Today I want to talk a little about adjusting your workout routine to fit into a busier than usual lifestyle. It's important to be creative in finding ways to sustain some kind of workout schedule.
Workout for Summer
We all have challenges when it comes to finding time to fit in our workouts. Since I’m a big proponent of planning your workouts for the entire week, month, or longer, I find it increasingly difficult to stick to these routines as my life cranks into high gear in the summer months.
As usual, I’m my own best guinea pig, so I’ll use myself as the context of staying fit with a busy schedule, but I’ll also provide plenty of generalities.
Be Efficient
When you have a million and one things to do, but your fitness is important to you and you refuse to budge on squeezing in your workout, it’s important to be as efficient as possible. The idea is to do as much as you can in a short amount of time.
With the number of projects that I’ve been taking on, in addition to my bootcamps, yoga classes, and personal training clients, I find it increasingly difficult to stick to a solid workout schedule. Fortunately, kettlebell workouts are perfect for doing a whole lot in only a little time.
By doing a couple of kettlebell workouts per week, I’m able to work every muscle group, get cardio in, and have a thorough and satisfying workout in as little as 30-45 minutes.
Try and think of ways that you can add a little extra to what you’re already doing in order to work as much as possible.
If you’re a runner, consider doing some push-ups at stoplights, or sit-ups during the rest periods of intervals.
For other weight lifting workouts, try experimenting with different supersets and circuits in order to maximize your time.
Do What You Can
A lot of times, when my schedule is really full or I can only squeeze in a short workout, I add additional exercises a la carte throughout my day. I’ll find myself busting out a set of pull-ups when I walk by the pull-up bar. I’ll do a quick strip set on the chest, biceps, or triceps.
Fortunately, while doing trainings and running bootcamps, I get to jump in and demonstrate the moves, or get into an exercise with a group in order to set the pace and intensity. So while I am unable to fit in a whole workout within an hour’s time, I kind of piece it together from doing various exercises throughout the day.
While I haven’t particularly been able to build strength through this method, I have been able to maintain what I already have. In fact, on some days if you were to add up all the various exercises that I did a la carte, it would probably be more than what I would have done within a complete workout.
One thing to keep in mind if you are adding a la carte exercises throughout your day, is your level of readiness. It’s not likely that you have stretched properly, or elevated the heart rate sufficiently. In my case, my work keeps me moving and loose most of the time. If that’s not true for you, a great way to prepare the muscles for an exercise is to do the exercise itself at half intensity, or half of the weight in order to warm up and activate those muscles for more strenuous effort.
Just being an active person can contribute to maintaining fitness.
- Utilize parks, objects, bodyweight, and just move and do things.
- Keep in mind that every little activity helps. Don’t throw your fitness out the window because you are unable to fit in a full workout.
- There are lots of creative ways to work your muscles throughout the day: take the stairs, curl your children, goblet squat a bag of groceries. Recognize them and take advantage of them when you can.
Do Your Best
Raising the intensity of your exercises, when you have a chance to do them, is a great way to compensate for shortened workout periods or random exercises.
When you have a whole workout planned, you might often pace yourself so that you have enough strength and energy to make it through your allotted time. When you’re just squeezing something in, go all out! Get that extra rep on the pull-up bar, go a little heavier.
You might just find that your day is a little more fun because of the movement that you incorporated into it. Being active and moving surely improves your mood, and it’s also a great way to maintain your fitness during busy periods of life when it’s hard to keep a regular workout for summer schedule.
What do you do to squeeze in a little exercise when you can? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!
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