Choose aerobic exercises that work the whole body

Whether you’re just warming up for weight training or performing a predominantly aerobic workout, choose exercises that use your upper and lower body at the same time. Rather than stationary cycling, try a rowing machine, hop on the treadmill and pump your arms, or take an aerobic dance class. Full body motion will maximize your workout intensity.

Challenge yourself with short bursts of high intensity aerobic exercise

Getting your heart rate up to 75% or more of its maximum, even if it’s just for a few minutes, is a great way to burn calories, build endurance, and improve your performance during aerobic exercise. When you’re first getting started working out with high intensity, it’s best to choose an exercise where you are unlikely to injury yourself. Stationary bikes and elliptical trainers, which minimize the impact on joints, are good options for getting started with high intensity training.

Try circuit training

Circuit training is a series of strength training exercises that work different muscle groups and may be performed with machines, free weights, or both. Work out intensely at each exercise in the circuit, then rest the muscles you worked while you rotate to the next exercise which works a different part of the body. Moving from station to station quickly will add a cardiovascular challenge to your circuit training, too!

Never wait for a machine

If you work out at a busy gym, waiting for a machine can serious eat into your workout time. Rather than losing valuable minutes in line, learn a number of alternate free weights exercises to work the same muscle group. If the machine you want is busy, you can just hop over to the free weights area and pick up a barbell or dumbbell. Varying your workout to include machines and free weights is a great way to keep your workouts challenging and to develop the stabilizer muscles that are so key to developing functional strength.

Skip the water breaks

It’s important to stay hydrated throughout your workout, but if you’re constantly taking water breaks you can lose momentum. Carry your own water bottle with you throughout your workout to minimize unnecessary breaks.

Work large muscle groups

When you’re in a time crunch, working out large muscle groups should take priority over working small muscle groups. The large chest, back, and thigh muscles are the strongest muscles in the body and burn the most calories during exercise, and strengthening them produces the best gains in posture and overall strength compared to other muscle groups.

Perform compound exercises

If you’re weight lifting, choose exercises that work multiple muscle groups with the same motion rather than exercises that isolate individual muscle groups. Example compound exercises are lunges, deadlifts, and push-ups.

Work on opposing muscle groups

Pick pairs of exercises that work opposing muscles groups (e.g. quads and hamstrings, chest and back, or inner and outer thighs) and perform alternating sets of these exercises with minimum breaks between sets. This will give you a balanced workout and help you to quickly exercise multiple muscle groups.

Break up your workout into 10-minute pieces

If your biggest challenge is finding a single chunk of time that’s big enough to perform your complete workout, break your workout into 10-minute pieces. Use resistance bands or bodyweight exercises to perform your strength training exercises during 10-minute breaks at the office, or run for 10 minutes before your morning shower. Fitting a few ten-minute standing routines or ten-minute mat exercises into your day adds up quickly.

Multitask

When all else fails and you can’t even get ten minutes away from work or chores, try incorporating exercise into otherwise sedentary activities. Maybe you can march in place or do a basic aerobic step routine on your conference calls, or perhaps you can try sitting on an exercise ball instead of a chair during work to challenge your abs. Learn to use bodyweight exercises that don’t require any equipment. Get creative!

If you’re a distance runner interested in running faster and farther, you can incorporate explosive-strength training into your workouts to improve your running economy and running power. Running economy describes how efficiently your body runs. If you improve your running economy, that means you can run farther using the same amount of energy (or less energy) than you used before. Running power is a measure of your ability to produce power when you are at close to maximum aerobic exertion.

If you’re interested in adding explosive-strength training to your workouts to improve your running performance, consider trying some of the exercises demonstrated below, or check out this list of running plyometrics exercises. Keep in mind that explosive strength training is designed for intermediate or advanced athletes and should not be attempted by those who are not conditioned for high-intensity exercise. Check with your doctor before beginning any new exercise routine.

Example Explosive Strength Exercise Regimen

This video shows two athletes performing a sequence of several explosive strength training motions using staircases and plyometrics boxes to perform various hopping exercises.

Example Bounding Exercises

There are a variety of bounding exercises that can be performed as part of an explosive strength training workout. The focus of bounding exercises is to push off explosively with one leg while driving the knee of your other leg up and forward, emphasizing the knee lift motion to attain maximum height during each bound.

The video below shows a track athlete performing one type of bounding drill:

Example Box Jump Explosive Strength Exercises

There are a variety of explosive strength exercises that can be performed with basic exercise boxes of varying heights.

A basic box jump movement is demonstrated in this video:

More advanced athletes might move on to this sort of box jump motion:

Here’s an example double-leg box jump:

And here’s a lateral double leg box jump demonstration:

Remember that the benefits of explosive-strength training aren’t limited to runners. For any sport, incorporating sport-specific explosive-strength training will help develop the maximum power you’re able to exert while performing the specific motion targeted by the exercises.