Fitness Resolution

It is officially Fitness February, which means it’s time to see how well I stuck to my new years resolution I made in January. My fitness goals is to spend less time at the gym. Why? I’m glad you asked!

Going to the gym is one of my absolute favorite things to do, and I have a strict daily workout schedule that I follow including a mix of strength, weights, cardio and core workouts. Every so often, I change it by taking out ones I no longer like to do and replace them with new ones that I have learned from my trainer. But, once I get in the “gym zone”, I often lose track of time while I’m there and two hours pass and I’m still there. Although that seems like a great thing, because I am working hard at the gym the whole time, it does take up a lot of the day when I would rather be doing other things. So, how can I cut down the time I spend at the gym?

My fitness resolution for 2020 is to find a way to cut my workout down to an hour to an hour and a half all while incorporating my favorite moves and 20 minutes of cardio. In order to do that successfully, I need to find ways to work more than one muscle group at once. Here’s what I have found that has worked for me and hasn’t worked for me.

In my personal experience, I have found that a mix of TRX, cable machine, and resistant bands have worked well for me because I am able to work core while working other muscle groups such as legs, arms, back and chest. HIIT has also helped shorten my need for cardio, and I can check that off of my list of workouts for that day. I use HIIT after every two strength exercises as a way to get my heart rate up.

Some exercises that I haven’t seen as much results in are cardio machines. I use them a lot, but I find that I get bored sometimes because I am not thinking about the motion I am doing. I don’t get my heart rate up to as good as it should be because I spend longer on it.

I also feel like lifting weights will only target one muscle group, which if that’s the goal of the workout, then it’s good. If I’m trying to work on multiple muscle groups, then lifting weights won’t do as much, especially if the weights are heavy.

As for how I’ve been doing on my resolution, I feel like I’ve been doing pretty good. I’ve had my workouts range from an hour to an hour and a half, like I wanted. I’ve noticed that my workouts are significantly shorter when I do my “TRX day” because my muscles fatigue and get tired faster. Once I got into routine at school, I was able to find a good time to get in a workout everyday either before or after my morning class.