Back in the day when I was younger and I had more time, before I had my son, I’d exercise whenever I wanted. I had total focus, nothing stopped me from a training session. If I am honest I just loved the buzz I got from it.

But once I became a father and a business owner, life became more unpredictable and one day can be completely different to the next. Your child may be ill, you may get last minute deadlines that steels your “free time” away, you may have to fill in for staff. Or if you are in someone elses employ, overtime and work pressures and stress allow you to find an excuse not to look after yourself and your exercise regime you once had goes out of the window.

But here’s the thing… You have just got to roll with the punches!

There are no rules to say you have to workout for an hour. if you only have 15 minutes, then use that 15 minutes. No matter how busy I am or you are, there will always be at least 10-20 minutes in your day to do something. So don’t use time as an excuse why you cannot, flip it and see what you can do in the time you have, not what time you don’t have.

As long as you are eager to train you will find a way.

When Life Changes You Have To Adapt

I didn’t like training much when I was younger, but I did love sports and so I was pretty Active. Then mid teens I decided I wanted to be fit and strong and so my life was spent, running, lifting weights, hitting my heavy bag and doing Martial Arts. Other than school that’s all I did and hang out with friends of course. As you can imagine, as a teenager I didn’t have the responsibilities I have now.

Even though I have now my own fitness biz, my training is recently had haphazard and not regimented as I would like despite what people think. My schedule is full on and so I have made it an art at grabbing time when I can. There is not set schedule, so I grab whatever time I can and make it work.

We all get busy, so with this in mind here are some tips and strategies that you could try to get your training done…

1. Get Something Done

I don’t buy this “I don’t have time for exercise crap”. I here it too many times and it is a poor excuse to be honest. However I am more interested in why the person says that so if I can help them fit a training session in I will. So really you have to answer the following question…

How much time do you need?

This question usually results in someone rationalising that whatever time they have its not enough, with the belief that they need more time than they can give so don’t bother. This is the not the right answer. There is no hard and fast rules about how long to train other than over training and that is subjective. The real answer lies that doing something is better than nothing. A 10 minute high intensity interval session is more than enough when time on a budget.

In fact doing shorter duration blocks of exercise throughout a day can keep your metabolism revved up for longer burning more energy at rest resulting in your body burning more fat if that is your goal.

There is no such thing as a perfect workout, just get something done. You will feel a sense of achievement and good about yourself.  So yes you have time, so get to it.

2. No Weights? Er Yes You Have…

If you feel you cannot get to a gym because travel time is a factor then bin the gym idea. Seriously, you don’t need weights to bust out a training session, you have all the equipment you need on you everyday.

Body weight training is an effective solution for you if you are time strapped. Don’t get me wrong, I love lifting weights. But they are just a tool. So when I haven’t got time I will use what is available to me and you should too.  I have been known to use body weight, a kettle bell, hell just objects lying around that would provide a challenge and get me moving and sweating.  You don’t need to drive anywhere or any equipment to perform  sets of push ups, squats, lunges  and pull ups for example.

In fact you really should start the path of mastering your own bodyweight before lifting weights. Working full body movements hits more muscles, requiring a bigger metabolic demand from the body resulting in strength and endurance.

So get used to moving your body weight around, its the perfect gym alternative because you are all you need. It doesn’t take long to bang out a body weight circuit, you recover quicker as the load is less and you can make it more intense as you see fit. It is the perfect alternative to hitting the gym and gives you no excuse.

3. Get out of Bed 10 Mins Earlier

As long as you can balance your sleep by going to bed 30 mins earlier, you can get up 30 minutes earlier thereby freeing up 30 minutes in your day to train. It really is about looking at things from a different perspective. Just so long as you are resting adequately there is really no reason why you cannot do this. Add that up over the year and that is some serious amount of time to get things done.

So if you say you are strapped for time, nail a workout before the day starts, so you feel good about getting a training session in, getting the endorphin’s flowing to attack the day and know you don’t have to try and fit something in, because you already have.

Remember though, if you don’t get a session in in the morning, there will be a 10-15 block of time you can utilise.

4. Minute Drills

If you are still stuck with what to do you can start very simply. Challenge yourself how many push ups or squats you can do in 10 minutes, utilising rest as you see fit. Then beat the amount of reps next time, If that is ok, then do a second density block of exercise. so if you did lower body such as squats in the first block, do upper body such as push ups in the second. Then see how effective body weight is.

Or do minute drills, how many reps of an exercise you can do in 1 minute. there are infinite combinations that take no time at all.

These mini workouts are perfect for people with bust lives, you can get them done in 10-15 minutes, so don’t make the excuse that you don’t have time to train.

you can use these mini workouts to perform single exercises for time or in intervals. Work specific body parts, increase your conditioning with, running, hill sprints or jumping rope or even just holding a static position for time.

You can do 1-2 of these sessions per day targeting different modalities so that your sessions are well rounded and cover all the basic human movements of push, pull, squat, lunge and rotate.

5. Compound Movements

Compound movements are when you work as many muscles as you can for a chosen lift. So out go bicep curls and dumbbell kick backs and in comes dead lifts and squats and pull ups and overhead pressing. Load up the bar on go heavy on those and you will know your work is done for the day. These will get you strong fast and cut your time to train.

To mix things up you can use alternating exercises to target upper and lower body for reps or time. Try Push ups and pull ups. kb swings and kb snatches or pull ups with burpees or Push ups with Romanian dead life. This minimises training times and increases your strength and conditioning immeasurably.

6. Combinations, Hybrids and Odd Objects

You can also use combo and hybrid exercises to make your training session more challenging and time efficient.

Combination exercises are when you use to exercise one after the other such as a dumbbell reverse lunge to step up or a push up to Dumbbell renegade row.

Hybrid Exercises are when 2 exercises “flow” into one another such as a dumbbell squat to press where you use the power of your legs from a squat position to drive the dumbbells over your head.

Odd objects can be pressing a sandbag overhead for reps then dropping it into a zercher squat or sandbag shouldering for reps then lunging with the  sandbag or carrying it for time or distance.

Repeat these for a few sets and all of these exercises would bring you to your knees quickly.

7. Time to Splurge

Even though you are busy, still set time once or twice a week when you can plan in a longer session and get it done. Early morning on a weekend is perfect for this. Shorter time efficient workouts are great, but sometimes its good to have a longer session to really push yourself without fear of running out of time.

If demands on your time is high, then performing a series of mini workouts with 1 or 2 longer workouts should be more than enough for you.

Final Thoughts

There are many many options you can try, it simply comes down to this. you either make an excuse why you cannot train, or you decide that you can spare 10-15 minutes a day to get something done. There s always a way and working long hours or being very busy is not an excuse.

It is entirely possible to be busy and still keep yourself fit and healthy. If I can do it then so can you.

If you want to change, if you want to become a better version of yourself then you will find a way to do it.

Let me know how you have overcome a busy, hectic life and still managed to look after yourself. I would love to hear from you.

to your strength and Health

Dean