7-Day High-Intensity Functional Training (HIFT) Blitz for Busy Individuals

Let’s be honest; 60-minute workouts sound great, but who has the time for them in this fast-paced world?

Most of my new personal clients set the same expectation in our initial consultation — they want to be done with their workouts within 30 minutes. That’s half the time of a conventional training session.

But I don’t blame them. We are all juggling multiple things simultaneously and sparing even half an hour for exercise daily feels like a big achievement.

If you are in the same boat, I recommend adopting high-intensity functional training (HIFT) as it prioritizes compound exercises that target multiple muscle groups at once, making your workouts incredibly efficient.

I channeled my 17 years of training experience to design a five-day-a-week HIFT program, ideal for individuals with limited time. It includes short, intense workouts to torch calories, build strength, and boost your overall fitness which can be done at home with minimal equipment.

Understanding High-Intensity Functional Training (HIFT)

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the seven-day HIFT training, here is a brief primer:

Functional training involves focusing on exercises that mimic real-life movements with the goal of improving your physical performance. 

The great thing about HIFT workouts is that they lead to a phenomenon called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). This basically means that your body has to work overtime to recover from the intensive workouts, turning it into a calorie-burning machine, even when you are physically inactive.

7-Day HIFT Blitz Workout Plan For Busy People

Most fitness programs fail to make a dent in your transformation progress as they follow an unbalanced approach. These usually focus on one thing while completely ignoring others.

However, this seven-day program is devised to boost your overall fitness, health, and well-being. It will ignite your metabolism and help you achieve a lean and stronger body with just a few minutes of effort each day.

Daily Workout Structure

While you’ll be cycling through different training splits throughout the week, you will stick to the same simple structure for the best results:

• Warm-Up (5-10 minutes): Always begin your training sessions with dynamic stretches like arm circles, leg swings, and torso twists to prime your muscles, tendons, and connective tissues. This improves training performance and significantly limits injury risk.
• Workout (20-30 minutes): Each of the seven workouts listed below should not last more than half an hour. Sticking to this time window will ensure a high training intensity and that you are making the most of your time.
• Cool-Down (5-10 minutes): Avoid beginning doom scrolling on your phone as soon as you perform the last rep of your workout. Instead, perform static stretches to cool down as it can improve flexibility, reduce muscle soreness, and promote recovery. (1)

Day 1: Core and Stability

Overlooking training the mid-section is one of the biggest mistakes I see people make as a personal trainer. The core is essential for your overall fitness and functionality. For instance, a weak core can be the weakest link in your squat, keeping you from achieving your maximum potential.

This workout is a mix of isometric and isotonic exercises to ensure overall development. Remember, you can treat these workouts as templates. So, feel free to replace the exercises with what you find more suitable.

Exercise	Sets	Reps	Rest Duration
Plank	3	30-60 sec	60 seconds
Side Plank (each side)	3	30-60 sec	60 seconds
Russian Twists	3	15-20 (each side)	60 seconds
Mountain Climbers	3	30 sec	60 seconds
Bird Dog (each side)	3	10-12	60 seconds
Dead Bug	3	10-12	60 seconds

Day 2: Lower Body Power

Legs are the foundation of your physique and are essential for building strength, improving balance, and promoting coordination. Disclaimer: Since this workout plan is all about functional training, which involves multiple muscle groups, they will take a lot out of you.

This workout biases the glutes, hamstring, quads, lower back, and calves.

Plyometric exercises like box jumps, and jump rope will help develop explosive power and strength in the lower body, improving your performance in day-to-day activities and sports.

Exercise	Sets	Reps	Rest Duration
Squats	3	8-12	60 seconds
Lunges (each leg)	3	8-12	60 seconds
Box Jumps	3	6-8	90 seconds
Glute Bridges	3	10-15	60 seconds
Calf Raises	3	15-20	60 seconds
Jump Rope	3	60 sec	60 seconds

Day 3: Upper Body Strength

You’ll train the chest, arms, shoulders, and back in this workout. This might sound like a lot — because it is.

Focus on contracting the target muscles throughout the range of motion for optimal muscle fiber activation. Furthermore, pause in the fully stretched and contracted positions to achieve a muscle-ripping pump. (2)

Don’t forget to time your rest durations between sets. Resting for too long can lower your training intensity, beating the entire purpose of this training program.

Exercise	Sets	Reps	Rest Duration
Push-ups	3	As many	60 seconds
Dips	3	As many	60 seconds
Inverted Rows	3	8-12	60 seconds
Plank Rows	3	8-12 (each side)	60 seconds
Superman	3	10-15	60 seconds

Day 4: Active Recovery

If you are a beginner or exercising after a long time, you’ll probably be sore after the first three days. There is no point in pushing yourself to the limit in each workout if you’re not recovering properly.

Remember, you break down muscle tissue while exercising. Your muscles grow bigger and stronger while you are resting. Pushing yourself too hard without optimal rest can put you in a catabolic state, where your body breaks down muscle tissue. It also increases injury risk.

