Ways to Stop Wasting Time and Start Strength Training

This post and my participation in the What’s Beautiful Campaign is sponsored by Under Armour through FitFluential. My opinions, goals and real passion for encouraging strength in other women are my own.

A lot of you ask what I do for training. Here’s a compilation I put together for the What’s Beautiful campaign of my strength training workout from this morning. I posted this on my team page {Sistas of Strength} and would love for you all to join me and post your pictures and videos of your workouts this week/weekend when you MAKE TIME, NOT EXCUSES.

Think you don’t have time? I’m giving you five ways to stop wasting time and start strength training below!

In continuing with the theme of the week {Make Time, Not Excuses} today I’m talking about some ways many of you are wasting time that could be spent moving your body and getting stronger. My last post was mom-specific with four ways to squeeze in workouts with a toddler, but this one is more for the general population. Heck, we’re all busy, not just moms with toddlers!

1. Watching television. Everyone watches TV. Okay, not everyone, but most people. I’ve never been a huge television person, but I enjoy watching a show or two at the end of the day to relax my body and mind. We recently cancelled our cable and just have Netflix and Hulu now. I love it because when we watch TV, we actually think about what we’re going to watch and sit down to enjoy it. There’s a lot less ‘background TV’ happening in our house now and I definitely waste less time getting sucked into things like HGTV.

2. Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and other social media. Look, I love social media as much as anyone, but if you’re spending hours on your phone and on the computer killing time doing who knows what, it’s time to disconnect. Put the phone away and move your body.

3. Driving. Most of us waste time driving, whether it’s sitting in traffic during rush hour or running errands one at a time instead of banging them all out in an afternoon.

I know many of you can’t avoid rush hour, but there are a few ways to cut down on wasted time. 1. Go to a gym near work before or after your workday to avoid traffic. When I worked in the corporate world I liked hitting up the gym before work to avoid morning traffic. I left my house early enough to beat the traffic and then had all evening free. 2. Ask your manager if you can change your hours earlier or later by an hour or more. You may be surprised at how much lighter traffic is at just a little different time.

For those of you who find yourself running errands all the time {pointing a finger at myself here} try to plan ahead earlier in the week and think about when you will be near the stores or places you need to go to. Make a list so you don’t forget anything and combine trips when possible. Even if you save 30 minutes a week, that’s enough time for a quick kettlebell sweat session!

4. Cleaning. I love a clean house. I used to be pretty obsessed with having a clean house actually. Since having my son I’ve lightened up a little bit about this {I had no choice!} and I clean what needs to be done and then move on with my day. Yes, there are days where you gotta do a deep clean and spend some extra time, but other times you just gotta let it go and deal with it later. Go lift something heavy instead.

5. Doing your hair. This one sounds silly, but if just two days out of the week you put your hair back or skipped washing it, you might save 20 minutes each day. Boom…40 minutes to get an extra training session in. Use those 40 minutes to strength train versus doing steady state cardio to get the most bang for your buck.