Finding Time for Fitness

The Secret to Fast Effective Results

By Paul "Batman" O'Brien 

B.A., N.C.E.H.S., Dip. Acu., Cert Clin. IMed., Dip. Adv. OBB, Dip. CHM, Pn1, PN-SSR, PN-NCA, M.AFPA., M.C.Th.A.

Finding Time for fitness can be tough. I remember back in my early days as a gym instructor that I would recommend to people that they needed to train a minimum of 5 hours per week to make an impact in their health and appearance. Today, I've come a long way from that young and inexperienced trainer. I've learnt methods that will get you in great shape fast. In fact, today I workout for less than 4 minutes. Done, start to finish and I maintain extraordinary levels of strength and fitness as a result. 

Sadly a lot of personal trainer and fitness coaches are STILL trying to sell people on the idea that they have to spend HOURS a day getting in shape. And it's simply not true. The science doesn't even support it. Just take a look at this -

Cardiovascular fitness and fat burning is....

"....significantly greater after the HIIT program. In conclusion, these results reinforce the notion that for a given level of energy expenditure, vigorous exercise favors negative energy and lipid balance to a greater extent than exercise of low to moderate intensity. Moreover, the metabolic adaptations taking place in the skeletal muscle in response to the HIIT program appear to favor the process of lipid oxidation".

- Tremblay A., et al. Metabolism (1994); 43(7):814-8.)

So what does that actually mean?

It means that you can get fitter, faster and lose significantly more fat doing brief, highly intense exercise than you can doing longer 15+ minute workouts.

In fact,  the Journal of Applied Physiology published a study in 2006 concluded that in just 2 weeks of brief, high intensity workouts your whole body fat burning increases by 36% AFTER exercise. In addition, research published in the scientific journal Cell Metabolism showed that:

"When inactive people start doing high intensity style exercises, it produces an immediate change in their body’s fat burning capacity" -

(Egan, B. 2012. Cell Metabolism 15(3), 405-411.)

By contrast and to put all this in perspective a study found that after 300 hours of cardio per year men lose only lost on average 6 pounds (and women lost only 4 pounds). (Obesity 15:1496-1512, 2007).

That's pretty bad results for those 5 hours in the gym each week. But this is great news if you're having a hard time finding time for Fitness. 

Finding Time for Fitness - Here's what I recommend

Finding Time for Fitness
  1. Do your workouts first thing in the morning - that way its over and done with and you don't have to worry about fitting it in when life gets out of hand. Finding Time for Fitness is a non issue when it's already done. ;-)
  2. Keep your workouts short and efficient
  3. Focus on Bodyweight and Equipment Free Workouts (no travel time - to the gym, no waiting around for others to finish).
  4. Get a cardio and strength training aspect at the same time (Get your heart rate up and your muscles pumped!)
  5. If you need a program that meets all of these try my 7 Seconds to a Perfect Body program. You can get a complete results proven workout done in less than 3 minutes. It's equipment free, travel free. You can literally wake up and do them in bed if you want. Seriously, you don't even have to get out of bed for a less than 3 minute workout and you'll never have to worry about finding time for fitness.

Here's what I want you to do next -

  • If you have Perfect Body already - pick your workout for each day this week, set a time to do it first thing in the morning (set the alarm a whole 3 minutes early if you have to ;-) )
  • Make sure you're subscribed to the newsletter for more important workout, training and nutrition tips (did you get my breakfast cookie recipe?)
  • If you don't have Perfect Body yet, go and get it. You could have done one of the workouts in the time it's taken you to read this article. :-) 

References:

1.  Geliebter, A., et al. Effects of strength or aerobic training on body composition, resting metabolic rate, and peak oxygen consumption in obese dieting subjects. Am J Clin Nutr. 1997 Sep; 66(3):557-63

2. Tremblay A, et al. Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism.

Metabolism. (1994); 43(7):814-8

3.  Bryner, RW. The effects of exercise intensity on body composition, weight loss, and dietary composition in women. J Am Coll nutr. 1997 Feb; 16(1):68-73

4.  Phelain, J F., et al. Postexercise energy expenditure and substrate oxidation in young women resulting from exercise bouts of different intensity. J Am Coll Nutr. 1997 Apr;16(2):140-6

5.  Sedlock, D A. et al. Effect of exercise intensity and duration on postexercise energy expenditure. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1989 Dec;2196):662-6

6.  Poehlman Et, et al. Resistance training and energy balance. Int J Sport Nutr. 1998 Jun; 8(2):143-59

7.  Hunter, G R. et al. Resistance training increases total energy expenditure and free-living physical activity in older adults. J Appl Physiol. 2000 Sep; 89(3):977-84

8.  Hunter, G R., et al. Resistance training and intra-abdominal adipose tissue in older men and women. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2002 Jun; 34(6):1023-8

9. Trapp E G, et al. Fat loss following 15 weeks of high intensity, intermittent cycle training. Fat Loss Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia





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