Let’s face it, not all of us are gym junkies. Even ‘I’ who loves the gym (most of the time) and have been a personal trainer for over 10 years like to have time to pursue other hobbies and interests as well as spending time with friends & family.

Life is all about ‘balance’. I don’t know about you but I find achieving ‘balance’ in my life across all areas really hard. It’s something I personally need to constantly check in on.

In relation to training, you can use certain tricks to be more time efficient and yet NOT compromise on results. Some of these are obvious but we all need to be reminded of them. I use them too. In fact, I am currently using super setting (trick 3).

The reason I tell you this is I want to re-assure you guys I don’t give you fluffy info to fill a blog post, but solid data that’s proven, research based, practical and I use it too. So let’s get onto my tricks to save you time in the gym.

Trick 1 – Fewer Exercises

Ever heard of the saying ‘less is more’? Well, longer workouts does not equate to better results. In fact quite the opposite and often leads to injuries and over training. You simply want to maximise your ‘bang for your buck’. And that means good programme design and exercise selection.

Now unfortunately, I don’t have the time here to go into programme design but a great personal trainer will be worth their weight in gold on this point. Alternatively, read up on it and do your research if you can’t afford this. Also, many of my points below will be relevant so keep reading !

Trick 2 – Choose Compound Exercises

The characteristics of a compound exercise are simply that they will utilise more than one joint and more than one muscle. Therefore, the more muscles you recruit the more energy you expend.

A great example of a compound exercise is the squat, which engages many muscles in the lower body and core, including the quads, the hams, calves, glutes, and the lower back. Others compound movements include: lunge, deadlift, shoulder press etc

The benefits of compound exercises are many:

1. more calories burned during exercise
2. simulates real day to day activities so very functional
3. allows you to get a full body workout faster
4. improves joint stability and improves muscle balance across a joint
5. decreases the risk of injury
6. provides cardiovascular benefits as your heart rate will be raised
7. allows you to lift heavier loads and build more strength

Trick 3 – Use Supersets & Circuits

Research has shown that this will dramatically cut your workout time and get more results. So choose 2 non competing exercises, pair them back to back as a superset with minimal rest e.g.  pull ups with chest press, bicep curls with skull crushers and so on.

Trick 4 – Use Dumbbell & Bodyweight Workouts

Busy gyms frustrate me. A trick you can use is to design your programme around a set of dumbbells and your bodyweight. I call this a ‘DB–BW workout’. No more moving around the gym floor and searching for a free machine. Just choose your spot and stay putt !

Trick 5 – Interval Training

By using interval training, you’ll slash a lot of time off and get way better results than with steady state cardio. If you want to find out more, check out my ‘TRUTH About Cardio’ video – part one of my new, FREE, three-part series – where I debunk some of the myths about cardio and reveal why, to burn fat and get results, you really don’t need to pound the treadmill for hours.

Trick 6 – Use Bodyweight

With bodyweight exercises you strip out the need for a gym at all ! So no commuting time plus more money in the bank. And for those of you who are sceptical that this could not work you hard enough – trust me you need to train with me because I will have you begging for a rest.

Trick 7 – Use Downtime Between Sets  

You’ll save a little time here but it all adds up ! We all know how important it is to stretch. There’s no reason to sit around between sets. So maybe do some stretches to lengthen and open up.

You could consider doing abs in between sets. Although, bare in mind this does depend on your goals and priorities. For example, I would never do abs in between heavy squatting. My priority is to build my legs up so I want to maximise the load lifted. And so, I need my core to be ‘fresh’ not ‘tired’… not to mention I need to protect my back !

Trick 8 – Cut Time Spent On Arms & Abs

I’m not saying to never do arm and ab exercises, after all, everyone wants to have a nice set of guns and a washboard stomach but they are alot smaller in size than other parts of the body.

Therefore they need less time !  Just limit it to a few sets.

I hope that’s helped and that you’ll now be working towards getting even better results, faster.