The 30 Minute Solution

Many of us are stuck on the one-hour-or-nothing principle for our workouts. It is the go-to, best seller for fitness scheduling. Which is all fine and well when you have lots of time, your motivation is high (think January resolutions) and barriers are low. But as soon as regular life creeps in and other priorities rear the heads, fitness is tossed on the back burner. Or worse, right off the range. Busy schedules can easily swallow up that one hour window you thought you had. The meetings go longer. The traffic is brutal. The ferry runs late. Now you only have 30 minutes. Or less. So why bother – right?

It is absolutely worth the bother. A quick, focused 30 minute workout is just what your body, mind and spirit have ordered. Try fitting this in 3 times a week to build the habit. Once this flow is feeling like a groove, see if you can build in 2 more 30 minute stints during the week. That’s a total of 150 minutes of exercise – the minimum required for your beautiful vessel to maintain health.

mix and match these three great combos:

1) legs (squats, hamstring work, balance), followed core (ie plank variations) and stretching

2) upper body (chest press, seated row, triceps), followed by core (bridging variations, superman variations) and stretching

3) core variations only and stretching.

With each combo, shoot for 2 or 3 sets each of 4 different exercises, finish with 5 minutes of stretching and voila!

The key? Trust that shorter routines done regularly work. And know that less done more often is so much better than more done rarely.