Time constraints for the ordinary person in today's fast living world often leaves little time for exercise.   A common perception is that in order to be fit and healthy you have to spend hours in the gym.   There is a way to make the most of what little time you have and profit in health, fitness and maximize the benefits of shaping the body all at the same time.

This approach consists of just two exercises for each workout and involves exercises that will train the core and challenge the nervous system and elevate the metabolism as well as adding lean muscle mass when the resistance is sufficient enough.

The method of the following workout requires a warm up of about 5 minutes followed by gentle stretches for the tightest muscles in the body.   These are commonly leg and chest stretches, a shoulder girdle warm-up with light dumbbells is done after that with two rounds of ten reps of side raises, bicep curls and shoulder presses on each exercise, this should be enough to get the body ready for the workout ahead.

The aim of the workout is to do 10-12 reps on both exercises straight after each other followed by a rest of no more than 60 seconds.   The plan is to strive for as many rounds as possible in 15 minutes without breaking form and dropping below 8 reps, the same resistance is used on all the sets for the workout, a weight that allows you to perform 12 reps on the first exercise is needed, if you can only manage 2 or 3 rounds before dropping below 8 reps stop the workout and continue to progress the next time with a little less weight.   For intermediates and advanced trainers a 10-20-rep window maybe preferred.

The following workout is for the Chest & Core

Before you begin a warm up set for the first exercise is recommended, this should be around 50% of the working weight.   Strong individuals using heavy weights should do a staggered warm up.      

Swiss Ball Dumbbell Fly

Place the head and shoulders on a Swiss Ball, look up to the ceiling keeping the chin up so the neck stays in a neutral position.   Place the feet apart for a good base of support and bring the belly button towards the spine and hold it there to keep the core muscles activated throughout the set.   Starting with the dumbbells above the chest, slowly allow both arms to slightly bend and lower to roughly shoulder height or when you reach a position where you feel a stretch in the chest muscles.   Once they have reached this point return to the start position in a smooth tempo.   Keep the dumbbells above the chest and not the head in the start position and maintain a straight body on the ball throughout the set by keeping the hips held high.  

Push Jack Knife

Begin with your feet on top of the Swiss Ball and hands on the floor in a push up position, holding a neutral spine and with the head in line with the spine begin to extend the arms pushing the body away from the floor keeping the tummy drawn in at all times.   When the arms are fully extended smoothly flex the hips until the thighs are vertical making sure not to round the back then immediately return the legs to the straight position as smoothly as possible.       Bend the elbows and drop into the push up starting position and continue the set.   There shouldn't be any breaks in the tempo and each rep should be moderate in speed.   Beginners can place more shins on the ball.  

A typical workout may look like this

The way forward

The options to progress on this way of training would be to either lower the rest time in between rounds enabling you to achieve more rounds in the 15 minute window or to increase the resistance so the desired reps are challenging to reach on every round, that way the reps will probably end up descending on every round like the example shown above placing more stress on the muscular system and stimulating a toning response.   Going one step further would be to slow the tempo down so the time under tension increases two fold but volume halves, for example the chest fly tempo could be 3 seconds lifting and 3 seconds lowering, the push jack knife tempo may be performed with a 3 seconds lowering into the press up and 3 seconds pressing and 3 seconds each way for the jack knife movement.   Let your own body be the judge in telling you which way works best for your body.   Part 2 will cover a big workout in 15 minutes for the legs with a few surprises thrown in for good measure.