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If you have a busy life, and most people do, you know that it can be hard to find time to exercise. The demands of children, work, or school can keep you from sticking to your goal to burn fat.

If you have a busy life, and most people do, you know that it can be hard to find time to exercise. The demands of children, work, or school can keep you from sticking to your goal to burn fat.

An alternative many people turn to is short workouts. Do three or four ten minute workouts produce the same effects as one long one?

You often hear that it takes the body about twenty minutes to start burning serious calories and fat, so wouldn't that make shorter workouts ineffective? What is the best way to burn fat on a tight schedule?

According to the American Heart Association, you can receive the same benefit from several shorter workouts as you do from one long one. This is true if they add up to the same amount of time.

This means that if you do four ten minute workouts, you are doing the same great things for your body that a single forty minute workout can do. To make it even more effective, the AHA recommends that you make these short workouts as intense as possible.

Moderate exercise won't cut it for your short workouts. You need to make them challenging. Try the following tips to get the most from your mini workouts.

1. Pick up the pace. A lot.

Try to go at a faster pace than you normally would. If you're not a runner, walk very briskly for ten minutes. Both will get your heart pumping.

2. Do a gym machine for ten minutes.

If you are at the gym or have equipment at home, jump on and exercise extremely rigorously for ten minutes.

3. Use the stairs. Or a hill.

Then walk back down and repeat until you hit ten minutes.

4. Jumping Jacks: you'll feel like you're in gym class again!

5. Jump rope.

Basically, anything that is intense and hard work for your body can make a good ten minute workout. And don't forget your strength training!

Make sure you include strength training in your short workout routine. Your body needs the variety in order to keep challenged and burn fat. Do a quick warm-up before you do the following:

* Deadlifts

* Pushups

* Deadlifts

* Lunges

* Deadlifts

Do a few sets each, or better yet, combine the moves (compound moves work more effectively and build more muscle). You can try squats with overhead presses, lunges with chest presses, knee lifts with tricep kickbacks, and more.

Just because your workout is condensed, don't neglect the warm-up and cool-downs. Walking briskly to warm up, and walking at a more moderate pace to cool down is sufficient. You can also do some stretching moves to release tension in your muscles.

If you can only fit in short workouts into your schedule, you are doing great things for your body. Above all, you will burn fat and lose weight.

Working out for shorter periods of time can also be much more motivating and can help you stick with your exercise program.

Your busy schedule may be a valid excuse for not doing a long workout each day, but not with short workouts! You can always find ten minutes somewhere.