Make your workout more effective

We now live in an age where work consumes the majority of our time and getting a quick work out in throughout the day is extremely tough.  Even if you are able to squeeze some time in during the day, chances are you have limited time that you can spend in the gym before you have to go back to work or you dont feel like spending that much time in the gym after work.  Plus, if you havent worked out for at least an hour you feel like you havent done enough, right?  Well there is a simple solution to all of this...learn ways to maximize your calorie loss in a shorter period of time.  Below I provide a few tips on how to make your workout more effective in relation to calories burned while spending half of the time in the gym.

-Limit the amount of breaks you take in your workout.  Depending on the type of workout you are doing, limiting the amount of breaks you take during your workout can cut down workout time substantially.  Most breaks between sets should be limited to 60-90 seconds for most endurance and power exercises.  This is the time needed for your body to recover approximately 90% of the energy producing elements in your body.  For maximal strength training, longer breaks are more important but should still be limited to 3-5 minutes between sets. 

-Spending less time on cardio machines.  A lot of us have heard that low intensity exercise in the "fat burning zone" allows us to burn more calories from fat than from proteins and carbohydrates.  This is actually true but knowing this can be misleading.  Although calories from fat are mainly being targeted, it takes a great deal of time to actually burn a decent amount of calories because fats are slow burning fuels that require oxygen to convert it to usable energy.  By performing high intensity training (HIT training), you mainly burn calories from carbohydrates, which are fast burning fuels, but calories from fat are targeted as well.  By doing high intensity training, the total amount of calories burned increases as well as the total number of calories burned from fat solely by volume alone.  Lets look at the comparison:

Calories burned from low intensity workout in 30 min = 300 cal (75% of which is fat calories or 225 cal)           

Calories burned from high intensity workout in 30 min = 620 cal (50% of which is fat calories or 310 cal)

Its obvious that you burn more calories from fat and in general by doing high intensity workouts.  If you want to decrease the time spent on cardio machines, bump up the intensity or the incline to burn more calories.

-Having structured routines.  Having structured workout routines can limit the time you spend in the gym as well.  If you know what you are going to do in the gym beforehand, you wont spend more time in the gym trying to figure out what you want to do next.  Having structured routines also give you the ability to superset exercises or to perform circuit workouts.  By supersetting exercises of the opposite muscle group, you are able to work one muscle group while the other rests and go directly into working the other muscle group while the previously worked muscle rests.  You are able to do two exercises at one time and you are still able to get the required 60-90 second rest between sets.  Circuit workouts are great because they are good for endurance training due to the fact that they limit the amount of rest and keeps your heart rate high for the majority of the workout.  Circuit workouts are intended to be performed at high intensities and therefore require less time to burn more calories.