We've all heard the joke about the efficiency expert who thinks waiting 9 months for a woman to produce a child is a process that can be improved; just get 9 women to work at it for a month!
Doesn't work that way.
So watch out for how you implement the new craze for short, intense gym workouts. The reasoning goes that we are all stressed for time, so why waste time? So far, so good. But you have to understand that some truths are Truths; they are not a matter of personal opinion, and you cannot use willpower, vision boards or any other mechanism to overcome them.
Good: Warm up with a treadmill or other slow, rhythmic, aerobic moves for at least 10 minutes. Then do your shorter, more intense workout, realizing that intense HAS to use perfect form and correct placement of limbs and weights, because if you are too heavy or too intense and you make even a small mistake in placement, you are going to get injured. Injured removes you from workouts anywhere from two days to the rest of your life.
Bad: Jump right in and start pushing and pulling at high intensity. Muscles and fascia that have been over-stretched or over-tense during hours of work and worry, usually in the same position, are really ripe for a major injury.
So - impatience can kill you, just like your parents told you oh so long ago.
Take your impatience and treat it like the problem that it is. Breathe deeply for a full minute. Allow your muscles and connective tissue to relax a bit. Pray. Reiki. Meditate. Stare into the abyss until the urge to think that you can overrule the physical laws of nature, what your physical self needs, dissipates and you are returned to sane, rational humanity.
If you only have 10 minutes, don't go to a gym. Walk up and down the stairs at your job or home, at a walking pace. Don't run. You only have 10 minutes and you're not loosened up yet. Or do yoga. Cats and cows, boys and girls. You can do it in a dress, in a cubicle, so you can surely do it at home.
If you only have 20 minutes, walk on a treadmill to warm up for ten, then do intervals of rapid or hard work, with a slower pace. for another 10. Cool down by walking for a few minutes.
Any strategy is better than going from overstretched and over-tense straight into an intense, especially weights, workout.
ANY time you feel "I have to" preceding something that violates the laws of physics or biology, know that as a signal to change your faulty thinking. A law that is equally true on Earth, Ganymede and all the planets and moons of the Andromeda Galaxy is not going to bow down to your demands.
Two plus two will always, always equal four, not twenty four, no matter how busy or important you are, or think you are. I permanently crippled my hands by exactly this kind of crazy decision-making, and it took me five years of rehab and you don't want to know how much pain and suffering to regain most of my function (and life), but the life lesson has left me with a permanent twerk toward a sane approach to facts. Truth exists, apart from opinion. Much of what we think of as fact, is truly opinion - but not everything.
Slow down. Breathe. Make a sane assessment of what is truly possible (Truth) and commit to that. Let go of everything else.
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