We all live busy lives and it can be hard to squeeze in enough time to workout to fit into your busy lifestyle.
If you’re short on time, you can still have great workouts, possibly even better than a longer workout.
We’ve compiled 50 ways that you can decrease the time it takes to finish your workout so that you can keep your busy schedule and have more free time.
50 Ways To Cut Down Your Workout Time
- Do combination exercises, which incorporate both upper and lower body movements
- Choose structural, compound exercises like squats vs. biceps curls
- Incorporate plyometric exercises into your routine
- Use strength circuitsTM, where you combine strength exercises into a circuit
- Do a metabolic conditioning circuit at the end of the workout, or as the workout
- Do Dumbbell Complexes as your workout
- Don’t talk in between exercises, or watch the gym TV
- Wear a stop watch and set a specific amount of time you can rest between exercises
- Use the GymBoss interval timer for interval training
- Bring a water bottle so you don’t need to go to the water fountain
- Warm up or cool down with cardio instead of setting extra time aside
- Do high intensity interval training vs. steady state cardio
- Set a specific amount of time for the workout, and don’t go over it (i.e. 30 minutes)
- Do tabata training, with 8 rounds of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off
- Do core exercises in between normal strength training exercises
- Do 2 exercises back to back which work the same muscle group
- Use Dropsets for more muscle stimulation in less time
- “Run the rack”, which is a dropset technique. For example, start out with 6 reps of 60lb DB Rows, then with no rest do 55lb for 6 reps, then 50lb for 6 reps until you get to 30lb.
- Limit your warm up to 5 minutes – 2 minutes foam rolling, 3 minutes dynamic stretching
- Wear headphones to avoid interruptions from other gym members
- Wear a watch and keep rest time between 30 second to 1 minute
- Pre-write your workout plan so there is no extra time spent thinking about what exercises to do
- Change before you get to the gym so you don’t need to change in the locker room
- Have 1 back-up exercise for each of your planned exercise – that way if someone is using the equipment you can default to your secondary exercise
- Pair exercises and supersets together that use the same weights or machines
- Perform compound exercises so you can target several muscle groups at once
- Superset your exercises: s superset is two exercises “paired” together, often done immediately after the other
- Don’t wander to machines you don’t know how to use
- Do less abs exercises, especially if you spend 10 or more minutes doing them. They are overemphasized in most programs and routines.
- Prepare your workout clothes beforehand
- Perform a ladder1 of an exercise in order to burn calories faster
- Use non-competing2 exercises in order to maximize time in your lifting session
- Warm up with “catch all” movements: Inchworms, walking Spider-Man’s, etc.
- Consider dropping some volume. Not every exercise needs to be 3 sets of ten. One intense set may do the trick.
- Emphasize compound movements with exercises you already do
- Consider working out fewer times each week if you workout 5-6 times a week
- Don’t bring your cell phone into the gym
- Do hill sprints instead of sprinting on a track, or jogging
- Increase the incline of workouts to work harder faster
- Alternate between sets of Bench Press & Squat or work overlapping muscle systems like combining Kettle Bell Swings with Good Mornings
- Workout for shorter time periods twice a day
- Run stairs instead of doing the elliptical
- Use the ergometer instead of the elliptical because it burns more calories and is more intense
- Select exercises that are close together – while there’s nothing wrong with walking back and forth across the gym between sets, if you’re in a rush it may not be the best use of your time
- Complete 5 sets of basic exercises like squats, deadlift, power cleans, and Turkish get-ups
- Instead of upping the weights to increase intensity, try cutting down on rest intervals if you’re short on time – it’s an under-appreciated way to boost intensity
- Alternatively, try lifting heavier weights with the same rest interval, and cut out a set or two.
- Use strength training instead of cardiovascular exercise; with the “afterburn effect” your muscles can continue to burn calories following your workout
- Do Squat Press or Step-up with Shoulder Press
- Do Density Training: where your sets are timed instead of by the number of reps (trying to get as many reps done within that time frame)
We hope these tips will help you on those days when it just seems like you can’t fit everything into your schedule. If one of these ways to cut down on time works for you, or if you have another way to make time to exercise, we would love to hear from. Just leave a comment.
This is actually a useful list Marc.
I’m in the gym – warm up – workout – warm down, and leave within 45-50mins.
Time keeping and not getting distracted (headphones are great for this) are key for me. That and only doing compound moves.
Thanks, Peter. Glad you liked the list.
Marc – these are good suggestions. Never heard of tabata (#14), but a quick Google helped me understand the concept. And I’m a big fan of hill sprints (#38) – exhausting but a great way to build endurance and confidence!
A related question: can you offer suggestions on workouts / strength training for those of us who travel and have limited access to gyms, weights, etc? I’m fortunate that I only travel to a two places, and in one, the hotel has an amazing gym – but the other location has a typical “hotel gym” that has one treadmill, one elliptical, and a tiny set of weights with one bench. Would love suggestions on how to fit in a complete workout in my hotel room, using only body weight exercises like push-ups, dips, squats, lunges, and ab / floor activities. I usually go for a 30 minute run most mornings when I travel, so I’m really only looking for strength / muscle-building.
As always, thanks for reading and responding to comments – getting this kind of “real time” feedback to questions is really impressive, given how popular your site has become. Kudos to you and your team!
Thanks for the great tips…my workouts can sometimes be long!
amazing! great to see some list of “to-dos” first on this website. Also, couple of articles are enough to realize how much this website is helpful. Thanks Marc!
@alex – thanks for spending the time to check out the site and our articles and very glad you find them helpful.