Your typical modern family lead very busy lives.

The wife arrived home just a few minutes ahead of her husband and both were tired from the day at work. Their children still needed to get to and from dance lessons and karate class, never mind the fact they still had dinner to prepare and other household responsibilities. Both would like to unwind and even get a workout in. How could they find the time?

Dedicating time for exercise is one of the greatest obstacles to people becoming or staying physically fit. Many people don't have physically demanding jobs but are no less tired than those who do. They simply haven't gotten in any exercise. Many people will tell you they don't have time to fit in a 60 to 90 minute workout by days end with all they have to do.

On top of the time challenge some people don't like exercise because it is uncomfortable. That is a challenge you will have to overcome on your own as exercise will cause discomfort in your body. One positive upside for those who develop a good workout routine is the chemicals that your body produces can also produce an "exercise high" after the fact, that get you hooked on exercise.

Is there a solution to the problem of time? Of course there is.

Time is one constant that God gave to everyone. We all have 24 hours in a day. We all prioritize our time differently and those who struggle to find time for a workout routine simply prioritize their time differently. Our secret is not to give up the other things you prioritize ahead of your workout routine, but to find "hidden" time for exercise.

I will not argue here that a 15 minute workout is equal to a 60 minute workout, but that is not the point. Our goal is to show the average person there is a workout routine they can do to improve or maintain their fitness and overall health.

These are some of the benefits of exercise.

If you are like many people you want to feel better, have more energy, and even extend your life expectancy. If that is you look no further than old-fashioned exercise for the solution. The merits of regular workout routines include preventing chronic health problems, promoting ideal weight, and providing for longer and deeper sleep.

The Mayo Clinic staff give seven specific benefits of exercise.

1. Exercising will put you in better moods.

Physical activity allows your body to produce brain chemicals that typically cause you to feel happier and more relaxed than before you exercised. Regular exercise will also change your appearance by toning your muscles and helping you lose excess fat. Your "new body" can help you feel more confident and better about yourself. You are also more likely to have the ability to fight depression through regular exercise.

2. A regular workout routine will help fight against chronic diseases.

Regular physical activity can help you prevent, or manage high blood pressure as well as control your cholesterol levels. Regular physical activity boosts high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or "good," cholesterol while decreasing triglycerides thereby keeping your blood flowing smoothly by lowering the buildup of plaques in your arteries.

Regular physical activity can also help you prevent type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and certain types of cancer. It can literally save your life.

3. Exercise helps you manage your weight.

Exercising causes your body to burn calories. The more intense the exercise, the more calories you burn. When you burn more calories than you consume you burn excess fat. Most Americans could benefit from losing excess fat through exercise.

4. Exercise boosts your energy level.

If you want more energy to do the activities you enjoy most you will want your heart and lungs to be more efficient. Physical activity brings oxygen and nutrients to your cells and will cause your entire cardiovascular system to work more efficiently. Your heart and lungs are the engine of your cardiovascular system.

Physical activity doesn't have to be boring. Take a ballroom dancing class. Check out a local climbing wall or hiking trail. Push your kids on the swings or climb with them on the jungle gym. Play childhood games! Plan a neighborhood kickball or touch football game. Some communities even have adult kickball leagues!

The important thing to do is find a physical activity you enjoy, and do it. Boredom is a state of mind. It is a mind set that YOU have control over. Change your approach if you are finding that you are bored. The important thing is to get active!

Four parts make up a good workout routine.

Good workout routines will help build your endurance, strength, flexibility, and balance. Your exercise program needs to incorporate exercises that work each of those components.

Increasing the amount of time you exercise and the intensity will hep you build your stamina. That may be an over-simplification for building endurance, but it works.

Exercise will increase your heart rate but you want to control that rate. You want to get your heart rate working harder for increasingly longer periods of time. One rule you can use is to get your heart to work 220 beats per minute minus your age. In other words, a 40 year-old would want to get their heart rate to be about 180 beats per minute during the workout. The other method is the conversational check. If you can easily hold a conversation while doing your workout routine you probably aren't working hard enough. If you are struggling to talk you are probably working too hard.

Endurance Training.

Aerobic exercise must be part of your workout program. You may join aerobic dance programs, run, or do any of a number of other things that you have said you will do but haven't. Why will this time be any different?

I certainly encourage people to do any of those things. I even strongly suggest swimming, one of the great exercise programs there is. Experience says that for too many of you committing the time to do those things in that context won't happen.

The two exercises I will recommend for starting an endurance fitness program are walking and or jumping rope. Done consistently both those exercises will be of great benefit to your physical and emotional well-being.

Walking for fitness.

The first place to start is increasing the amount you walk. It is so easy to do. You can increase the amount you walk without having to dedicate a great deal of time. Let me explain.

