Here's a question requiring a truly honest answer: How hard are you really working during your workout? If you've been going to the gym regularly and are not seeing results results then it's time you took a good, hard look at the quality of your time spent there. A recent study by Dr. Michael Colgan, discovered that the average gym goer only spends 18 minutes lifting weights!

Here are my top 5 tips to ensure that you make the most out of your workout hour:

1. The parking lot
Every day I see see gym goers circling the parking lot looking for a spot close to the door. You can waste more than five minutes on such an endeavor. You are going to exercise anyway, so what's a few extra metres? Take the first spot you see.

2. The locker room
The change room is an easy place to lose time: changing outfits, weighing yourself, obsessing about minor skin irregularities in the mirror, or worrying if your gym clothes make you look fat. Get ready for your workout at home: put on your fitness clothes and fill your water bottle before leaving the house. Avoiding the locker room will save you at least five minutes if not 10 minutes if you run into a friend.


3. The wandering workout
Plan your workout by writing down exactly what you want to accomplish. Just like looking in your fridge and making a grocery list, you don't want to just buy jam, you want strawberry; you don't want to just work your legs you want to work your quads or hamstrings or calves. Be specific by listing your muscles, which exercise and how many reps your are going to do. Make sure you have a back-up plan in case a machine you want to use in unavailable.

4. Resting
Rest when you are in bed! Wait no more than 90 seconds between sets.

5. Disconnect
Leave cell phones, BlackBerrys, iPhones, etc. in your purse.

Sarah Brown is a very healthy woman. She is not only a fitness instructor at Goodlife where she teaches Body Pump, Body Flow and yoga but she is also a registered holistic nutritionist. If you have a question for Sarah, leave a comment below and she will try and help, but note that not all questions will be answered.