As women in tech, working the time into our schedules to workout can be hard.
I mean, our schedules often leave us with little time to mess around. Most days are made up of intense focus and long demanding hours of work.
During these kinds of days, it’s common to struggle with finding time for yourself.
Specifically, finding time for things like taking care of and maintaining your physical health.
Trust me, as a women in Computer Science who’s also a fitness guru, I know first hand how difficult things can become.
What I also know is that it’s times like these when time-efficient workouts are an absolute must.
In this post, I want to cover all of my favorite workouts that even the busiest tech professionals can work into their day.
Time Efficient Workouts Can be Done From Home or At Your Office
Before I get into these workouts, I want to touch base one thing: The fact that these workouts can be done from anywhere.
At your office, at home, at the gym, pretty much anywhere you are, you can do these workouts.
One of the most time consuming parts of working out is actually getting to and from the gym.
Eliminating that commute time is a humungous time saver when it comes to fitting a workout in.
On top of that, these workouts are all designed to be quick and efficient.
Because they require very little of your time, it makes them easy to squeeze into your schedule.
Between meetings, during your lunch break, or whenever else you have a minute. These exercises allow you to easily hop up and get a quick workout in.
No Fitness Experience Required, These Workouts are Simple and Effective
One of the main reasons you can do these workouts anywhere is because they’re quick, easy, and effective.
They’re easy to do, don’t take up much space, and require no equipment at all!
And, they don’t require a huge time investment to be effective.
On top of that, the technique and form is extremely easy to get down. So don’t feel like you need to be any type of fitness professional to do these workouts.
They’re made to be easy and designed so that everyone can execute them.
The Quickest Workouts for Busy Tech Professionals
Push Ups
Push ups are a simple and effective strength training exercise.
What muscle groups push-ups work: Push ups primarily work your chest, shoulders and triceps. Making them a simple, easy, and effective upper body exercise.
Basic Steps to do Push-Ups:
Step 1) Find an area with enough space where you could lay flat on the ground. Placing your knees together, kneel on the ground. Your feet should also be touching.
Step 2) Lean forwards, keeping your back straight. Place your hands on the ground shoulder width apart, palms facing flat on the ground.
Step 3) Placing your weight onto your toes, lift your knees off the ground, balancing on your hands and feet.
Your feet should be touching and hands shoulder width apart. At this point you should be in a plank-like position.
Step 4) Starting with your arms fully extended, slowly lower down sending your elbows back and out, until your chest is inline with your elbows.
Your chest should form a right angle with your forearms.
Step 5) Push back up until your arms are fully extended again. You’ve just performed one repetition (rep) of a push up.
Modifications to Make Push-Ups Easier:
If you struggle to perform an actual push up, there are a couple modifications you can do to make the exercise easier.
One being to place your hands further apart.
With your hands further apart, your triceps and shoulders work less and your chest works more.
Your chest is naturally stronger and larger than both your triceps and shoulders. This is what helps make push-ups feel easier.
Another push-up modification you can make is to do what’s called knee push-ups.
To do knee push-ups, you’d essentially follow all the same steps to perform a regular push-up, except you stay on your knees the whole time.
What this will do is reduce the amount of body weight you’re pushing up, decreasing the intensity of the exercise.
To do this, all you need to do is skip step 3 from above entirely.
So that instead of lifting your knees off the ground and putting all your weight onto your hands and feet, remain on your knees with your feet in the air.
There should be a 90 degree angle behind your knees.
Besides that, follow steps 1, 2, 4, and 5 all the same.
Wall-Sits
Wall sits are another simple and effective strength training exercise.
What muscle groups wall sits work: Wall sits primarily work your quads and other leg muscles, making them a lower body exercise.
Basic Steps to Perform Wall-Sits:
Step 1) Find a flat, empty wall with enough room for you to stand straight against.
Step 2) Facing away from the wall, back up fully against the wall. Place your feet shoulder width apart.
Step 3) Slide down the wall, bringing your feet forward until you’re in a seated position. Your legs should form a 90 degree angle behind your knees.
Step 4) Maintain in this position for as long as you’d like, you’re now performing a wall sit exercise.
Modifications to Make Wall-Sits Easier:
Wall sits might seem like an easy exercise, but trust me, they can be pretty challenging.