For the average American male, who stands 5' 10" and weighs about 190 pounds a good goal for you to start would be to take between 5,000 and 7,000 steps during the day, not including your "workout". The more calories you consume the more steps you would want to take.

According to a UN report the average American consumes nearly 4,000 calories per day. If you are any where near that you will need to work on your diet as well. That level of caloric intake will require more steps to be taken - literally and figuratively.

You should buy a pedometer and track the number of steps you take in a day. I am 6' tall and my average stride is about 2' 4". If I take 7,000 steps in a day I have walked a little over 3 miles. That would be a great goal for many of you.

Your next task is to discover ways you can increase the amount you walk. A simple step would be to begin to park in the furththest parking spot at the mall, grocery store, and at work. If you do that at work and take a 10 minute walk break three or four times a day and simply walk out to your car and back you will have increased the number of steps you take significantly. Maybe you can just walk up and down a couple flights of stairs. The important thing will be to do that every day.

A great walking program is Nordic walking. Nordic walking involves the use of poles (ski poles), which causes you to use 90% of your body while walking. If you were do a minimum of 15 minutes during your lunch time or during the day that would be of great benefit to you. As you get more fit you could just increase the pace of the walk.

Skipping rope is a great workout.

Jumping rope is one of the very best aerobic exercises. Your entire body is used and for the time you spend it burns lots of calories. Ten minutes of jumping rope at the fairly rapid pace of 120 jumps per second will burn as many calories as 30 minutes of jogging. For most of us 10 minutes is easier to find than 30 minutes.

Jumping rope allows you the opportunity to do routines that work your coordination, strength, and balance. Jump rope can be fun. Don't you remember how much fun it was as a child?

Get a top quality jump rope and take it with you everywhere. You can easily find 5 to 10 minutes while you wait for you child's practice to end, or at home, or even at work where you could jump rope and get your aerobic workout done.

Strength workout routine

For most people who simply want to participate in some recreation, be a part-time athlete, or even just be more productive on the job physical strength training should be part of your workout routines.

Your workout routine needs to really work your core muscles, the back and abs. Your abs and back a very important to be strong. Your legs, arms, and shoulders will follow.

A good strength building program can rely on your own body-weight. There really are not many exercises you have to do either.

By including Nordic walking and or skipping rope in your workout you will already be working to tone your muscles. You could even begin jumping rope with a much heavier rope and work your arms even more. Those exercises allow you to spend less time on the true strength building exercises we incorporate.

The three key exercises that make up the strength portion of our routine are push-ups, planks, and stability ball exercises. Do the "sun salutation" stretching exercise first thing in the morning and include push-ups and you will have knocked off one good portion of the routine in the first 10 to 20 minutes of the day. Later in the day you can easily find time to work in the planks and a few stability ball exercises.

You can do planks on the ground or on an exercise ball. The advantage of doing it on the ground is you can do them anywhere and anytime. Doing them on the stability ball will work more muscles and your balance but you will need to have a ball with you. Planks will replace doing crunches, which will save your back. If you do them on an exercise ball add a circular motion with your arms moving both clockwise and counter-clock wise.

Hindu squats are a great exercise for your legs and your heart. They are easy, require no equipment, and can be time effective.

The workouts page at physical-education-institute.com shows you how to do these workouts.

You need to have stretching as part of your routine.

We now need to figure out where the time to stretch will come from. We have shown you how to get these workout routines into your day, but we included the sun salutation as the only stretching routine. Stretching can be painful and can take a fair amount of time, so how do you find the time for that?

People will tend to do more stretching exercises if they think about doing that outside their regular routine. If you do a series of stretches while watching television in the evening or even while listening to some music in a quiet spot you will find that you can also fit those into your busy schedule.

There are a number of simple stretching exercises you can do while sitting or lying on the floor. If you check out the stretching exercises page at physical-education-institute.com you can find resources to choose some stretches you can do, and vary from day to day, while watching television, helping your kids with their homework, or waiting to pick them up at some activity.

Example Schedule

What might a typical day look like with this workout routine in mind. Well, my day would look something like this.

6:00 am Get-up, get some water to drink, walk around a bit to get my body warmed up. Do the sun salutation with push-ups. I do 3 push-ups each cycle and do 10 cycles. It takes up to 10 minutes.

6:40 - 7:30 am shower, eat, read the paper, see the kids off to school.

8:00 - 4:00 Work. Take at least two 10 minute walk breaks during the day. Take one in the morning and one in the afternoon. During 30 minute lunch take 15 minutes to do a Nordic walk.

3:00 - 9:00 Family stuff. Do your errands, get dinner, be with children...Take 5 to 10 minutes to skip rope in between family activity or errands. Just before dinner or putting the kids to bed take another 10 to 15 minutes to do stability ball exercises.

After 9:00 take 15 minutes to stretch your body while watching tv, listening to music, or before or while reading.

Do this everyday and your workout routine will become routine.

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