Like many of you reading this, I often find myself balancing many things all at once. This delicate balance between work, a social life and home life sometimes leaves me with very limited time to fit in eating healthy or exercising. Since I don’t have the kind of time to devote more than 40 minutes a day at the gym, I have been able to figure out a weekly schedule that gets me the best results in the least amount of time. Now, I will say before I divulge, you can follow this workout schedule until you are blue in the face and see zero results. To get the maximum results from an exercise regimen, you have to eat cleanly and watch what you eat. I have previous posts on healthy eating tips, so click here or here for more food related information.
I aim to exercise 5-6 days a week. The schedule I am about to lay out is based on working out 6 days a week. A lot of my daily exercise activity depends on the weather and my energy level. If it is warm out I will swap an indoor cardio workout for a run outside or a rollerblading session at the park. Use your best judgment, but make sure your cardio gets your heart rate up to a point where it is difficult to keep a normal conversation. If I am stuck at work late during the week and have to skip the gym, I’ll make sure I make up the day over the weekend or add ten extra minutes of cardio for the next few days.
Other than a clean diet, to tone your body you need to add strength training to your workout routine. As you can see below, I go between cardio days and strength training days. My favorite and most effective way to do strength training is to workout with my Nike Training Club app on my iPhone. You can select from a variety of workouts to tone your bod and the app tells you what to do in real time! The more workouts you do, the more workouts you unlock! I even unlocked an amazing kettle bell routine through the app, which absolutely changed my life! Another great source for strength training workouts is the on YouTube. Celebrity trainers and fitness personalities have put together workouts specifically for Livestrong, so they are well filmed and challenging at the same time.
So without further ado, here is my typical weekly schedule!
Monday: 40 minutes of cardio
Tuesday: 40 minutes of kettle bells
Wednesday: 40 minutes of cardio, 15 min abs
Thursday: 40 minutes of circuit training with weights
Friday: 40 min cardio
Saturday: 40 min of kettle bells, 20 min cardio and stretching
Sunday: Rest day!
By following this routine, eating cleanly and challenging your strength, you can expect to tone up and slim down! Don’t forget that it’s OK to treat yourself as you make progress. Schedule a mani/pedi or a well deserved blow out when you hit your goals!
By
