The Best Workouts for a Crowded Gym
Beat the January gym crowds with these space- and time-saving strategies.
For those who already love fitness, January's a nightmare: The New Year's resolution crowd overruns your gym, tying up equipment and making 30-minute workout routines stretch long beyond an hour. They'll be gone by February… if you can just hang on.
One solution: Try a free session with a trainer. "They're going to be able to navigate through a crowd better than you could by yourself… and it opens up new areas of the gym to you," says Jared Meachem, Fitness Services Director at Sky Fitness & Wellbeing gyms. You may also get a chance to try some new exercises, or have a new program developed for you in just a few sessions. "You can direct the trainer to develop you a program that isn't equipment-sensitive, so you can get it done at any time of day without waiting in line."
If your gym doesn't offer free sessions—or you'd just rather go it alone—try these strategies to create a January workout routine that avoids the lines to get you fit, fast… and without frustration.
"The easiest thing is to create a circuit of two to four exercises," says Mike Wunsch, performance director at Results Fitness in Santa Clarita, CA. Wunsch puts his clients through high-intensity finishers all year for cardio and conditioning. He recommends performing an exercise for 20 seconds, aiming for 1 rep per second. Rest for 20 seconds, and then move to the next exercise.
"Try squats, jumping jacks, pushups, and squat thrusts," he says. (Complete instructions for all exercises in this article are listed on the last page.) Start with three or four rounds of all the exercises, working your way up to five to 10 total rounds.
