6 Ways to Fit Exercise in Your Life
By now you are starting to realize how important strength training is to your health, longevity, and overall well-being. But knowing the importance of exercise and being able to fit it into your busy life are two different stories! Below are 6 ways to help you fit exercise in your life.
Hold yourself accountable
-Find a workout buddy
-Mark it in your calendar
-Sign up for classes in advance
Finding ways to hold yourself accountable when it comes to the gym will help you be more consistent. Some of our favorite ways to do this include having a workout buddy, planning your workouts on a calendar, and signing up for classes ahead of time. Having somebody else waiting for you at the gym, whether it’s a teacher or a friend, means you can’t just go home no questions asked. Scheduling your workouts in a calendar will prevent you from double-booking your time, and will increase your consistency. Schedule your workouts like you schedule a doctor’s appointment and do not let other activities take precedence. When was the last time you missed a doctor’s appointment or a work appointment? Treat your training appointments the same!
2. Reduce Friction between you and completing your workout
-Have a plan
-Have clothes ready in your car
-Find a closer gym
-Create a routine
Friction can be defined as resistance between two surfaces, so here we’re looking to reduce the resistance between you and your workout. Before you can execute your workout you need to get to the gym. Our favorite ways to ensure this include choosing a gym that is conveniently located and having gym clothes in your car at all times. After these two things, it’s important to choose a workout time that won’t get derailed by friends and family members and to create a routine.
Everyone’s schedule is different and there will be times with many more distractions than others. You will want to choose a time with as little distractions as possible. People have great success coming in before work before all of their daily tasks pile up, while others have great success coming straight from work before they have a chance to get home and be inundated with all the chores they have left to do! Regardless of what time you choose to train it is important to create a consistent schedule and routine. Often times, when you first start working out you are super motivated just to fall off once that motivation dwindles. Motivation comes and goes, but by creating a routine you take the thought out of whether or not you go to the gym. After work, instead of debating on whether to go to the gym or go home you’ll; just go to the gym because that is your routine. Routines take the thought out of the difficult tasks and reduce the friction in getting them done.
Once you’re at the gym there needs to be little friction to you making it through your workout. Friction in this sense might look like all the machines you’re familiar with being used, leaving you unsure of what to do. It’s easy to wander around the gym and waste time, which is why it’s so important to have a plan. A plan will give you a specific set of tasks to complete, with alternatives if your machines are taken. Completing these small tasks will help you build momentum in the gym both from the beginning of the workout to the end, and as the weeks go by.
3. Commit to an event/goal
-5k/Spartan/PL meet
-Work your way up to a certain weight
With a deadline fast approaching, you’ll have no choice but to get the work done. Just like deadlines at work, having an event circled on your calendar will force you to prepare for it. Whether it’s a 5k, a spartan race, or a powerlifting meet there will be serious consequences for skipping your workouts. If you can commit yourself to a competition, you’ll find you have no choice but to prioritize your training. Not to mention, training becomes much more exciting when you have a specific goal you are pushing towards!
4. Incentivize yourself
-New workout clothes/shoes
It’s important to recognize our own achievements because it’s far too easy to downplay how hard we work. Our suggestion here is to come up with a sequence of goals, as well as corresponding rewards for getting there. These rewards don’t need to be extreme, but something as simple as a new workout shirt can go a long way when it comes to your excitement to wear it in the gym.
5. Invest in yourself
-Hold yourself accountable with your dollar
-Cut out frivolous spending
Coaches have a ton to offer when it comes to the gym, as they have worked with hundreds of people who have dealt with a variety of obstacles. A good coach will take you farther than you can go on your own, in less time and with fewer headaches along the way. In addition to all of the initial benefits of improving your health, the long-term benefits will see the costs of training head right back into your pocket. You’ll decrease the likelihood of spending money on medications, doctor’s visits, and other healthcare costs that drain so many people of financial resources as they age.
Some ways to offset the cost of training include cutting out some visits to bars ($6-8 per beer/wine), less coffee ($3-5/drink), fewer mani-pedis ($60-100), fewer hair appointments ($100-150+). Some combination of fewer of these things (not cutting them out completely!) will help offset the cost of hiring a coach. When it comes to investing in your health, these are small sacrifices to make for the long-term rewards you’ll earn.
6. Minimize time spent on non-important and non-urgent activities
-Increase time spent in quadrant two
-Minimize time spent in quadrant four
In Stephen Covey’s book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, he introduces this idea of a Time Management Matrix (seen below)
Covey suggests writing down all the tasks that fill up your daily life and divide them into four quadrants. Quadrant one representing tasks that are both urgent and important. These are the task that you should do right away, without thought. Quadrant two are tasks that are not urgent but are important. These are the tasks that bring joy and meaning into your life. These are the tasks we need to make more time for. Things like self-improvement and exercise are core quadrant two activities! Quadrant three represents tasks that are urgent but not important. These are tasks you should try to avoid or delegate. Quadrant four activities represent activities that are not important or urgent. These activities should be eliminated from your routine to make time for Quadrant one and two! Your time is valuable and tasks that don’t give you a return on this value should be avoided. Quadrant three and four activities do not give you a great return on your investment
So, try and limit the time you spend in quadrant three and four and maximize the time you spend in quadrant two and you will be amazed at how you feel!
Now armed with six powerful tools to help you get started and stick to a strength training program, let’s get after it!