One of the most common excuses for not exercising is “I don’t have time”, but is it a valid one? Is it possible to maintain a degree of health and fitness when you only have an hour per week to train?
At AdMac Fitness our personal trainers are experts at helping people to exercise regardless of the time they have available. If that means you only have a spare hour, we have to work within those time constraints. So, with that in mind, how should you train if you only have a single hour per week?
Let’s look at the best approach…
Shorter sessions can be effective…
An article published in the Journal of Obesity by Boutcher in 2010 titled High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise and Fat Loss showed the dramatic effects that VERY high intensity exercise can have on body fat levels. Across the research used for the study, the conclusions were that even across very short bursts of exercise can have a dramatic effect on body fat levels.
The benefits don’t just extend to fat loss though. If you are willing to tolerate pretty extreme discomfort, the Wingate approach (repeated 30 second bursts of maximum intensity effort with short rests) has been shown to improve VO2 max.
A research paper from 2012 titled Effect of high-intensity interval training on cardiovascular function, VO2max, and muscular force subjected people to 2-3 weeks of very high intensity exercise using a Wingate protocol. Even in such a short period of time, the results allowed the researchers to conclude that ‘HIIT significantly enhanced VO2max and O2 pulse and power output in active men and women.’
Spreading effect across workouts…
If general fitness is the goal, we have to make sure that we cover several bases with our workouts. We can’t just rely on performing strength sessions, or cardio sessions. We need to make sure that we perform both in a single workout if possible.
There is a way to do that, with weights-based HIIT sessions. Medium weights, long sets, short rest periods will combine to cover all of the fitness bases you need.
If you perform a circuit of exercises covering the whole body, say for example…
Squats
Deadlifts
Shoulder Presses
Pull Ups
Push Ups
Lunges
Hanging Leg Raises
All you’d need is a barbell, plates and a rack. If you performed sets of 10-12 and did the workout in a circuit it would look like this…
1 set of each exercise, in that order with no rest between sets. Perform all 7 sets then rest for 2 minutes and repeat 3 times. You’d have trained your entire body within less than 30 minutes. You’d elevate your heart rate throughout and therefore burn a lot of calories as well. This cardio element would tick an extra box for you, combing strength and cardio benefits in the same workout.
You’d train all of the muscle groups in the body, using a range of different movement directions. Your intensity would be high and the time demands low.
You could effectively do this workout twice per week and benefit several different elements of your fitness.
You’d HAVE to work at high intensity…
One of the trade-offs you have to make if you don’t have much time is that you must train at a very high intensity. You can’t expect to take it easy and make significant progress on a single hour per week.
With that in mind, you need to park any ideas you have about being able to work out for an hour each week with a gentle session. If you want to make the most of your time, you just can’t expect a single gentle yoga class to do anything for you.
As we discussed earlier, you can still benefit from shorter workouts, but you have to work hard. Here’s a few examples of workouts that you could perform quickly yet still enjoy significant benefits from…
Hill sprints
A 20 minute fast run
High intensity full body weight training
Full body kettlebell circuits
Tabata bodyweight sessions
Use these ideas as further inspiration for short and intense workouts. We also have a battle rope workout for you to blast through. The key is to treat your workouts as a fun and varied approach. If you did the same workout every week for an hour, you’d be bored.
Embrace the change and the creativity with each new session.
Make the most of frequency, not duration
One of the key elements of this type of training is to train more frequently. You would benefit far more from 3 x 20 minute sessions, or 2 x 30 minute sessions than you would from a single one hour workout per week. This more frequent stimulation of your body wouldn’t allow your progress to reverse in the way it would if you were to only train once in a week.
By splitting your workouts into three 20 minutes, you could benefit several areas of your fitness in the different workouts. For example, your training week could look like this…
Session 1: 20 Minute Strength Training
Session 2: 20 Minute High Intensity Cardio
Session 3: Kettlebell HIIT Session
Across the three sessions you’ll have addressed a lot of training goals, you’ll have made the most of the training time and you’ll still enjoy regular, frequent workouts across the week. With enough intensity and the right kind of planning, it’s absolutely possible to maintain a great level of fitness in an hour of training time per week.
Want to improve your health and fitness? Let the AdMac Fitness Personal Trainers help…
AdMac Fitness has been helping the people of East London transform their health and fitness for nearly a decade.
We help people using tried and tested fitness approaches. Our expert team of personal trainers, based in both Bow and South Woodford can help you get a grip of your health forever. With our guidance and experience, you can relax knowing that your fitness journey is going to be guided by some of the best personal trainers in East London.
For more information on who we are, what we do and how we can help you achieve your health and fitness goals, contact us on… 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
Our locations are…
AdMac Fitness Bow: Arch 457 Robeson St, London E3 4JA
AdMac Fitness South Woodford: Unit 4 Marlborough Business Centre, 96 George Lane, South Woodford, London, E18 1AD.