Workout and Diet Advice for Women over 45

Fifteen minute workouts!?
We are all pressed for time, and rather than skip a workout due to lack of time, it is great to have some exercises that we can simply do in less time and still feel that we got a good workout . I have taken the challenge to suggest such workouts, and will be blogging these suggestions for the time challenged over the next couple of weeks. The objective is to make the workouts shorter in duration and still be effective.

I started this on my Facebook page last week – and since I have more flexibility with the blog entry, I am switching to the blog as the place to post – and the posts automatically appear on both Facebook and Twitter. The wonders of modern technology – when it works as it should!

Here is where the idea started. The December issue of FLEX magazine (the men’s magazine) featured exercise routines for when one is pressed for time and only have 15 minutes for the weight workout. I could relate to that, and thought it might be nice to share these exercises on my blog. I was traveling at the time – saw the magazine in a New Jersey Gold’s Gym – and figured I would pick it up somewhere in my travels. I discovered that the airport magazine choices did not include FLEX, and by the time I was back home with familiar magazine choices, the December volume was no longer on the racks. And I do have to add that three emails to the publishers over a period of two months (there is no contact phone number listed), resulted in ZERO acknowledgement of the email or my request for a copy of the magazine.

This led me to the decision to develop my own version of the 15-minute workout – tailored for my audience – women! And I now believe this to be fortuitous. I have since reviewed a follow up to the original article that is on the FLEX website, and I think most women would not relate to the exercises featured for a 15-minute workout.

I also decided that the best and most honest way to do this was to try out the exercises that might be suitable and then blog about what I did. So if something didn’t work or something else worked better I could share this. And feel free to leave comments or send me emails for additional details.

Now the disclaimers and the pointers (and I will repeat them with each new day’s exercises):

• This post assumes a certain level of understanding of weight training, on the part of the reader. I describe the exercises but written detail cannot replace a demonstration, for someone who has not used weights. Asserting that the description is sufficient would be dishonest and frankly dangerous.
• Most of the workouts can be performed in 15- 20 minutes.
• The posts assume that the warm-up and stretch are performed outside of the 15 minutes of weight-training; and warm-up and stretch are recommended.
• Most of the exercises are done as supersets combined with another exercise. Don’t rest between the two exercises, and rest not more than 1 minute before starting the next superset.
• Do not do the exercises ‘fast’. Slow down and work intensely.
• Do 10-12 reps for each exercise.

Day 1 – I have honed a 15-20 leg workout:
• Use the Paramount ‘hacksquat’ machine – this is an interesting machine that shows “Quads/Glutes” labels on the foot platform. If it is not available at your gym, use the hacksquat.
• Superset with regular squats using a bar – 4 to 5 sets each. Do not go heavy.
Then –
• Do this awesome exercise on Smith machine – start in a lunge with right leg behind, bar resting on your shoulders, back knee about 8 inches off the ground. Make sure left leg (knee to ankle) is perpendicular to ground (no injury zone). (So the left leg will need to be quite a bit in front of your body. And I like to position both legs in front of my body to start and then move the right leg to the back for the lunge position.)
Push off the right leg and bring it in front of you in the air. The leg is bent and the knee is higher than hip level. Return right leg to the lunge behind the body. Repeat 10 times. Switch legs without resting. 3- 4 sets, with minimal rest between sets. Use a light weight to start.

The tester (me) was able to complete the full leg workout in under 20 minutes. Plus 10 minutes warm-up and 5 – 10 minutes stretching rounded out the session.

Note to the Publishers of FLEX – if you send me an email I will gladly share all four parts of this series……