With the ever-increasing pace of work and life, there are days when you just can’t carve out the usual hour of running, but you would still like not to lose the state of fitness you have acquired. The good thing is that even with little time on one’s hands, it is possible to train properly, without losing one’s condition and maintaining high motivation and personal satisfaction for achieving your goals. There are dozens of short workouts you can do, but today we look at three that last only twenty minutes and that-although they won’t take up a lot of your time-will still give you the best fitness level. In two of these, the running phase will be interspersed with free-body exercises to be performed immediately after or immediately before the run, without taking any more breaks than the exercise itself.
-
Running slow for 7 minutes – 3 repetition series: 30 seconds of reverse lunges, 30 seconds of rest, 30 seconds of squats and 30 seconds of rest – Running fast for 7 minutes.
This exercise is great for those who need to improve running technique, because it works the core and stimulates proprioception with the interlude of exercises between the two running sessions. The second running session, which is faster than the first, brings beats back up after the 30-second rest and allows for an increase in cardiac performance.
-
Running slow for 10 minutes – 3 repetition series: 30 seconds burpees, 30 seconds rest, 30 seconds plank and 30 seconds rest – Running slow for 4 minutes.
Unlike the previous exercise, in this case the work of the free-body exercises is more focused on developing the core stability, while the slow running phase that follows brings the heartbeats back to a medium-low level gradually, without making the heart-lung system suddenly detached from the effort.
-
Continuous running of 20 minutes divided into: 5 minutes of slow running – 5 minutes of fast running – 5 minutes of running to the best of one’s ability – 5 minutes of slow running.
This is a classic workout spread over a few minutes, by which you can activate all the muscles and change the intensity gradually until you reach your maximum capacity. You could think of it as a cross-country distance race in which you do a whole race run with five minutes of warm-up, ten of race progression, and another five of run-out.
For those who are short on time but don’t want to skip a day of training, these three solutions are optimal, try it to believe!