Quick Workouts at Home or Work – Anywhere, Anytime

You can stay fit and lose weight in just a few minutes per day. Quick workouts at home or at work, indoors or outside, can do more for your health, fitness, mindset and weight loss than an hour at the gym per day.

If you love the gym, awesome! Keep at it. If you’d like to save time and money, then consider making quick workouts at home or work a part of your daily routine.

We LOVE home workouts! In fact, we’ve been so busy over the past year that we cancelled our gym membership in favor of home fitness for now, and are loving it. Our favorite home workouts are outdoors and also biking the hills in our small wooded neighborhood.

Fresh air outdoor workouts are fantastic for your health and state of mind, so if you can get outside to exercise and walk, please do!

Exercise Less – Move More

Studies show that being active throughout the day is healthier than an hour of exercise at the gym. Further, that 30 minutes of exercise is more effective at weight loss and body composition than 60 minutes.^[1]https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/08/study-for-body-fat-30-minutes-of-exercise-as-good-as-60/261559/^[2]https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpregu.00141.2012

if you’re sitting the rest of the day, that one hour at the gym is great. However, more movement throughout the day coupled with shorter exercise sessions is the sweet spot for health and fat loss.

That’s all well and good but what if your day job requires you to sit for eight hours? Well, ours do too, and we have some simple solutions that are fast and fun to implement.

Brawn Breaks Throughout the Day

At our home and office, we’re calling these “Brawn Breaks”. I track my daily work through Toggl, an indispensable free tool that helps keep me accountable for my time. Time tracking is a lot like food diaries; if you know you have to write it down it makes you think twice before taking that bite.

Same with time tracking. It helps you think twice before deciding to click—or not—on that scrumptious food photo you don’t need to think about, or hop over to see what’s up on Instagram. Instead of falling down some social rabbit hole, consider jumping up—literally and figuratively—for a 1-3 minute Brawn Break.

Exercise Throughout the Day

Short burst of exercise can awaken and invigorate you by getting your circulatory system flowing. Just 3-5 minutes is great, but even one minute can make a difference.

You can do these Brawn Breaks anytime throughout the day. Some people set Pomodoro Technique of setting a timer at predetermined work intervals. This super simple process has many benefits.

Benefits of Time Tracking and Quick Workouts

1. Increases focus by setting reasonable time constraints for getting work done.
2. Provides balance in the day by requiring you to get up and be active.
3. Reduces appetite and unhealthy snacking inclinations

Gamify Time Tracking

You can make time tracking fun by gaming it to set micro goals of how much you can get done in the time set before you take a quick exercise break. Smartphones that have alarms make it easy to set reminders, or you get download a pomodoro app to make it even easier.

TIME TRACKING METHODS – Timing varies by individual preference. We’ve heard folks setting their focus times for anywhere from 30-90 minute increments. The average focus stint is 60 minutes.

Imagine, in your eight hour workday, taking 3 minutes to exercise at the end of each productive work hour. That’s 8 hours x 3 minutes = 24 minutes of exercise by day’s end. If you do this you will find that you get more done and stay more energized throughout the day.

If you’re like most who try this, you will also find that you’re less inclined to snack on junk food. Not only that but you’ll also end up with more energy, and by week’s end, measurable fat loss.

Speaking of measurable fat loss, did you know that your weight is not as important as your body composition? But we don’t mean BMI, (body mass index). In fact, that’s the least relevant metric, which we discuss in this article on BMI and BAI. metric.

For a true picture of weight loss, it’s more important to track body fat and muscle tone with a digital body fat calculator than just weight.
~MyTrainerFitness.com

Shorter Workouts Suppress Appetite

Another benefit of short exercise breaks is that they help to curb your appetite. Longer exercise, such as 60 minutes at the gym can actually stimulate your appetite and cause you to eat more. Whereas short exercise breaks reduce appetite and do not stimulate the hunger hormone, ghrelin.

Quick Workouts for at Home

These quick home workouts are an intermediate level.

However, most all workouts anywhere can be stepped down or stepped up to serve beginner and advanced level exercisers equally.

We have tips at the end of these workouts to explain simple ways to modify these to suit any fitness level. You can easily increase or decrease the exercise difficulty to best serve you. Look for How to Modify Workout Difficulty.

My Trainer Fitness for at Home Workouts:

Each 6 pack contains 6 workout cards with a circuit on each side. Options for using these workout cards:

• 30 MINUTE WORKOUTS: Use the entire card, front and and back, for one ~30 minute session
• 15 MINUTE WORKOUTS: Use one side of a card each day for 12, ~15 minute workouts.
  • Go through the front side (we’re calling it side A here) of each card over 6 days. Take a day off, then go through the other side. You can apply more intensity in shorter workouts for better results in less time.
• 3, 5 MINUTE FITNESS BREAKS: Take one circuit, go through it once,
• 3 different times in the day for (that’s just one set and should take 1-5 minutes each set.
• 1 MINUTE FITNESS BREAK: Take the first exercise and do it during a stand-up break.
• Then do the next exercise in that circuit again on the next break. until you’ve gone through all exercises in one circuit 3x each during the day.

Day 1, Side A – Lower Body & Cardio

Day 1, Side B – Lower Body & Cardio

My Trainer Fitness for At Home Workouts 6 pack on Amazon, or, you can download this free workout PDF here.

