By Matthew Regan CPT
These tips are based on personal experiences and observations of clients.
“I don’t have time” is the #1 excuse for not training so I want to help and here are 5 tips to train more consistently!
1 – Experiment Training at all time options available to you
If your struggling to train consider trying different times to see what works best for you. Also think about the fact there are 24 hours in a day and 7 days a week; that’s 168 hours in a week. I know you have to sleep, eat and work but a good general goal for healthy fitness is 3-5 hours of work a week. This is 2-3% of your total time. If you can’t carve 2-3% of your time for your health and fitness your priorities need to change if you want to change. What is more important then your health? You can’t expect change if you don’t change some “things” and these “things” are likely your ongoing daily/weekly habits. Many people are NOT getting nearly enough physical activity and its a major reason about a third of the adult population fall in the obese category in the USA. The USA is one of the most obese nations in the world folks so let’s start changing that!
In general you want to aim for 2-5 days of strength training with about 1-3 hours of conditioning per week; maybe more or less depending on the person and goal. The fitter you are the harder it is to make progress too so if you want to look like the models who workout 5-6 X a week and you think you can get there working out 1-2 X a week your dreaming.
I will first speak to my desk jockeys who I work with most but these tips may help anyone. So if you work at a “normal” desk job your likely only options are early before work, on your lunch break (maybe) and after work and the weekends. The weekends are only 29% (2/7) of the week with the weekdays being 71% (5/7) of the week so just relying on weekend work is setting yourself up for failure. It’s just not enough time. Also everything else in life happens on the weekends so vacations and parties and events will all start becoming excuses to miss training and send your progress the other way. That is not to say don’t train on weekends but I recommend carving the bulk of your training time during the weekdays so if you miss a weekend your still on track. I like to save the weekends for fun outdoor activities which usually helps with my cardio/conditioning.
For many of my Mom and Dad clients they really like early morning sessions. A morning strength session will turbo charge your day! Many of them hated waking up so early at first but it only takes a few weeks to make a habit. If you start working out at 6 am you will likely be exhausted by 9-10 pm so aim for 7-8 hours of sleep and you’ll be ready to rock again in the morning. The huge benefit for parents doing AM sessions is your not missing much if any time with your kid(s). If you work from home sometimes this is also a great day to train. I know the lunch break (if you get one) is tough for many of my clients but consider hitting it for a 20-30 minutes of conditioning or a HIIT session. You can do a quick workout, shower, grab some fuel and be back at the desk in 50 minutes. If you did 2-3 lunch sessions a week that could be 1-2 hours more right there. If you don’t have kids go right after work. If you go after work bring a gym bag with your clothes to save time.
2. Use a calendar and carve out time for training and make it happen.
If you have a tough time making and keeping appointments or a schedule this step should be your first and only priority until it is mastered. I recommend planning your training and then planning your other responsibilities around training vs the opposite approach. I’m not saying you need to plan your entire week month and year but its not a bad idea and planning gets more done. Putting events on your calendar gets more done at work, home, socially and in the gym. I recommend treating your training like doctors appointments. When people ask if you want to out for margaritas and fried cheese balls tell them thanks but you have an appointment and maybe next time. When you tell people you have an appointment many won’t question it and it’s your business so you really don’t have to tell anyone what your appointment is for. When you put that your going to hit legs or back on your calendar just go hit legs or back. MAKE IT HAPPEN. Excuses are beat. There is an old proverb that goes something like your words become your calendar appointments become your actions become your desired fitness level. Or something like that
3 – Adjust workouts based on energy
Something is better than nothing. If your shot from the day and you don’t think you can handle a full workout don’t. But that doesn’t mean do nothing but eat bon bons while browsing IG on your couch. Do something less than a full workout by adjusting down. Some options include walking, foam rolling, stretching, strength with decreased weight intensity, balance work, bike riding, literally anything active. Workouts don’t always have to be perfect and amazing. The important thing is that you keep moving and do something if your able.
Many clients I work with just want to lose weight. To achieve weight loss and fat loss in the simplest of term is to live in a slight caloric deficit. That means taking in slightly less fuel then your burning most of the time. If you compare a very high intensity workout which might burn say ~ 500-750 calories vs a moderate conditioning session of say ~200- 350 calories the difference is only 300-400 calories total. 300-400 calories is about the same amount of shitty fuel you would get from a piece of cake and glass of wine. 300-400 calories is 3-4 reeces peanut butter cups people. Full disclosure I eat cake and wine and reeces too but I do in moderation while I workout consistently.
4 – Seek joy in Strength and conditioning
Is your workout brutally challenging your mental and physical being and causing you to hate life? Do you feel worse after training than before you arrived? If you answered yes then you might be doing the wrong type of training for your goals. You may have a bad program or trainer or closed off to options but there are a bunch of ways to get fit. For me I love lifting weights. It just makes me feel great every time. I don’t just go to the gym though I also like bike riding, snowboarding, surfing (trying), volleyball, tennis, golf and pretty much anything active and fun. I want to stay active forever. I also like to look good naked. All of these motivators help me day in and day out to get in the gym and do my thing. What motivates you and why do you want to get fit? Think about it for a bit…..If you don’t like your workouts I recommend exploring other ways to work on your fitness goals. Most clients I work with just want to be healthy and lose a little weight and get stronger and add muscle. People get jacked playing tennis. Strength and conditioning does help everything though so do things for fun but I recommend strength training to turbo charge your life. I recommend to keep it simple and work on compound lifts and to get stronger it is critical to progressively overload your muscles by adding small challenges. These challenges could be adding weight, less rest time, pause reps, eccentrics slow reps or many variations.
5 – Substitute media consumption and partying for health and fitness
You don’t have time for your health and fitness but you want to get fit huh? Ok time to do a little life analysis; how many hours of TV/Youtube/netflix/hulu/media do you watch a week?
Your answer is probably more than 1 or 2 I would guess. Now are you working out at least 1-2 hours a week? Everyone has their bullshit time wasting thing myself included but whether its apps on your phone or freecell or the Bachelor these media consumption habits are taking your time. The bachelor is on for like 2-4 hours a week. If my clients worked out an extra 2-4 hours a week they would all be crushing their goals. How many times do you go out to restaurants to eat and drink a week? Some people go out alot and restaurant portions can sometimes be very large. Add a few drinks and your weekly caloric deficit may have just gone the other way to a weekly surplus. Say you go out 3x a week to eat and drink knock it down to 2 and go workout and cook instead. From all of these tips the ongoing theme is to make small sustainable changes and you will see small sustainable results that’s don’t have you yo-yo-ing back and forth with mediocre results.
