The 20-Minute Workout

The 20-Minute Workout

Let’s be real. Many of us just don’t have the available time to be able to train in the gym every single day for an hour. (Actually, most of us don’t make the time, but that’s a whole different newsletter.)

It’s a lot to commit to training for a full 45-60 minutes anytime we want to get a workout in. And that’s not including the prep time, potential travel time, changes of clothes, and clean up and shower time afterwards. For a 60 minute training session we’re realistically looking at 1 hour and 15 minutes minimum, probably closer to 2 hours. That’s quite a bit of time and depending on your season of life, responsibilities, and work schedule it may just be too much to guarantee every day.

Now, let me take a quick moment to say that I am not necessarily suggesting that you workout every day. For many people, if not most, a solid, structured training session 2-3 times per week is plenty of gym work for health benefits and continued fitness progress. The caveat with that is that the days outside of the gym must not be no activity at all. That’s where the 20-Minute Workout comes in.

If it’s not the most important part of the health and fitness puzzle then one of the most important parts of developing and living a healthy lifestyle is consistency with training. Again, that doesn’t mean every day, but it does mean 2-3 days per week should be 8-12 per month and 96-144 per year and so on. Repeatedly doing the things we know benefit our health and allow us to live the lives we desire is so very essential. So, to train for 20 minutes on a busy day instead of not will almost always be better!

This leads us to the optimal versus enough problem. The question is, would we rather optimize something, in this case our fitness, or just do enough to keep making progress? This is a place where many people get stuck. They are too focused on optimizing. They are more worried about whether it’s better to workout in the morning or the evening, what the best pre-workout supplement is, whether they should eat before they workout or workout fasted, what the best shoes for deadlifting are, whether it’s better to do upper body or lower body day first, etc. Maybe more simply, those who are more focused on optimizing everything are often majoring in the minors. Therefore, they are not making the same progress at the same rate of those who do enough to get the benefits and then move on to the next important thing.

Is it better to workout in the morning or the evening? Probably the one you will do most often.

Is it better to eat before a workout or workout fasted? Whichever you feel better and perform better doing.

Is it better to have an upper body day or lower body day first? Depends on your goals and what you feel best doing.

My point is, doing something is almost always better than doing nothing! And seeking the optimal program or supplement or schedule usually just takes time and energy away from the things we know for sure are supporting your goals and helping you make positive progress.

Enter the 20-Minute Workout.

The 20-Minute Workout is a great strategy for those who have busy days, limited time, have to travel a bit to get to their gym, and want to keep ticking the boxes we know will support health and fitness over time.

Here are some things to consider when coming up with your own 20-Minute Workout:

  1. 20 minutes is a completely arbitrary amount of time. Use the time you have available whether that’s 10 minutes or 45 minutes.
  2. A huge part, maybe the most important part, of the 20-Minute Workout is keeping you on track and sticking to a routine. Making training a habit. So, it doesn’t actually matter a ton what you do. It could be 20 minutes filled with a bit of a warm up and then your favorite exercise or it could be a core circuit, a Peloton ride, or giving your kids piggyback rides around the house and doing 10 squats after each lap (brutal workout probably!).
  3. If you want to put together a well-rounded 20-Minute Workout then try to pick an exercise from each of the following categories:
    • Squat/Lunge: pretty straightforward, choose a quad/knee dominant movement (i.e. any squat, any lunge, Wall Sit, Leg Extension, etc.)
    • Hinge: a hip/glutes/hamstrings dominant movement (i.e. Deadlift, RDL, S.L. RDL, Glute Bridge, Hip Thrust, etc.)
    • Upper Push: chest/shoulders/triceps dominant movement (i.e. Push-up, Overhead Press, Bench Press, Medball Chest Pass, etc.)
    • Upper Pull: upper back/backside shoulders/biceps dominant movement (i.e. Rowing exercises, Pull-ups, Pull-downs, Bicep Curls, etc.)
    • Core Stability: movement or holds that require you to stabilize your spine (i.e. Plank, Side Plank, Hollow Hold, Anti-rotation Press, Superman, etc.)
    • Cardio/Conditioning: any dynamic movement that gets your heart rate up and gets you breathing heavier and sweating, these can double as any of the above categories also (i.e. Speed Squats, Bike, Row Machine, Running, Fast Walking, Jumping Jacks, etc.)
  4. Just do something!

So a quick recap and I’ll wrap this up. If you made it this far, thank you for reading!

The 20-Minute Workout can be a solid strategy for keeping the ball rolling with your fitness on busy days, while traveling, and when it just matters to do something. Remember, optimal can be great, but most people just need to do enough to keep making progress. Don’t major in the minors or sweat the small stuff!

If you want some 20-Minute Workout examples just email me (charlie@primefitnessclarksville.com) the equipment you have available and your goals and I’ll send you some workouts specifically for you.

 

I’m on your team!

Charlie