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 Legs, Core, Arms and Shoulders       

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.      

Squat, Curl to Overhead Press  

Begin the starting position standing with a good posture holding the dumbbells at the sides with the palms facing the thighs.   Take a deep diaphragmatic breath and initiate the squat by bending the hips and knees keeping the shoulder blades down and together.   Squat down as far as you can without breaking form.   Slowly rise back to the standing position breathing out slowly.   When in the standing position curl the dumbbells towards the shoulders and press above the head turning the palms forward.   Reverse the arm action until the dumbbells are by the side of your thighs.   This completes one rep.                      

Swiss Ball Hamstring Curl

Start by lying on your back on the floor with the arms at the sides with palms facing up; place the heels on top of the ball with toes pointing up.   Squeeze the glutes and draw the tummy in as you bring the hips of the floor.   Bend your knees to bring the heels towards the glutes and slowly return to the starting position.   Don't allow your hips to drop and maintain the level of your hips throughout the set.   Also keep the toes pointing up when bending the knees.  

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 squat, curl to overhead press tempo could be 3 seconds lowering and 3 seconds lifting giving around 12 seconds for a complete rep!   The Swiss ball hamstring curl tempo may be performed with a 3 seconds bending of the knee, bringing the ball towards the glutes and holding for a 3 second count and allowing 3 seconds to return to the starting position.  

Swap and change training principles as often as possible to keep the workout demanding.   Work as hard as you can on every workout to make body changes occur.