Short workouts can be effective, as long as they're intense

JIM MAHONEY/DMN

Chad Hackler at Gold's Gym trains Kydie Sharp in the Tabata Protocol.

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You've probably heard that the American College of Sports Medicine says that exercising in 10-minute bouts throughout the day can be just as effective as working out for 30 minutes straight. Maybe you've even tried it: parked your car a little bit farther away, started taking the stairs instead of the elevator, done a few calf raises in your cubicle. While that's enough to keep you somewhat healthy, it's probably not going to make you super fit.

"There's a distinction between health and fitness," says Chad Hackler, assistant fitness manager and personal trainer at Gold's Gym Preston Center. He says that the ACSM, which recommends doing moderately intense cardio 30 minutes a day, five times a week, is looking at a certain correlation between exercise and lack of disease, not necessarily increased fitness level. So if you've got a goal such as "fit into my skinny jeans by Christmas," or "build up endurance to run a 10K," you might need a little more than those guidelines to get you there.

Mr. Hackler, who's been in personal training for 17 years, says that you can still break up your workout; you just need to increase the intensity. "The shorter the period of time, the harder you need to make the exercise," he says.

Work hard. Rest. Repeat: When trying to squeeze in a short workout, Mr. Hackler recommends the Tabata Protocol: 20 seconds of high-intensity effort followed by 10 seconds of rest. "You would do that from anywhere from six to eight bouts for a total of four minutes. That's been shown to be a real effective fat-burner," he says.

Speed it up: Rather than doing slow squats, Mr. Hackler says you could try speed squats. "You're not necessarily standing straight up or going all the way down," he explains. "You could fit it into the Tabata Protocol, which would give you 20 seconds of fast squats" – followed by 10 seconds of rest – "and in four minutes you just got a really nice leg workout: your glutes, your quads, your hamstrings, your inner thigh muscles." For another fast move you can do anywhere, he suggests jumping rope minus the rope.

Combine it: Since you're dealing with short time increments, try to use as many body parts as you can, says Mr. Hackler. "One thing I like to do is combine an upper-body and lower-body exercise," he explains. "I might try some type of dead lift or squat, something that's going to work all the leg muscles and turn it into a shoulder press or turn it into a bicep curl." He adds that you might need to increase intensity by increasing the weight.

Get fit-savvy: "The big thing in this day and age of technology is to constantly try to increase your knowledge base," says Mr. Hackler. He says that simply going to YouTube and watching people perform quick exercises safely will give you plenty of ideas for your next mini-workout session.

Squeeze it in: Waiting for something to finish cooking in the microwave? Bored while standing at the pump? Need a quick break from your cube? These are all great opportunities to get in a quick workout. But allow a couple of minutes to freshen up because if you do it right, you should sweat.