Ah that old chestnut… “I just don’t have time to train”. As busy people we often find ourselves with little time to train and by that I mean train hard, not just a 20 minute walk on the treadmill…It’s easy to take your foot off the pedal when your work life is hectic, so here’s how to maximise your training for fat loss and realise that there is always time, even if its just 30 minutes.

Step 1: Keep your goal in mind.

What is the reason behind being in the gym? Fat Loss. By keeping the training goal clear, your efforts can now be completely directed towards achieving that and that alone. Anything more and you’re going to be stretching it for time. In losing body fat you are going to have to make some changes and an effective resistance training session 2-4 x per week is a great place to start.

Step 2: Warmup on the way

This is where you can really start to get maximising your time in the gym. (Of course if you are having to drive straight to work in the morning or you are driving straight to the gym after work then this may not apply). Walk, Jog, Cycle to the gym instead of taking the car. Raise your heart rate and get your muscles warmed up before you’re even in the gym. Sling your gear in the lockers, get some dynamic stretches done and get cracking.

Step 3: Putting together a great utility warmup once in the gym

What have you been doing all day? What feels tight? What are you going to be working? Full body warmups using the RAMP principle should do the trick.

Raise your pulse: If you’ve not done this already, perform warmup drills for timed intervals

Activate: Which movements will you be doing in the workout? The warmup should mimic these in some fashion

Mobilise: Work into a full range of motion at the joints you will be using, if necessary with assistance like holding onto a rack or using a band to hold on to

Prime: Get the muscles that you’ll be using fired up and ready to go

Try this for a full body RAMP warmup:

	EXERCISE	REPETITIONS
1	Cat and Camels	60s
2	Shrimp Rolls	60s
3	Glute Bridge and Reach	60s
4	Spidermans	60s
5	Reverse Lunge and Reach	60s
6	Reverse Lunge and Twist	60s
7	Deep Squat/Deep Squat Walkdowns	60s
8	Inchworms	60s

Step 4: Intent and Priority

“The main thing, is to keep the main thing the main thing”- Dan John.  How long do you have? Partition your time into blocks and assign each block to your priorities in your workout. Short time-frames are by no means perfect, but being smart and strict with your time in the gym will help to keep the intensity up and your focus clear. There’s no room for slacking in these time blocks. You must attack them with everything you’ve got. If you’ve only got 20 minutes, it needs to be 20 minutes of focused, intentional work. That doesn’t mean you need to smash yourself every time your in. If you train your full body every session and have a recovery session in there to stretch and mobilise…then stretch and mobilise for the session, don’t sit around texting.

Step 5: The session itself

By this point you might be asking, what should my session look like? I’ll give you an easy to follow template to work from. Think of it like the gym based version of ‘Jamie’s 30 minute meals’.

Full Body Fat Loss:

5 mins RAMP warmup (See Step 3)

	EXERCISE	REPETITIONS	REST
1	Kettle/Dumbell SLDL	30s	10s
2	Kettle/Dumbell Overhead Press	30s	10s
3	Kettle/Dumbell Goblet Squat	30s	10s
4	Kettle/Dumbell Bent Over Row	30s	10s
5	Kettle/Dumbell Farmers Carry	30s	10s
6	Kettle/Dumbell Swing	30s	60-90s

When time is of the essence, you need to be clear with your intentions, plan ahead and train with focus. 30 minutes might not be long but you can still get the work done. So stick your headphones in, put your phone on aeroplane mode and train with intent.

Feel like your not making the most of training and nutrition? I currently have space to take on 1 more client training on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, drop us a line below to begin maximising your efforts.

RAMP WARM-UP VIDEOS

Cat and Camels

Shrimp Rolls

Glute Bridge and Reach

Spidermans

Reverse Lunge and Reach

Reverse Lunge and Twist

Deep Squat

Inchworms

 

WORKOUT VIDEOS

Goblet Squat

OHP

Bent Over Row

Dumbbell Deadlift

Farmers Walk

Swing