It really amazes me when I have gone into gyms in the past and I see some overweight woman with a trainer and the trainer is having her do standing arm curls for her workout. The crazy thing is that the client is generally carrying on a conversation throughout the set of curls. As a strength and conditioning specialist and professional trainer the scene I just described is both laughable and absolutely ridiculous!

Its as if people don't know how or are scared to actually "WORKOUT." I have seen this situation as I described above on many occasions. The bottom line is that the client should be raising her level of perceived exertion, and the arm curls that were easy enough for her to tell her trainer the story about her sons' graduation just doesn't cut it. This logic should go for everyone, especially if you are on a time crunch and really want to get an effective workout. Instead of worrying about targeting your arms by doing curls and cable tricep extensions do push-ups and pull-ups instead. If you don't have the strength to do push-ups or full pull-ups then modify them. It takes a little creativity to be successful at anything in life and working out is no different. I'm not telling you that you have to be an expert and write a book on fitness or anything like that, but just put forth a little effort. At least get yourself enough out of breath to be able to say afterwards that you did something!

Get a little creative, but forget the single-joint lifts like extensions and curls. Kill more than one bird with one stone. Engage in as many exercises that hit multiple muscles at once as you can possibly come up with.