TIME-SAVING EXERCISE TIPS

By Rich Gomes

College students constantly complain that they don't have enough time during the day. As the semester gets well underway, prioritizing obligations is a must and for many people the first thing out the window is one of the best things for you: exercise.

Being active, no matter how you prefer to do it, has countless health benefits. You don't have to be a great athlete or a muscle-head and you don't have to spend hours in the gym to make positive changes.

There are simple changes anyone can make to fit in some quality exercise time around a busy schedule, whether your goals are to maintain weight, lose weight or build muscle.

Still early into the new year, there will be times when the gym is packed with people who have discovered a newfound will to workout. For some, a crowded gym can be as frustrating and intimidating as a quantum physics exam. But if you look at the horde of gym-goers, you might notice a lot of standing around, which doesn't burn many calories.

Going to the gym doesn't have to be a time-consuming event, said Dennis Dewane, the head trainer of Personal Fitness, Inc. in downtown Syracuse.

"One of the most common things I see in a gym is that rest periods between exercise sets are way too long," Dewane said.

Dewane suggests rests of only 30-45 seconds between sets, whether you are doing cardiovascular exercises or using weights.

If you run on a treadmill for 10 minutes and go right to an ellipse machine, you may be tired, but you don't have start the ellipse machine at a high speed. The same holds true for strength training. If you do three sets for four exercises and you rest just 30 seconds between sets, you can save 20 minutes or more on your workout. It depends on how long you stand around looking in the mirror.

When your time is limited or you just want to make working out a get in, get out and get-on-with-it affair, it's important to think quality over quantity, said Ken Alan, a Los Angeles personal trainer who has worked with celebrities like Sylvester Stallone.

"Increasing the intensity is key to keeping your fitness level up during busy times," said Alan in January’s Men's Fitness magazine.

"By pushing yourself just a bit harder, you can improve your aerobic capacity and keep the same caloric burn at the same level as longer duration workouts."

One way to cut cardio time in half on a treadmill is to warm up with a light jog instead of a walk. Also, if you raise the incline between four and 10 percent for your usual speed, you can get the same workout in a considerably shorter time.

Interval training is another way to get you in and out of the sweatbox in a hurry. Whether on a treadmill, bike, or ellipse machine, you can try going for a normal rate, then pushing yourself hard (run faster or raise the resistance) for a minute and return to a comfortable rate for another minute before repeating the process. This method burns more calories and is less exhausting than trying to go hard for a sustained period of time.

Not a big cardio person? Resistance training (lifting weights) can get the heart pumping and build muscle on a limited schedule as well.

Dewane suggests doing super-sets — two to three exercises in a row, with minimal to no rest in between sets. For example, if you want to cram a leg workout in, you can do some squats, leg extensions and leg curls, one right after another. This not only strengthens those body parts, but also makes for a good aerobic workout.

By choosing three favorite exercises for the muscle group you want to work and doing them in a super-set, it makes things more efficient and fun, Dewane said.

"Ideally, you can hit the major muscle groups of the entire body in half an hour," Dewane said. "The idea is to keep your heart rate up near 75 percent of your maximum heart rate."

Getting to the gym is the hardest part for many time-crunched people, even professional athletes. When Michael Jordan began his training regimen to get back in shape for this NBA season, he pulled off nauseating 6-hour stints at the gym. The only thing he did was play basketball. He told reporters that he wasn't much of a treadmill person, noting that he lacked the motivation for it.

If, arguably, the most famous athlete in the history of sport lacks the motivation to get on a treadmill, there must be no hope for the rest of us.

Not necessarily, said Bob Cooper, a freelance fitness writer and regular contributor to Men's Fitness magazine.

"The important thing is to do the form of exercise that you get the most enjoyment doing," Cooper said. "It isn't an immutable law of fitness that you've got to spend 30 to 40 minutes walking, running, stepping, lifting, or pedaling at a steady, moderate pace."

If you're more goal-oriented, then playing a recreational sport may be the right thing for you. Playing on an organized set-up like intramurals or weekly pick-up games allows for more organization with set times and schedules, so they're typically easier to squeeze in.

There's an old saying for medical students that goes:

"When you tell yourself you don't have enough time, know that God is the only one that uses 24 hours in a day."