Negosentro.com | How To Fit Exercise Into the Busiest of Schedules | A healthy lifestyle is essential to keep you performing at your best, whether at work, in the community or at home. As your job becomes more interesting and demanding, though, you might find yourself in an odd position. To stay at your peak, you need to devote time to staying active, yet you might have fewer chances to do so because work absorbs more of your time.
How can you continue staying fit while building your career? Even if you don’t have hours to devote to heavy workouts, you can be healthy by wisely using the time you have.
Work Out at Home
Is it too much trouble to drive to the gym, work out, shower and rush off to work? Try exercising at home. Even without fancy equipment, you can stay fit in your spare room, basement or living room. Start with simple equipment like dumbbells, resistance bands, a stability ball and a floor mat.
Of course, you can expand on your home gym if you like. Go high-tech with a smart bike or treadmill. You might want to look into an inground pool cost and swim laps or try water aerobics (and relax poolside afterward). If you’re investing in a gym membership you don’t use, consider putting the money toward home equipment and make it easier to exercise.
Keep Workout Clothes Handy
If your schedule is unpredictable, you may end up squeezing in a workout at unexpected times. Try keeping a change of clothes in the car. If a meeting ends early or gets canceled, you can head to the gym. If you don’t want to work up a full sweat between engagements, just grab your athletic shoes and take a walk around the block.
Schedule Workouts Like Meetings
When you schedule an appointment, you probably put effort into keeping it by marking it on your calendar and planning your day around it. Too often, it’s easy to say, “I can fit in my workout later.” Try treating your workout time as you would a doctor visit; you wouldn’t call the office ten minutes before your scheduled time and cancel. Give exercise the same level of importance. Your well-being is worth it.
Work Out When the Kids Do
If your workday ends with children’s ball games and after-school activities, use the time for some activity of your own. Walk around the ball field instead of sitting behind the dugout. Take a jog down the street during your child’s piano lesson. If the activity is close enough to home, you and your child might walk or bike there together, and you can enjoy the added benefit of quality time.
Exercise in Short Bursts
If you can’t commit to lengthy workouts, don’t despair. Getting 10 minutes of continuous moderate activity three times a day provides the same health benefits as 30 continuous minutes of moderate exercise. That means you can count a walk after lunch or lifting dumbbells on a 10-minute break as part of your workout. You can use short bursts of time as high-intensity interval training, or HIIT, workouts.
Exercise Efficiently
Maybe you want to work out every day but just can’t fit it in. That’s OK — cut yourself some slack. Anything is better than nothing. You will benefit from a combination of 75 minutes of moderate and vigorous activity per week. If you can fit in two or three sessions per week, you can meet and maybe surpass 75 minutes if each session is just 30-45 minutes. