Carter’s favorite high-intensity exercises is a squat to an overhead dumbbell press, which involves holding dumbbells at your shoulders when you descend into the squat, then pressing the dumbbells overhead as you stand. ![]() Repeat this routine until the 20 minutes are up. Set a timer for 20 minutes and try doing 15 goblet squats, 15 kettlebell or dumbbell swings and five minutes of running on the treadmill (or around the block) at a moderate pace. You can change the body weight squats to goblet squats, holding a kettlebell or dumbbell in both hands at chest level as you squat. Howell suggested throwing them into the mix. If you have access to a dumbbell or kettlebell, Mr. Howell said, you can ramp up the intensity by trying 10 squats, 10 push-ups and a 60-second plank - repeated 10 times. You can modify the plank by putting your knees on the floor or doing a standing plank by placing your forearms on the wall. If you can’t do a push-up on the floor, do it against a countertop or a stable bench. The workout is: Five body weight squats, five push-ups and a 30-second plank - repeated six times, resting for no more than 30 seconds between rounds. Howell’s favorite full-body, no-equipment, time-efficient workouts is simple and can be scaled to any fitness level or ability. Repeat this movement about 15 times, until your body starts to feel looser, then move onto some jumping jacks and high knees, where you bring your knees up to your chest one at a time, either by marching or running in place. He likes to do the cat-cow yoga pose, where you start on all fours and arch your back and look up at the ceiling, then round your back, dropping your head between your shoulders. I just want to start moving, and I’m a big fan of raising your body temperature before a workout,” Mr. He recommended a three- to five-minute warm-up with the goal of increasing your circulation. “That means that you’re going to have to to take the warm-up seriously.” ![]() “You don’t want to spend 15 minutes warming up,” Dr. But for a 20-minute workout, your warm-up will have to be efficient. Howell said that it’s essential to start with a warm-up and end with a cool down. “I don’t need you to go faster, just don’t slow down,” Mr. While you don’t want to rush through an exercise and risk poor form, you also don’t want to stop moving and take a five-minute break in the middle of your workout. In addition to compound movements, the other secret to making a short workout effective is minimizing rest time between exercise reps and when transitioning between movements, Mr. Carter said, including a decreased heart rate (a sign of a healthy heart) and lower blood pressure. Taxing your heart like this two or three times a week can bring a host of cardiovascular benefits, Dr. Carter said, which ultimately raises your heart rate. When you use multiple muscle groups, your body shunts blood away from organs to the working muscles, Dr. If you’re short on time, “you want big movements that use big muscles,” Mr. Isolation exercises, like bicep curls or calf raises, won’t raise your heart rate as quickly as compound exercises and primarily work one muscle group at a time. Maillard Howell, head of fitness at Reebok and co-owner of Dean CrossFit in Brooklyn, said the key to getting an effective workout in a short amount of time is focusing on compound exercises.Ī compound exercise is one that uses multiple muscle groups at the same time to perform a movement - like squats, push-ups or deadlifts. How can you get an effective workout in 20 minutes? “People really can glean a lot of favorable benefits in a short amount of time,” Dr. Carter, a cardiovascular physiologist at the Indiana University Bloomington School of Public Health, said that shorter, more intense workouts are better than longer, less intense workouts at lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease and reducing overall mortality rates. Experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that most adults get 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise each week, but you can cut that in half, to 75 minutes a week, if the workout is intense.
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