Don’t Have Time to Exercise? Try Our 20 Min HIIT Workouts

"I don't have time to workout.” Does that sentence sound familiar? We bet it does. 

Many people hold the misconception that in order to get results from a workout, the more time you spend the greater your results will be. But did you know that, depending on your fitness goals, spending an hour exercising each day may not even be the best workout to achieve the results you want?

If weight loss is your goal, and it often is for those who have let their fitness slide due to ‘lack of time’, a high-intensity workout for 20 minutes a day will burn more fat than pounding the treadmill for an hour.

Much time can be wasted on a treadmill or elliptical machine for 40+ minutes if you’re not doing a workout to address your goals. Wouldn’t it be great to find an effective, shorter alternative program to those boring 60 minutes? Shorter, high-intensity workouts like HIIT training actually burn fat better than long endurance style workouts.

What is a HIIT Workout?

HIIT stands for High-Intensity Interval Training.

It is a workout style that incorporates intermittent bursts or sprints of high-intensity aerobic exercise with short recovery periods of lower-intensity exercise. These are usually spaced out in a 2:1 ratio (i.e. repeating 1-2 minutes of high-intensity training followed by 30 secs-1 minutes of lower intensity recovery for example).

That seems too good to be true, how does it work?

Many of us participate in long boring aerobic exercise routines, hoping to burn those calories and melt away the fat, only to find minimal change. But what determines whether you shed fat is not the duration of your workout, but the intensity of your workout.

If you want to achieve your desired results, you have to push your limits. If you don’t try to achieve a higher and higher level of performance you will never reach your goals, you will become stuck in the comfort zone, and your body will not adapt. You may exercise regularly, but you won’t get your desired result.

By pushing your limits your fitness levels will increase, your muscles will be constantly stimulated, burning fat and you will become metabolically efficient. Using high intensity programs such as our 20 Minute HIIT Workout Plans will help you to burn more calories at a significantly higher rate, even when you are sitting and sleeping.

What are the benefits of HIIT workout plans?

1. You will improve both your aerobic and anaerobic energy systems
2. You will increase the amount of calories you burn during your exercise workout and the amount of calories you burn after you have workout as it takes longer for you to recover from your workout
3. Causes metabolic adaptations that enable you to use fat as a fuel under various conditions
4. Appears to limit your loss of muscle mass that can happen when you are doing longer workouts at a steady pace for weight loss.

Orbit Fitness Free HIIT Workout Plans

Orbit Fitness can help you achieve your fitness goals. We have devised a series of 20 Minute HIIT Workout Plans designed for all styles of exercise – from treadmill and elliptical machines to rowing, spinning and free weights.

These HIIT Workouts will help you achieve maximum results in minimum time. They can be modified for individuals of different fitness levels and special conditions, such as being overweight.

Regardless of your age, gender and fitness level, anyone can participate in high intensity training, the key being to modify the intensity of the workout to your own fitness level. The time and intensity in these downloads are aimed at beginners, so try them out and modify if you feel like you can push yourself further.