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A trainer to lawyers and bankers shares an easy 2-step plan for busy people to lose weight and build muscle

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A trainer to lawyers and bankers shares an easy 2-step plan for busy people to lose weight and build muscle
  • Jason Jackson advises busy professionals to focus on efficient gym sessions and daily activity.
  • Jackson emphasizes full-body strength training and increasing step count.
  • Most of his clients are time-poor lawyers and bankers in London.

If you’re time-strapped but want to get in shape, don’t panic. You don’t need to go to the gym for an hour a day.

Jason Jackson, a high-level personal trainer at the luxury London gym Third Space, told Business Insider that focusing on what you do outside the gym might be the most important for hitting your goals.

Jackson has worked with professional athletes and the general public. He now mostly trains lawyers and bankers in London — his clients care about their health and fitness but don’t have much time, he said.

Less high-powered clients “can certainly go to the gym six times a week if they’re motivated to do so,” Jackson said. “My clients don’t have the time, they don’t have the scope for that. When it comes to their resources, time is a greater scarcity than money.”

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While working hours vary, 10-12 hour days aren’t uncommon in many law firms.

For this reason, Jackson works with his clients to “make their time in the gym as effective and efficient as possible to get the greatest results with the least amount of time invested.”

The simple formula: strength training plus daily activity.

Tip 1: Full-body strength training

Use your gym time wisely, Jackson says, focusing on full-body strength training to build muscle and bone density.

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Full body training is time-efficient and helps with weight loss and physique development.

Royal Navy physical trainer Paul Todd previously told Business Insider that he recommends compound exercises for the time-poor as they use several muscles at once. Examples include squats, deadlifts, and push-ups.

Experts often say that the best form of exercise is whatever you can stick to, but strength training has also been linked to a host of long-term health benefits.

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This is why Jackson recommends strength training in their gym sessions and getting their cardio from an active daily life.

Tip 2: Keeping active outside the gym

Jackson encourages his clients to move as much as possible outside their training sessions. This goes especially for those with weight loss goals.

That can increase your NEAT: non-exercise activity thermogenesis, which means all the movement you do that isn’t formal exercise.

Jackson recommends trying to increase your step count. “That is a more convenient way of getting that level of activity into your lives rather than trying to get to the gym,” he said. “You have to work late, things get in the way.”

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Many people overestimate how many calories they burn in their workouts and underestimate how many they burn over the rest of the day. In fact, calories burned through formal exercise only make up about 5-10% of the average person’s energy expenditure, so simply moving more is a great way to burn more calories.

“If you have a slow week or a long office day, you can make up those steps over the course of the rest of the week,” Jackson said. “Take the kids to the park, go to a museum, go shopping in Selfridges, you’re still accumulating a fair amount of steps and level of activity.”

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Fitness

New workout makes fitness more accessible for moms

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New workout makes fitness more accessible for moms

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – Finding time to work out as a mom with young kids can be a challenge in itself, especially when you’re new to an area and don’t know where to start. However, a new fitness option strolled into Sioux Falls today. iStroll offers moms the chance to work out and meet other moms all while their kids can play or even join alongside them.

iStroll is a national organization that has more than 35 locations in the country but this is the first time one opened in South Dakota. It’s a full body workout that incorporates dumbbells, body weight, and jogging strollers when the weather’s nice.

“I found iStroll in Oklahoma and fell in love,” said Kelsi Supek who started the affiliate in Sioux Falls. “We made friends. It became our entire social network. The kids loved it and then we moved to Arizona during COVID. And all the moms were stuck at home. They were inside with our kids and lonely, honestly. And we were like, why can’t we start an iStroll and be out at the parks with the kids every day? And it took off.”

When Supek moved to Sioux Falls, she was encouraged by her family to start an affiliate and own it herself.

“Gym daycares did not work out for my children,” said Supek. “I would get 10 minutes into a class and then I’d have that person trying to knock outside the yoga studio going, Can I have Kelsey and her kids screaming in daycare? And it just didn’t work for us. So at iStroll they could be with me or I could be breastfeeding the baby as I was teaching in class.”

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Classes are planned to continue each Wednesday and Friday at We Rock the Spectrum and First Presbyterian Church. For a full schedule for January and February, you can look at their Facebook. The first class is also free and memberships are for the whole family.

“Letting the kids see you work out is, it’s similar to homeschooling where like, you know, how are they going to love working out if they don’t see you working out,” said Kelly Jardeleza, a stay-at-home mom of three kids. “Whereas at other gyms they put them in a room and they don’t get to watch you. And how are you going to inspire them if they’re not watching you do it?”

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Fitness

Share your health and fitness questions for Devi Sridhar, Mariella Frostrup, and Joel Snape

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Share your health and fitness questions for Devi Sridhar, Mariella Frostrup, and Joel Snape

There’s no bad time to take a more active interest in your health, but the new year, for lots of us, feels like a fresh start. Maybe you’re planning to sign up for a 10k or finally have a go at bouldering, eat a bit better or learn to swing a kettlebell. Maybe you want to keep up with your grandkids — or just be a little bit more physically prepared for whatever life throws at you.

To help things along, Guardian Live invites you to a special event with public health expert Devi Sridhar, journalist and author Mariella Frostrup, and health and fitness columnist Joel Snape. They’ll be joining the Guardian’s Today in Focus presenter Annie Kelly to discuss simple, actionable ways to stay fit and healthy as you move through the second half of life: whether that means staying strong and mobile or stressing less and sleeping better.

To make the whole event as helpful as possible, we’d love to hear from you about what you find most challenging — or confusing — when it comes to health and exercise. What should you actually be eating, and how are you going to find the time to make it? What sort of exercise is best, and how often should you be doing it? Is Pilates worth the effort — and should we really all be drinking mugfuls of piping hot creatine?

Whether your question is about exercise, eating, or general wellness, post it below and we’ll put a selection to our panel on the night.

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