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Kara:
When choosing the workout that’s right for you it’s important to pick a routine that fits your daily schedule. If you only have time to workout 3 days a week for an hour and a half and you promise yourself you will workout five days a week for 2 hours, you are automatically dooming yourself to failure.

I realized a long time ago that spending too much time in the gym made me physically and mentally exhausted. The responsibility of holding down two jobs and trying to have a social life was too much to balance. I knew that I would have to come up with ways of making my workouts more efficient while still achieving results.

Workouts are designed to fatigue your muscles and burn calories. However there is no rule that says you can’t accomplish this goal in less time. Why not make your workout more productive by reducing the time you spend in the gym and increasing the intensity of your workout.

In my experiences the average person only needs an hour and fifteen minutes to get a great workout.   Here are a few strategies I have found to help you achieve this goal.

Try not to talk during your workout. Humans are social creatures. We enjoy having a good conversation to help wind down from a hard day at work. However participating in too many gab sessions can quickly double the amount of time we spend in the gym. Before we know it it’s time to go home and we haven’t even done cardio yet.

Reduce the rest periods between sets. I have found three different ways to accomplish this goal. I alternate using supersets, drop sets and giant sets. It’s important to remember that these techniques are very intense and should not be used everyday. Try using them when time is short or when you need a change in your routine.

A superset means working two opposite muscle groups back to back without resting. A good example would be doing pushups and bicep curls. Do one set of push ups followed by a set of bicep curls. Repeat the process until you have completed three sets of each exercise.

Try drop sets. A drop set means doing a particular amount of repetitions of an exercise and then dropping the weight and repeating the process for several sets without a rest period. An example would be doing leg extensions with 80 pounds for eight reps, 60 pounds for eight reps and finishing with 40 pounds for eight reps.

Use giant sets. A giant set is 2 exercises for the same body part back to back without any rest. An example would be doing straight bar curls and dumbbell curls.

Incorporate interval training into your cardiovascular workouts. Interval training is when you alternate the intensity of your workout. An example would be walking on the treadmill for 2 minutes at level 4 and then jogging at level seven for 2 minutes. Repeat the process until your session is over. This type of cardiovascular training is much more effective because if keeps your body guessing. Therefore you don’t need to spend time doing long sessions.

Using these techniques can cut the amount of time it takes to do your workout in half. With a little practice you could realistically finished your weight training in 20-30 minutes leaving plenty of time to do cardio.