This week’s Fitness Post is brought to you by personal trainer Igor Klibanov from Fitness Solutions Plus.

You’re a busy professional or executive. You’re already working long hours, and may or may not be exercising. But what if I could show you a simple way (I said “simple.” Not “easy”) to get crazy strong in your cubicle or office? Would that be good?

Here are a few simple strategies.

Grease the Groove

A well-known strength training strategy is greasing the groove. Just what is that? It means that you pick an exercise that allows you to do 8-10 repetitions, but only do 3-5 repetitions several times throughout the day. That’s it.

Let’s use an example. Let’s say that you can do 9 pushups. So several times throughout the day, you would just do 3-5 throughout the day. Re-test that a couple of weeks later, and you might be pleasantly surprised that you can now do maybe 14 or 15 pushups. Pretty good for such a low time investment.

After all, how long does it take to do 3-5 pushups? 6-10 seconds. I don’t care how busy you are, I’m sure you can find 6-10 seconds throughout the day.

Once you can do an exercise for more than 10 repetitions, it’s time to find a harder variation of it. So you might go from knee pushups to pushups on your feet.

Pushups are just an example. You can use any exercise that you’d like to get strong at. But the key condition is that it must be an exercise that you cannot do more than 10 repetitions. If it’s more than 10, you’re building endurance, not strength (and if that’s your goal, that’s fine).

The nice thing is that 6-10 seconds is not even enough time to break a sweat.

Don’t Move a Muscle

Ever heard of isometrics? Isometrics are a form of exercise where you’re either pushing or pulling an immovable object (like a wall), or you’re holding a position (like a plank).

Isometrics are another great strategy to build strength quickly. And just like greasing the groove, you only need to hold each contraction for 6-10 seconds.

So imagine pushing into a wall with your hand for 10 seconds. Does it take a long time? No. 10 seconds, even 12 times throughout the day will take you an entire 2 minutes. And yet in that time, you’re working your chest, shoulders, and triceps (backs of your arms).

Will using these 2 strategies be enough to help you lose weight and completely transform your body? Absolutely not. But will they help you get stronger? Yes. Will they give you more energy? Yes. So for a very small time investment, the effects are well worth it.

But a word of warning. The side effects of these 2 strategies may result in:

•   More energy
•   Better mental clarity
•   Improved productivity
•   A better body
•   More confidence
•   People wondering how you got so strong with so little time.

You’ve been warned. Use at your own risk.