What Can You Do in an Hour?

Squeezing the gym into my life is not what it used to be. Some gym days, especially on the weekend, I can take a little more time but more often than not I have to get in and out in an hour. In the past I thought I had to do 45 minutes of cardio for it to even "count". Ha! Those days are over. So, what do I do when I have an hour? Well, the breakdown is roughly 25-30 minutes of cardio, 20-25 minutes of weight training and 5-10 minutes of stretching. Today I did the following:

30 minutes: Cardio, today was Couch to 5k (Week 1, Day 5)

I use Robert Ullrey's podcast

20 minutes: Weight training, today was Back and Biceps

2 sets of 10-12 bicep curls while standing on the bosu
2 sets of 8 back extensions
2 sets of 10 lat pulldowns
2 sets of 10 seated rows
Core:
2 sets of 35 second planks
2 sets of 10 incline seated knee lifts
1 set of captains chair straight leg lifts

10 minutes: Stretching

Stretching is really important to me. I notice a big difference in feeling stiff and tight when I don't stretch and I think as I age flexibility (and balance) will become more and more important.

There you have it, an hour at the gym. One thing to note is that when I'm doing weight training I will often squeeze a set of ab work (plank, knee raises, etc) between sets of another exercise for efficiency's sake. I rarely do them back to back on their own. By the time I finish all my non-ab work I've usually squeezed all the ab work in already. And stretching, it's very tempting to cut stretching when you're pressed for time but I really feel like that's a mistake.

As far as calories go I wear my heart rate monitor during my time at the gym and that usually tells me I've burned 400-475 calories in that hour. Not bad! I talk to women that think they should just do tons of cardio and burn tons of calories to lose weight. Not weight training is a major loss. I think of cardio as an investment in your weight loss for the time you are doing it and for a couple hours after but weight training is an investment in your weight loss 24 hours a day. I think more women need to know about the relationship between increased muscle mass and increased calorie burning - even while you sleep! And the idea that we are going to get "muscular" or bigger because of larger muscle mass scares some women too. It's too bad because I am convinced that weight training was what finally led me to be able to lose weight without doing an hour+ of cardio 6 days a week!

So back to the time issue - the main difference in my routine when I have more time is that I do 3 sets of everything, I probably rest a tad longer between sets, I might throw in an extra exercise or two (maybe 15 extra cardio minutes on another machine and a different weight training thing that I don't normally do), and I spend more time stretching. But honestly, that hour feels like enough, I don't feel like I'm missing out when I can't stay longer, which is nice.

So I went to the gym yesterday (Monday) and today (Tuesday), yay me!! Since I went on Sunday I guess I've met my goal for this week already. It doesn't much matter though, I'll get to the gym as many days as I can. I'm gonna keep stoking the fire that is my momentum!