Make your precious spare time go even further by making your gym workout more effective. Follow our top tips and you'll get more out of your gym routine in half the time...

Take protein after your workout

Protein is the essential fuel your muscles need to help them repair and recover after a tough workout in the gym or studio. And studies show that it works better when you take it after exercise compared to any other time. Look for a protein that's rapidly digested and contains plenty of essential amino acids. A source of high-quality whey protein like Promax or Promax Diet will work best.

Drop your reps and upthe weight

Although higher repetitions (12-20) and light weights are usually recommended to women who want to tone up, lower repetitions (8-12) and heavier weights actually work a lot better. Try it and you'll find your body becomes firmer and more defined.

Squat

Want a smooth, toned and peachy bum? Desperate for firmer, shapelier legs? If so, make sure you include the squat in your workout. The squat is one of the best movements for firming up your bum and thighs, and because it works so many muscles it's a great calorie burner too.

Less chat, more work

Women love to chat. Especially when they're in the gym. Exercise. Chat for five minutes. Exercise. More chat. Why is this a problem? Well, when you take only a short rest between exercises, your metabolic rate goes up after the workout has finished; meaning you burn fat faster in the hours after you leave the gym. But you don't get the same result with long rest periods. If you stand around chatting, that rest-time between exercises gets longer and longer. The result is that you end up spending twice as long in the gym with only half the results to show for it. The solution? Save your daily gossip for when your workout has finished.

Ditch the go-slow cardio

If you want to strip away the fat to reveal a slim, toned figure, you need more than just regular cardio. Instead, try interval training. It's shorter and works better. And you can use lots of traditional aerobic activities, such as cycling, running outside, stepping, etc. Start with a 5-minute warm-up. Then you're ready for your first interval. Work hard for one minute. After 60 seconds, drop the intensity to a very easy pace for 60-120 seconds. That's one interval. Repeat the process 3-6 times and then follow it with a cool-down. With interval training, you'll get better results in less time than with slow, boring cardio.

Put down the magazine

Do you exercise at the same time as reading a magazine? Stop. Focus on what you're doing. That's because thinking about the way your muscles work makes them work harder, research suggests. A Hull University team asked 30 subjects to do arm curls and found their muscles worked more when they focused on what the muscles were doing. And when your muscles work harder, they tone up faster. Which means you'll get a better body in months not years.

Save time with supersets

Most resistance-training workouts require that you perform one set of a given exercise, rest for a minute or two, then return to the same exercise. And it's this rest period between sets that takes up a lot of time. With supersets, you move quickly from one exercise to another, with little or no rest between. In other words, rather than resting between sets, you perform an exercise for another muscle group. Studies of women doing supersets show a 50% increase in fat burning, which makes them a highly effective way to save time and get better, faster results.