If you’re time-strapped but want to get in shape, don’t panic. You don’t need to go to the gym for an hour a day.
Jason Jackson, a high-level personal trainer at the luxury London gym Third Space, told Business Insider that focusing on what you do outside the gym might be the most important for hitting your goals.
Jackson has worked with professional athletes and the general public. He now mostly trains lawyers and bankers in London — his clients care about their health and fitness but don’t have much time, he said.
Less high-powered clients “can certainly go to the gym six times a week if they’re motivated to do so,” Jackson said. “My clients don’t have the time, they don’t have the scope for that. When it comes to their resources, time is a greater scarcity than money.”
While working hours vary, 10-12 hour days aren’t uncommon in many law firms.
For this reason, Jackson works with his clients to “make their time in the gym as effective and efficient as possible to get the greatest results with the least amount of time invested.”
The simple formula: strength training plus daily activity.
Tip 1: Full-body strength training
Use your gym time wisely, Jackson says, focusing on full-body strength training to build muscle and bone density.
Full body training is time-efficient and helps with weight loss and physique development.
Royal Navy physical trainer Paul Todd previously told Business Insider that he recommends compound exercises for the time-poor as they use several muscles at once. Examples include squats, deadlifts, and push-ups.
Experts often say that the best form of exercise is whatever you can stick to, but strength training has also been linked to a host of long-term health benefits.
This is why Jackson recommends strength training in their gym sessions and getting their cardio from an active daily life.
Tip 2: Keeping active outside the gym
Jackson encourages his clients to move as much as possible outside their training sessions. This goes especially for those with weight loss goals.
That can increase your NEAT: non-exercise activity thermogenesis, which means all the movement you do that isn’t formal exercise.
Jackson recommends trying to increase your step count. “That is a more convenient way of getting that level of activity into your lives rather than trying to get to the gym,” he said. “You have to work late, things get in the way.”
Many people overestimate how many calories they burn in their workouts and underestimate how many they burn over the rest of the day. In fact, calories burned through formal exercise only make up about 5-10% of the average person’s energy expenditure, so simply moving more is a great way to burn more calories.
“If you have a slow week or a long office day, you can make up those steps over the course of the rest of the week,” Jackson said. “Take the kids to the park, go to a museum, go shopping in Selfridges, you’re still accumulating a fair amount of steps and level of activity.”
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