If you find the exercise to be too challenging and struggle to stay in the position for long, you might want to consider making some modifications.
One modification you can make is to keep your legs straighter. That is, don’t sit all the way down to a 90 degree angle.
By keeping your legs straighter, you’ll reduce the amount of the tension on your quads, making the exercise a lot easier.
Planks
What Muscle Groups Planks Work: Planks are a strength training exercise that primarily target your abs, lower back, and any other muscles around your midsection.
Making them an excellent core strengthening exercise.
Basic Steps to Perform Planks:
The steps to perform planks are essentially the same as the steps to perform push-ups. You’ll only need to make a few changes:
Step 1) Instead of placing your arms fully extended and palms flat on the ground, face your palms inward towards each other and ball up your fists.
Then, bend your arms and place your entire forearms flat on the ground shoulder width apart. Your arms should be straight in front of your and lying parallel.
Step 2) Since your arms are already bent, you won’t be performing the same motion as a push-up. Instead of lowering down and doing a push up motion, simple hold in the position you’re in.
All while maintaining a straight back and not letting your glutes sink too low.
Modifications to Make Planks Easier:
Unfortunately, there aren’t too many modifications you can make to planks while still maintaining proper form.
However, there are additional core exercises that are just as quick, simple, and easy to incorporate into your day.
If you find yourself struggling with planks, consider swapping them out for a different core exercise, like sit ups, crunches, or bicycles, which are quick and provide excellent benefits.
Lunges
What Muscle Groups Lunges Work: Lunges are a unilateral exercise that work your glutes, quads, hamstrings, and hips. Making them an excellent lower body exercise.
Basic Steps to Perform Lunges:
Step 1) Find an area with enough room for you to stand up and extend your legs forwards and back.
From here, there are two different ways to perform a lunge. There are forward lunges (I’ll call these step 3a) and reverse lunges (I’ll call step 3b).
Both are equally as effective and whichever you choose is all a matter of your personal preferences.
For both variations, you’ll have one “working leg”, this will be the leg moving forwards/backwards for the set.
The opposite leg will be your plant foot, remaining stationary and providing you balance.
Step 2) Place both feet facing forward, shoulder width apart. Determine which leg will be working first.
Step 3a) Take a big step forward with your working leg.
Lower down until the knee of your working leg is directly above your foot, creating a 90 degree angle behind this knee.
Second Variation 3b) Take your working leg and send it backwards and behind you, bending your planted leg. You’ll want to keep the knee of your planted leg directly over your plant foot, lowering down until a 90 degree angle behind your knee forms.
If when lowering down you can’t get your knee directly above your foot, maybe it’s too far in front of your toes or behind your foot, then adjust the size of the step forward you take. This applies for both steps 3a and 3b.
Step 4) Pause for a second in this lowered position, then push up and bring your working leg back to the starting position.
Step 5) You’ve just performed one lunge. You can either alternate feet as you go, or do one set on one leg before switching to do one set on the other.
Modifications to Make Lunges Easier:
If you struggle to perform lunges, chances are the biggest challenge is balancing during the entire exercise.
As a result, the best modification you can make to avoid the need to balance is to swap out lunges for squats.
Since squats are a bilateral exercise, they don’t require as much balance as lunges do.
Air Squats
What Muscle Groups Air Squats Work: Air squats (squats without weights) primarily work your quads, glutes, hamstrings, and hip muscles. Again, making these an excellent leg growth exercise.
Steps to Perform Air Squats:
I already wrote a post on how to perfect your squat form.
Here, I walk you through all the exact steps to perfectly perform squats.
Follow the same form and technique, but without adding any weight.
Modifications to Make Air Squats Easier:
Just like planks, there aren’t many modifications to make air squats easier.
If you struggle to perform air squats, consider swapping them out for a different leg exercise I mentioned in this article.
Takeaways
Remaining physically active is crucial for everyone, especially for women in tech.
But with our busy schedules, fitting time into our days to workout can be really challenging.
That’s where time efficient workouts come in. They make it easy to get a full body workout in, without an extensive time commitment.
So that anyone can easily fit a full body workout anywhere into their schedule.
More of My Posts on Women’s Fitness and Weightlifting:
How Often Women Should Lift Weights to Build Muscle