The Workout Solution for Not Having Time

A Better Use of Time
By Shawna Kaminski

It’s really one of the only commodity that’s irreplaceable, right?

lack of timeWhen you’re young, time stretches on forever. Waiting for a birthday or Christmas or anything special takes eons. My good old Granny always told me that the older you get, the faster time goes. I clearly must be getting old because I know what she means now. Time passes so fast my head spins sometimes. That’s what you get for being over a half century I guess.

Since ‘time’ is limited, I want to make the most of it. I want to ‘spend’ it doing the things I like or at the very least, I want to do things that will give me the results I want. For example, even though I’m not a big fan of cooking, I still spend time cooking nutritious food instead of eating fast food that will make me unhealthy and fat. (I won’t discuss my horrible attempts at cooking healthy food, that’s a story for another day, let’s just say, my cooking attempts hit the mark nutrition-wise, but maybe not taste-wise.)

Now, on the topic of health, it’s lucky for me that I love doing things like burpees and jump rope, pull ups, push ups, lifting things up and putting things down. I really love to train, but even so, I don’t want to spend more time than necessary training to get the results I want. Besides, even if I had all day, long workouts would likely do more harm than good. Science points to short intense workouts as being more effective for fat burning and I can avoid overuse injuries with short workouts.

One of my favorite and most time efficient ways to train is to use ‘complexes’.

Complexes are a great way to boost metabolism, build muscle and burn fat. They build power, strength, muscular endurance and burn fat without having to ‘put in the time’ doing long, slow boring (and inefficient) cardio.

Your time invested comes back triple fold and that means big results. Talk about ‘bang for your buck’.

If you’re unfamiliar with what a ‘complex’ is, let me explain. You can use a set of DB’s, a barbell or even a KB to string a number of exercises together to work the entire body in a short time. Sounds easy right?

Well, the principle is easy, but there are seven ‘rules’ to follow when creating a complex. Don’t go wrong in your complex creation or it may be like one of my epic fail dinners – just bad news.

Here are my top complex building tips:

Tough stuff first

Place technically difficult moves at the beginning.

Take turns

Alternate upper and lower body exercises so that half the body ‘rests’ while the other half of the body works.

Get a Grip 

You’ll need to limit total upper body complexes because typically grip strength will be the limiting factor. You’ll reduce injury when you stick to lower body and full body complex moves.

Like Poetry

Flow is really important. There should be minimal time spent changing movements since they should flow from one to the next.

Don’t Stop

The beauty of the complex is that if you create it properly, you won’t have to stop to load or unload weights.

Form. FORM. FORM!

Oh, did I mention form? Keep all the movements clean.

Load It Up

Rather than increasing SPEED in a complex workout, your goal should be to increase LOAD. To get results in record time, push the weight, but keep your form impeccable.

Now, what does a complex look like? I’m glad you asked 😉

This is a fun complex workout that you can do with a barbell, a set of dumb bells or even a kettlebell. In fact, I dare you to do the same workout with each implement (BB, DB, KB) and it will feel different each time.

Here’s the workout:

Start with a full body dynamic warm up.

Then do:

  • Romanian deadlift
  • High pull
  • Front squat push press (goblet squat press with KB)
  • Bent over row (do single arm row with KB if you only have one KB)
  • Weighted burpee with push up (burpee on the floor when using KB)

Do 30 seconds of work with 5 seconds of transition.

Rest as needed between rounds.

Do up to 6 rounds.

Now, you can shake this up by doing 7 reps of each exercise for 3-4 rounds.

Or as mentioned, you could do three rounds of 7 reps using a  BB, DB’s, and finally a KB for each round.

That’s three variations of the same workout, just by changing the tool, time and rep scheme. Pretty cool right? And you can get it all done in less than 25 minutes.

Complexes are a great way to work your entire body, burn fat and build muscle all in record time so that you can spend the rest of your day doing other fun stuff.

Maybe I should take a cooking class in all the time I save 😉

If you’d like to have safe and effective complexes laid out for you and have a video tutorial of each, then you’ll love my Challenge Complexes program. I’ll walk you through 27 dumb bell and barbell challenge complex workouts. You can use these workouts a stand alone program, or pull one out on the days when you want something quick to hit your entire body. You’ll also get eight video KB complexes that are a super fun way to change things up.

Good sweaty fun. Fast results in record time. What will YOU do in all the time you save?

Next => Click here to get 27 Short and Sweet Complexes

Leave A Reply (3 comments so far)


  1. Ron Drogy
    9 years ago

    Folks,
    For once I would like to see a program designed for people over 60, who are somewhat athletic and in fairly good physical condition, that is doable but challenging. Everything I find is aimed at younger people already in good athletic shape. I have tried MetRx 180 for its 90 day program, which started out okay, except for the cardio stuff–much too hard. Got decent results; lost about 10 pounds and my blood pressure dropped back into the healthy range, but didn’t gain much strength and didn’t see much change in my physique. That was last year. Now I starting week 8 of the nine week program in the book, FIRE YOUR GYM, by Andy Petranek, who started Cross Fit/ L. A.. It starts out reasonable but ramps up to almost impossible by week 7. Example: today’s workout: 40 burpees, 30 v ups, 20 pull ups, 10 thrusters, and a quarter mile “sprint.” Followed by the first four exercises in reverse order. I had to modify everything and it took me about 75 minutes. I am getting some strength results, changing some flab to muscle, but I have to modify almost everything to make it possible to follow the program. Can you recommend, or design, I challenging but doable program for a senior athlete? I am 66 but I’m in excellent shape for my age with no physical limitations. Five foot, nine inches, 173 pounds (want to get down to around 160, and still participating in some basketball and soccer, when I can find the right league to play in. Usually I am the only one doing what I am doing for people my age, but I love a challenge and intend to keep playing sports for as long as physically possible.
    Thanks,
    RFD


  2. Shawna K
    9 years ago

    Ron, I have several customers that are well over 60. A great way to do complexes is with a broom stick. Complexes are a brilliant way to maintain and increase strength and mobility and a broom stick is safe and effective. You can always work up to a lightly loaded bar from there. Just a suggestion. I’m really impressed that you keep pushing, never sit down 😉