So with Thanksgiving behind us, and Christmas just a few days away. You know that the New Year's rapidly approaching, so just what are your plans to get on board with, or increase your current fitness levels with that rapidly shrinking available time-frame that makes up your day? And of that time, how much is there available to you to work out or increase your activity levels?

We all know that with the dropping of that ball on New Year’s Eve, the resolutions are sometimes forgotten just as fast as the fog begins to clear in the morning after those toasts wear off. After all, there are going to be quite a few people, as there is every year, who turn their minds and their saggy bodies to adopting a fitness program that will hopefully stick with them throughout the year, and give them the results they are looking for.

But fitness trainers agree that concentrating on just one aspect of exercise simply won’t get you in the shape you want to be in as quick as you probably would like. It’s a fact that pounding the treadmill or lifting some weights, can’t do it all for you in the long run, so why not mix it up a bit?

Now we are NOT suggesting that you forgo the strength and running, jogging or even brisk walking and look at other fitness methods. On the contrary, we are recommending that you incorporate a bit of each to get the best return on your time investment!

You might just want to take another look at incorporating HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) into your training arsenal. We all know that HIIT has been around for a while now, and one thing all the top trainers agree on is that it’s not going anywhere soon at all as far as helping a person get leaner and a better toned physical shape. One of the perks to adopting some or all of a HIIT program is that you’re getting your exercise in less time then cranking out those 5 miles on the road or in a gym, on a treadmill.

HIIT is a form of training that couples quick, intense bursts of exercise, followed by short, sometimes, moderately active, recovery periods.
One of the most significant reasons HIIT has gained a huge amount of popularity it that as people have less time, they are looking for ways to exercise more effectively. Remember the topic of this post, Time is a precious commodity?

Research has shown that people today have less time available to them, even less if they are looking to work in a time slot for personal improvement like exercise. So people are looking for the best way to utilize their time, and that means the time they put aside for exercising as well. After all, who has that extra time to rack up 5 miles at a good pace on a road or in a gym? Remember, 5 miles just about equates out to those 10,000 steps that have been the goal of many active people over the last 2-3 years.

While HIIT is not the only training method it's one that the people are trying to fit into their daily life and trying to get some benefit from it. It's a fact that using the HIIT technique gets your metabolism moving faster, which means your still burning calories after you've stopped your exercise, or scaled it back to a slower, resting activity, geared to get your heart back to its normal rhythm.

Now there are many beginner HIIT routines available out there, you just need to find the one that best fits your current physical body type at this point. But we cannot STRESS enough that before beginning or augmenting an existing exercise regimen, you should consult with your physician to make sure the additional stress you will be subjecting your body to will cause you no harm, other than increasing your body’s core stamina.

Another way to maximize your time as you go about trying to get the most out of your exercise schedule is to do it with others. Yep, again, it’s been proven time and again that most people do better when they work out in a group setting. It has a lot to do with our basic core characteristic makeup of wanting to compete. It’s also a good way to hold yourself accountable for maintaining your exercise commitment. After all, if you’re a no-show at a group exercise class, it’s probably going to bother you some the next time you go to that class. Now no one likes to be labeled as a slacker, right? That is where working out in a group comes into play as it helps you maintain your exercise regimen, besides the competition aura of wanting to be better than the person next to you, is also a big motivator. And while all this is happening, you’re going to end up doing more in a shorter amount of time then if you were going it alone.

Wearable Trackers are the next thing that you want to be looking at in order to not only get the best bang out of your workout routines but also to help you stay on course with an aggressive time goal to carry them out in.

Garmin, Fitbit’s, and Polar’s are names you have come associated with exercise monitoring offer a wide variety of regular trackers or those with wrist-based heart rate monitors. These are probably the best sort of accountability tools you can get for yourself! They can provide you with accurate data on just how well your body is performing on each aspect of your training. From HIIT, to Running, Jogging, Reg. Cardio or Strength Training, they can monitor your vitals and make that data available to you or to also any group environment you select to offer it to. Those activity monitors with a heart rate monitor function can help you by letting you push yourself to the limit while providing you with the correct data, so you won’t go just that little bit too far.

Recent studies have shown that exercising regularly still won’t mitigate the potentially lethal effects of a sedentary lifestyle. It turns out that wearable’s, which reward users for non-exercise activity and the recommended 10,000 steps per day are fostering competition across workplaces, social groups, and homes. More importantly, they're getting people out of their seats and helping to shatter the culture of the sedentary workplace.

A great fitness tracker that can go across platform exercises is the Garmin Vivoactive HR Strapless Heart Rate SmartWatch  With our busy lives, we need a fitness tool that can help us accomplish our goals faster while enabling us to track our progress as we strive to get fit and healthy. This Vivoactive HR smart watch is loaded with features which will help you monitor and track your progress and help you take it to the next level.

So what’s it gonna be? Are you just going to plug away at jogging on that treadmill or are you going to mix it up with a varied exercise routine at a higher intensity rate and push your body to new limits, to get those results you’re looking for a bit faster?

After all, besides making sure you get your exercise time, squeezed in, you may actually have some extra time for say, socializing instead of hitting the hay a bit early? Which would you choose?