However, avoid turning into a couch potato during your days off from training. Engage in 10 to 30 minutes of active recovery activities like hiking, brisk walking, low-intensity jogging, and swimming. These activities boost blood flow to all muscles, flushing out metabolic waste, reducing inflammation, and promoting growth. (3)

Day 5: Cardio and Conditioning

Increased work capacity can improve your overall quality of life, as it allows you to get more done in the same 24 hours.

We’ll use the vanilla high-intensity interval training (HIIT) protocol for this cardio workout, which involves alternating between periods of all-out intensity and short recovery windows.

HIIT Cardio Workout:

Do this workout as prescribed:

Exercise	Sets	Work Time	Rest Duration
Sprints	8-10	30 sec	60 seconds (walk)
Jump Rope	10-12	60 sec	30 seconds
Stair Runs	10-15	As fast as possible	Walk down

You will be soaked in sweat by the end of this workout.

This short but impactful workout will help maximize fat expenditure, boost, endurance, and improve metabolism.

Day 6: Full Body Circuit

Now that you are optimally recovered, it is time to turn your training intensity up a notch. This high-intensity fully-body functional workout is crafted to spike your heart rate and metabolism, helping shed body fat.

This workout is excellent for sparking new growth as it hits all the muscle groups for a second time in the week. Research shows that increasing training frequency can lead to favorable hypertrophy outcomes. (4)

Complete three rounds of this circuit:

Exercise	Reps	Rest Duration
Burpees	15	60 seconds
Squat Jumps	12	60 seconds
Push-up to Renegade Row	8	60 seconds
Lunges with Bicep Curl	8	60 seconds
Plank Jacks	15	60 seconds
Mountain Climbers with Rotation	30 sec	60 seconds

Day 7: Rest or Active Recovery

Congratulations on completing the seven-day high-intensity functional training program. You have earned this rest day. Get plenty of sleep to make up for any sleep deficits and maximize recovery.

However, nothing is stopping you from engaging in some light active recovery like a 20-minute gentle stretching yoga flow or an outdoor walk.

Tips To Maximize Your 7-Day HIFT Blitz

Consider the following factors to achieve the best results:

Nutrition

You might get through seven days of this HIFT training program without any issues even when your daily routine is messed up, but things can spiral out of control if you’re not following a proper nutrition and recovery program in the long term.

Use this TDEE calculator to determine your ideal daily calorie and macronutrient goals as per your current fitness goals and training objectives. Then, break them down into balanced meals, spread throughout the day.

Also, drink at least a gallon of water daily as the human body is 75 percent water. Optimal hydration can help regulate body temperature, lubricate joints, transport nutrients, remove waste products, and positively impact cognitive abilities and energy levels.

Recovery

Sleep is when your body repairs itself and you shed weight and build muscle and strength. Prioritize sleeping at least eight hours daily to allow your muscles enough time to recover.

Adapt Your Training Program

Besides closely monitoring how you feel during the workouts, you should also learn to recognize signs of overtraining and adjust the intensity as needed.

Plus, don’t shy away from taking an additional day off from training if you feel overly fatigued. This is your body telling you that it needs more time to recover.

Integrate Fitness Into a Busy Lifestyle

Adopting a new fitness routine, irrespective of how short the workouts are, can be challenging for people with jam-packed schedules. I suggest programming your workouts into your lifestyle in a way that doesn’t cause friction.

For instance, do your workout as soon as you come out of the toilet in the morning. This way, you don’t have to fit the workout into your busy daily routine.

Treating your workouts as an obstacle is an excellent way to gamify your fitness routine. Some of my personal training clients only eat their lunch after they complete their bodyweight HIFT workout.

Conclusion

HIFT is an excellent tool for busy individuals as these bodyweight workouts are short, intense, and versatile, meaning that you can do them anywhere and at any time. These sessions are short enough that you can squeeze in a killer workout during your lunch break or before your kids wake up.

The seven-day program listed in this article is excellent for people of all experience levels. Start small and gradually increase the training intensity and volume to make consistent progress. Best of luck!

References:

1. Hirono T, Ikezoe T, Taniguchi M, Tanaka H, Saeki J, Yagi M, Umehara J, Ichihashi N. Relationship Between Muscle Swelling and Hypertrophy Induced by Resistance Training. J Strength Cond Res. 2022 Feb 1;36(2):359-364. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000003478. PMID: 31904714.
2. Ortiz RO Jr, Sinclair Elder AJ, Elder CL, Dawes JJ. A Systematic Review on the Effectiveness of Active Recovery Interventions on Athletic Performance of Professional-, Collegiate-, and Competitive-Level Adult Athletes. J Strength Cond Res. 2019 Aug;33(8):2275-2287. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000002589. PMID: 29742750.
3. Schoenfeld BJ, Ogborn D, Krieger JW. Effects of Resistance Training Frequency on Measures of Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sports Med. 2016 Nov;46(11):1689-1697. doi: 10.1007/s40279-016-0543-8. PMID: 27102172.

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