Try These 5 Quick Exercise Tips If You Don’t Have Time To Do

exercise tips

Get Healthy With These Quick Exercise Tips

Who isn’t busy these days? From your 9-5 job to family obligations, everyone is short on time! This can lead to exercise getting skipped altogether – bad idea! This featured post discusses some great quick exercise tips that you can use even when you are completely pinched for time! You’ve got to make time to take care of yourself, right?

Too busy to exercise? …Aren’t we all

Today we all have a super fast paced lifestyle as we try and get more done in less time. And often exercise is one of the first “to do” items that drops off the list.

However, exercise has so many health benefits!

Let’s go over some reasons why you should prioritize exercise in your day and then some tips for getting in a workout even when you are super short on time!

Why Exercise is Awesome!

  • It reduces stress and increases concentrations of norepinephrine, which is a chemical that moderates your brain’s response to stress. So you are also boosting your body’s ability to deal with stress.
  • Makes you happier and can improve self-confidence.
  • It will help you be super productive which means you actually get that time back anyway while you’re improving your health. When Richard Branson was asked to share some key tips to improving productivity his No. 1 tip was exercise! You heard it from the top!
  • Can actually help your brain boost your creativity – again saving you time at work throughout the day.

Tips When You’re Short on Time

ClockOkay, so you know exercise is totally worth it and can actually save you time during the day. However, you’re still struggling to fit it into your schedule.

Here are some tips to make it easier to fit a workout into your busy day.

High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

HIIT is taking the world by storm as the workout you wish you had heard about earlier! So what is HIIT?

It’s a training technique where you do intense bursts of exercise such as sprints at maximum capacity for a short time such as 30 seconds up to 2 minutes. This is followed by a short recovery period around double the length of time as the exercise. Keep alternating for 20 minutes and you have yourself a serious workout in a small amount of time. Sounds easy?

It’s not.

The idea is to make sure the exercise is super intense however the health and fitness benefits in this short amount of time are awesome!

HIIT workouts don’t only help speed up your metabolism but they also have your body burning calories long after your workout is finished!

Don’t have 20 minutes? No worries. How about 7 minutes? There are a range of 7-minute workout apps you can download for free that takes you through an intense 7 minutes where you perform a range of exercises designed to work your whole body in only 7 minutes

Incidental Exercise

Get off the bus a stop earlier; take the stairs instead of the elevator and walk to the shops rather than driving. You have most likely heard these suggestions before but incidental exercise can really add up and make a difference to your health.

Walking is awesome for you and it can promote strong bones and improve your balance It also increases muscle strength, endurance and help you lose fat, and it’s a great way to lower stress.

Try buying a pedometer and tracking your steps each day. Aim to work up to 12,000 steps each day and watch as your body slowly transforms.

Make Your Meeting a Walking Meeting

WalkingNow obviously in some workplaces, this is going to be easier to do than others, but if you are in a workplace where you are sedentary most of the day, see if you can combine your weekly meeting with your boss or an update meeting with a colleague with a walk. LinkedIn supports the idea of walking meetings and they are actually a pretty big deal at the company.

Meeting while walking also actually minimizes distractions and allows you to focus on what needs to be discussed while getting your workout in.

Add a Workout to Daily Tasks

Getting up from your desk to make a coffee? Do 20 calf raises while you are waiting for the kettle to boil, or hanging out the washing. Try out doing squats as you reach for the washing in the basket before hanging an item on the clothesline. Or add in 10 pushups against the kitchen bench as you do the dishes.

You get the idea. Adding in small exercises to daily activities can have a massive impact on the amount of movement and exercise you are actually getting into your day.

Walk to the shops when possible instead of taking the car and other household tasks like vacuuming or mowing the lawn can totally turn into a workout if you up the intensity a little.

Schedule It In & Wake-Up Earlier

Another tip is just to prioritize the importance of how much exercise is going to impact your day and schedule it in as if it was a meeting.

Block it out of your calendar so everyone knows you are unavailable at that time and make it a non-negotiable.

Some of the most successful people in the world with huge businesses have daily exercise as one of their non-negotiables. Waking up an hour earlier could also give you that extra time to get in a workout even just a couple of times a week.

Wrap-Up

Hopefully, these quick exercise tips have given you some ideas on how to squeeze a workout into your day.

Any questions or great workouts that you have been able to fit into your busy day?

Please share with us your quick exercise tips in the comments below.

A keen runner, mountain biker, snowboarder and outdoor enthusiast, Karen started RealEnergyFood.com to share what she has learnt about creating healthy energy food on the go 🙂 Passionate about health and fitness, if she is not enjoying being outdoors she is happiest in her kitchen making delicious but healthy homemade sports supplements. With a bachelor’s degree in science and currently training at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition she loves researching the best ingredients for awesome recipes to get you performing at your optimal level. Find out more at http://realenergyfood.com.
Karen Wojciechowski
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