Something occurred to me yesterday while I was at the gym. I wouldn't exactly call what came to me an epiphany, but it still served as somewhat of an awakening. As the sweat cascaded down my face while I completed a set of squats, I noticed that I was only one of a handful of people in the weight room who was actually working out at that very moment.

What were the other 30 or so people doing? Sitting down. It's not that they weren't working out; they were just taking a break in between sets. What's the problem with that?. No problem at all -- it's important to take a short break to allow your muscles to recuperate. However, when the total time you spend taking a break exceeds the amount of time you spend working out, then you have a problem.

Think of it this way: Let's say you go to the gym for an hour. And during that hour, you perform a total of 15 sets (for the sake of discussion, we'll assume that's three sets of five different exercises). Now, if you perform 10 to 12 reps per set, it probably takes about 30 seconds to finish a set. If you do the math, you're looking at a total of about 450 seconds (or about seven and a half minutes) spent actually working out. That means the remaining amount of time in your hour-long workout (about 52 minutes) is spent inactively.
Unless you train to total failure during each set (which isn't advisable; technical failure is a much better goal), you don't need three minutes of rest before picking up the weights again. By instead keeping your break time to a minimum, you can turn your muscle-toning resistance training workout into a fat-blasting, cardio-enhancing dynamo. For maximum results, limit break time to one minute, reducing it even further when performing a circuit training routine.

There are 24 hours in a day. Eight of them are spent sleeping. At least eight are spent at work -- not counting the time it takes to get ready for work, and the commute back and forth. Factor in eating, obligations to family, and even time spent watching TV, and before you know it, all we have left in a day is one hour to improve our fitness. Do your body the favor of making every single minute of that hour count.