There is a common challenge that all business owners face… The challenge is time.

Initially many of these people got in to business so they could eventually achieve freedom – be able to live life more on their terms and achieve financial freedom. However once in business you quickly realise that its hard to ever switch off.

There is no annual leave or paid sick days.

There is always something you could be doing.

You start working 12-14hour days.

Your nutrition becomes poor and you barely have time for your family little alone your health.

You understand that exercise is important for your long-term health but your so busy in the day to day that 5 years have passed, then 10 years and suddenly your 10-20kg heavier than you would like to be and its time to make a change.

You start working on prioritizing more of your time… but still it’s hard to make much time for exercise.

This article is for people who want to learn how to make the most of their time for exercise and still achieve maximum benefit.

It comes down to the 80/20 Pareto Principle.

In business it means 80% of a business’s income comes from 20% of a business’s product. The numbers might not be exact but the premise is that 20% of one thing can cause 80% of the outcome.

This applies hugely to exercise. What exercises or style of program that uses 20% of the time will deliver you 80% of the results?

The first key is consistency.

Without consistency you won’t get any results no matter what exercises or programs you prefer. This also means that whatever program you choose to follow, make sure it is easy to stick with even in those busy weeks! We need something you can maintain in the long term.

So What Exercises Should You Be Doing?

When short on time it is better to be training around heavier compound exercises.

Compound exercises refer to using movements that use as many muscles and joints as possible compared to isolation exercises which focus on one muscle. This means that compound exercises give you a much bigger return on investment to get more benefit in less time!

So What Exercises Would We Recommend?

A good question to ask yourself… is how do I cut it down to the raw essentials if I only train for 45mins a week (3 sessions of fifteen minutes)… what would you do?

There are many things you could choose but if you want two exercises that build full body strength and power as well as huge cardiovascular benefits the Hardstyle kettlebell Swing and Turkish Get Up are your answer.

The Hardstyle Kettlebell Swing:

• The swing is often called a “fat burning athlete builder”.

It’s a hip hinge ballistic movement which means it predominately strengthens your posterior chain (glutes, hamstrings etc).

As it’s an explosive movement it’s great to keep our muscles young, strong and powerful as we age. It’s essentially a plyometric exercise without the danger of jumping and has tremendous transfer to other explosive movements such as jumping, sprinting, punching etc.

It promotes spinal stability and the metabolic demand can be tailored based on goals targeting specific energy systems.

See below for an example of a Kettlebell Swing – Front View

See below for an example of a Kettlebell Swing – Side View

The Turkish Get Up:

• Where should we start? The Get Up is a wonderful exercise as within this one exercise you train nearly all primal movement patterns including a push, pull, hinge, and lunge that teaches full body strength like nothing else.

There is also a huge demand on the core as when tested with EMG measurement it shows peak activation of all core muscles tested.

The Get Up also promotes shoulder stability, mobility and resilience. As every muscle is loaded it also great for fat loss as so many muscles are engaged in your body throughout the movement

See below for an example of the Turkish Get Up

A Simple Protocol We Recommend For A Beginner Or Someone Getting Into Using Kettlebell Training Is:

Swings – 10 reps every minute on the minute for 10 mins

Turkish Get Up – 1 rep every minute for 10 minutes (total 5 reps either side)

The beauty of this is that it only requires one kettlebell, can be done anywhere, trains your full body including strength, power and cardiovascular system.

This session takes 20mins and we recommend aiming to complete 4-5 times a week. Still one session a week a good start and a lot better than nothing of which you can build your consistency from there.

Even as an experienced strength enthusiast this is a protocol we often revisit.

There you have it the two key exercises we highly recommend for the time poor business owner. All you have to do is make sure you schedule 20mins into your calendar and the results will take care of themselves.

If you have any questions on how to perform these exercises optimally or any other questions feel free to reach out and send us a message as we are here to help.