of fiddly prep, like beef wellington, where you're right on top of it the entire time.
I guess it also depends in what the standard of "decent" is lol. Spaghetti can take fifteen minutes start to finish, or it can take a couple of hours including simmer time for the sauce.
Royal Canadian Air Force workout.
15 minute full body workout.
really works.
My workouts are organized such that on any day, the order of the exercises is also their importance. So if there's ever a need to cut things short, I still do the same workout but I'll cut it short somewhere in the middle.
If I know what I'm losing a whole workout somewhere, then there's one of two things I can do. If my body is well recovered, then on the last workout before the break, I'll bring the intensity way up with lots of myo-reps and drop sets and increase the number of sets. If I'm in need of recovery, then I don't do anything special and just treat those days as a deload.
The question you should be asking is what you're trying to achieve with each element of your workout and how important it is for you. For example, what do you get out of stair climbing that you don't from running-walking or stretching? If there isn't anything specific, it may well be that it doesn't matter what you do as long as you do something. Consider also what your body might need recovery from. For example, does running hurt your joints? If so, then maybe use that opportunity to take a break from it.
Sounds like your regular workout is mostly cardio and legs. So maybe the days you don't have time would be good for some upper body and core strength building.
This is a shorter answer than I typically would write, but any sort of exercise program should be atuned to your specific circumstances, since if it's not practical to execute upon it, then it's not going to sustainably achieve its objectives.
As for me personally, I wrote my program based on a friend's five-day-per-week program, which splits the days into: arm day, back/shoulders day, chest day, leg day, and core day. I specifically do not want to be overworking certain muscle groups without adequate rest. Each day takes no more than 60-70 minutes, including warm ups.
Might I suggest posing in c/gym or c/homegym for advice on how to tune your current program; there shouldn't be a need for a full rip-and-replace.
For me I paid for not only the gym but the trainer to help me build the routine and habit. I know that's not an option for all but I did this to make myself accountable. That and I'm tired of my back going out time and time again.
I think it's important to note that any amount of exercise appears to be better than none at all [1][2][3].
Treadmill under my desk, so I can walk and work at the same time. And 10 min of Pilates before bed.
I typically go for a run. The good thing is that you can control the intensity by increasing/decreasing your speed.
Only have 15 minutes? Run relativity quick and you more than likely be in heart rate zone 4.
Try to follow at least the WHO recommendation of 30 min of moderate exercise per day on average. Maybe you can consider this budget and balance it over your week depending on how busy you are.
Do you have 30min? You can get a decent strength workout in that time if you push yourself and take 30-45s of rest.
For cardio you could try high intensity interval training for 30mins.
Here is what I'd do. Full body workout 1 day. High intensity interval training the next. Stuff like sprints, hill climbs ab work. Workout as much as possible.
Ummmmmmm........I work like 20 hours a day, 6 days a week. 90% of the time I don't even know what day it is. How would I EVER have time to lift heavy things???
Would it be better to do less of each kind of exercising or just to fixate on one kind?
Hm, I think it's important to assess what your exercise goals are, and to analyze your full workout routine to prevent this being an XY problem. Addressing the latter, given the following:
my ideal workout means stair climbing, running-walking and stretching. It can well last 2 hours.
If you are saying that that is your full workout routine, I would say that, imo, I don't see any problem with splitting those up: Stair climbing and running are both cardio [3], assuming that you do them both to a high enough intensity [2]; they just focus different muscle groups [1] — depending on your goals, this could help you decide on which on to keep as a focus. As for stretching, a recommended minimum is 2-3 times per week [4]. Depending on your total stretching routine, you could potentially cut out some stretches if they have considerable overlap with other stretches.