4 ways to reduce the time cost of exercise

Welcome to The Spotter!

My name is Nolan Vannata. I’m a fitness and nutrition coach that helps busy professionals lose weight and have more energy in their daily lives.

This newsletter provides simple, realistic strategies for you to lose weight and get strong so you can look and feel your best.

If lack of time isn’t your biggest barrier to exercise, I bet it’s at least in your top 3.

Work, kids, house projects, traveling, hobbies, and your social life all demand your time, making it difficult to fit in exercise.

Difficult… but not impossible.

No matter what, you’ll have to prioritize your exercise and physical activity, but that will get easier if you can reduce the time cost of exercise.

Tip #1: Use supersets and circuits.

If you are unfamiliar, supersets and circuit training involve alternating your exercises instead of doing all of your sets for 1 exercise before moving on to the next. By letting 1 muscle group rest while you work on another, you save time without compromising the quality of the following set.

You can visualize this with the illustration below using the example of 3 sets of squats and 3 sets of push-ups.

The muscles used in each respective exercise both have the same amount of rest, but the use of supersets cut the time cost of the whole by nearly half.

The effectiveness has also been confirmed in research. In the study, “Less time, same gains: Comparison of superset vs traditional set training on muscular adaptations” the authors concluded that supersets save time but don’t seem to compromise strength and muscle size compared to traditional exercise sets.

However, the superset group did report a higher effort level compared to the traditional training group. On a scale of 1-10, they rated the workouts (on average) at 8.1 compared to 7.2.

Speaking of effort…

Tip #2: Increase your effort.

Performing your workouts to a higher effort level can help you get more bang-for-buck out of the exercises you do. While there are many ways you can get more out of your workouts, picking up slightly heavier weights, squeezing out a couple of extra reps, or running just a touch faster can help you benefit more from a workout while keeping the time cost the same.

Effective exercise is a stimulus to the body that says, “we need to get stronger and more durable for the next time this happens!”

If you make a stronger and louder stimulus, you will likely get more in return. Of course, there are diminishing returns if you exercise way too hard, but too much of anything is harmful.

Tip #3: Sprinkle in mini-workouts.

Try sprinkling in exercises throughout your day. Get a walking pad for your desk. Rep out some push-ups or squats in between meetings. Every time there is a commercial, find an exercise to do for 20-30 seconds.

I know someone that didn’t let themselves watch Netflix unless they were on their treadmill. Genius!

It’s a lot easier to block out a few minutes here and there compared to making the time for an entire workout. Your ability to prioritize these bit-sized workouts can help you get the exercise you need when you can’t make the time for a longer traditional workout.

Tip #4: Exercise less… but still do something!!!

I know this tip might have you thinking, “yeah… no shit”, but hear me out.

Temporarily exercise less and go into maintenance mode. I’ve written a whole article on maintenance mode before. You can check that out with the link below.

Embracing maintenance

Taking a few days, or even weeks, to exercise less can put you into maintenance mode. Maybe your life is crazy busy, or you just need a mental break. There is evidence that even 1 or 2 heavy sets per week is enough to maintain strength for a couple of months!!!

As long as you don’t stop exercising completely, you can keep most, if not all, of your progress with just 1 short workout per week, maybe 2 if you were previously training very seriously.

If you can’t make progress, the next best thing is preventing regression.

You can make progress without spending hours in the gym or constantly preparing food.

I help busy professionals lose fat and get strong with time-friendly fitness and nutrition plans so they can have long term weight loss success and more energy in their daily lives without constantly preparing food or spending hours exercising.

On top of this, I offer daily (unlimited) communication, so you can get maximum feedback and support from a coach.

If you’d like to hear more about how I can help, schedule a free call with me by clicking this link.

For more information, visit thespottercoaching.com.