In today’s hectic world, women often balance demanding schedules while juggling multiple roles—mom, spouse, employee, and volunteer, to name a few. If you’re among those who feel like 24 hours in a day are simply not enough, or making it to a fitness class feels as impossible as attempting to defy gravity, fret not. With a bit of creativity, you can find simple ways to stay active and boost your overall well-being without sacrificing any amount of significant time. From turning household chores into exercise to creating living room dance routines with the kids, you can perform several cardio workouts that are as brief as they are effective.

Although shorter exercises may not feel like much, research shows that even 5-10 minutes of moderate physical activity per day provides substantial health benefits.* This includes staving off chronic conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and even anxiety and depression. We’d say that’s reason enough to fit in exercise so here are some ways to find the time to exercise!

Short but sweet women’s fitness tips:

At work

• Walk or bike to work if possible. If you drive to work, park on the far end of the parking lot. Additional walking on a regular basis adds up to a significant amount of heart healthy activity.
• Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Take two at a time for an extra challenge.
• Look for opportunities to stand since you burn more calories while standing than you do sitting. Stand while talking on the phone, or walk to other work stations to talk to your colleagues rather than calling or e-mailing them.

At home

• Find the high-energy items on your to-do list and tackle them whenever you feel in need of physical activity. Wash the car, mow the lawn, dig the garden, or reorganize the closet.
• If you’ve got a young sports enthusiast, play along. Shooting baskets or kicking a soccer ball around the yard or park are great ways to get your blood pumping while also bonding with your kiddos.
• Invent dance routines or practice a routine you just learned in class.
• Do push-ups, plies, and lunges during TV commercial breaks.

In general

• Opt for an early bird workout before the rest of the family is up to invigorate yourself and free up the rest of your day.
• Break up your exercise. Got 10 free minutes three different times throughout the day? That amounts to a solid half hour of calorie burning!
• Opt for an intense and effective workout that gives you more bang for your workout buck, and time. Here are some Jazzercise dance fitness class options that do just that:

Jazzercise classes with double the intensity: :

• Strength 60: This hardcore muscle sculpting class cross trains and strengthens your entire body in 60 minutes. Weights and natural resistance fire up all your muscles to help you chisel your core, arms, back, shoulders and legs for a tight, lean look.

• Fusion: High Intensity Interval Training (HiiT) fuses cardio with strength training through alternating circuits and levels. Bursts of heart-pumping dance moves combined with muscle work will melt fat and torch calories—as many as 800 in one class!

• Interval: Take your fitness to the next level with our High Intensity Interval Training (HiiT) classes. These heart-pumping, fat-blasting workouts bring the intensity with bursts of cardio and strength training. Come HIIT it hard with Fusion, Interval Fusion and Interval Dance Mixx.

An additional bonus to the HiiT format workouts is they provide you with a sustained calorie burn—meaning you continue to torch calories long after your workout! So you’re still feeling the effects long after your workout is completed. Now that’s what we call making it count!

How do you find time for a workout when you’re extra busy? What’s your favorite workout or Jazzercise class, and why? Talk to us below!

*Source: American Medical Association