My Trainer Fitness 100 Calorie Workouts

Each 6 pack contains 6 workout cards with a circuit on each side. Options for using these workout cards:

• 30 MINUTE WORKOUTS: Use the entire card, front and and back, for one ~30 minute session
• 15 MINUTE WORKOUTS: Use one side of a card each day for 12, ~15 minute workouts.
  • Go through the front side (we’re calling it side A here) of each card over 6 days. Take a day off, then go through the other side. You can apply more intensity in shorter workouts for better results in less time.
• 3, 5 MINUTE FITNESS BREAKS: Take one circuit, go through it once,
• 3 different times in the day for (that’s just one set and should take 1-5 minutes each set.
• 1 MINUTE FITNESS BREAK: Take the first exercise and do it during a stand-up break.
• Then do the next exercise in that circuit again on the next break. until you’ve gone through all exercises in one circuit 3x each during the day.

Day 2, Side A – Upper Body & Cardio

Day 2, Side B – Upper Body & Cardio

My Trainer Fitness 100 Calorie workouts 6 pack on Amazon, or, you can download this free workout PDF here.

My Trainer Fitness for Outdoor Workouts

While these workouts were designed for outdoors by virtue of providing cardio sprints that aren’t just “in place”, cardio exercises, they can be done indoors as well with slight modifications.

Each 6 pack contains 6 workout cards with a circuit on each side. Options for using these workout cards:

• 30 MINUTE WORKOUTS: Use the entire card, front and and back, for one ~30 minute session
• 15 MINUTE WORKOUTS: Use one side of a card each day for 12, ~15 minute workouts.
  • Go through the front side (we’re calling it side A here) of each card over 6 days. Take a day off, then go through the other side. You can apply more intensity in shorter workouts for better results in less time.
• 3, 5 MINUTE FITNESS BREAKS: Take one circuit, go through it once,
• 3 different times in the day for (that’s just one set and should take 1-5 minutes each set.
• 1 MINUTE FITNESS BREAK: Take the first exercise and do it during a stand-up break.
• Then do the next exercise in that circuit again on the next break. until you’ve gone through all exercises in one circuit 3x each during the day.

Day 1, Side A – Lower Body & Cardio

Day 1, Side B – Lower Body & Cardio

My Trainer Fitness for Outdoors workouts 6 pack on Amazon, or, you can download these free workout PDFs. Side A and Side B.

My Trainer Fitness for At Work Workouts

Each 6 pack contains 6 workout cards with a circuit on each side. Options for using these workout cards:

• 30 MINUTE WORKOUTS: Use the entire card, front and and back, for one ~30 minute session
• 15 MINUTE WORKOUTS: Use one side of a card each day for 12, ~15 minute workouts.
  • Go through the front side (we’re calling it side A here) of each card over 6 days. Take a day off, then go through the other side. You can apply more intensity in shorter workouts for better results in less time.
• 3, 5 MINUTE FITNESS BREAKS:
  • Take one circuit, go through it once,
  • 3 different times in the day for (that’s just one set and should take 1-5 minutes each set.
• 1 MINUTE FITNESS BREAK:
  • Take the first exercise and do it during a stand-up break.
  • Then do the next exercise in that circuit again on the next break. until you’ve gone through all exercises in one circuit 3x each during the day.

Day 1, Side A and Day 1, Side B – Full Body & Cardio

My Trainer Fitness for At Work 6 pack on Amazon, or, you can download this free workout PDF here.

How to Modify Workout Difficulty

BEGINNERS – How to Decrease any Exercise Difficulty

• WEIGHTS – Use:
  • Lighter weights or easier bands
  • Body weight only
• DURATION – Decrease one or more of these – number of:
  • reps per set
  • sets per circuit
  • circuits per session
  • minutes per session
• MODIFY DIFFICULTY & INTENSITY – Don’t go as:
  • Intense
  • Low
  • High
  • Fast
  • Complex

ADVANCED – How to Increase any Exercise Difficulty

• WEIGHTS – Use:
  • Heavier weights or stronger bands
  • Add light weights on just body weight exercises
• DURATION – Increase one or more of these – number of:
  • reps per set
  • sets per circuit
  • circuits per session
  • minutes per session
• MODIFY DIFFICULTY & INTENSITY – Go more:
  • Intense
  • Low
  • High
  • Fast
  • Complex

How to Choose Weights for Strength Training

Choosing weights depends on the muscle or muscle group you’ll be working, the type of exercise you’ll be doing, and of course, your fitness level. Here are a couple great excerpts for the simple answer on how to choose the right weights for you.

Just be aware that most people choose a much lighter weight than is needed to stimulate muscle growth. Don’t be intimated by weights. Chances are you can lift more than you know.

You will become accustomed to telling the difference in the discomfort of muscle and mechanical failure versus the pain of potential injury. Just be safe and stop anything that feels painful.

“Choosing how much weight to lift is often based on how many reps and sets you’re doing. The general rule is to lift enough weight that you can only complete the desired number of reps. In other words, you want that last rep to be the very last rep you can do with good form.“
~VeryWellFit.com article by Paige Waehner, CPT, author

“Women lifting to increase muscle mass can use free weights between 5-8 pounds, while men can use 8-10 pound dumbbells to start.“
LiveStrong.com

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LeAura

Hello! I’m LeAura, a former homeschooling mom, fitness professional, entrepreneur, author, ideator, web publisher, and podcaster, passionate about helping others achieve their best possible life! I’m the owner of this site and a few others that I run along with my entrepreneurial family in areas that interest us, because we love to create and we love to share! If you really want to know more about me, you can check our ‘About’ page. (And while you’re there, please tell me about you)!

We haven’t created our family publishing company site yet, but as soon as we do we’ll link that here. Meanwhile, if you’re into gardening, you can see our gardening site, And, if you’re into creating anything, please visit our creators site, iCreateDaily.com.
Thanks for reading… take care and be fit!
LeAura Alderson, owner, MyTrainerFitness.com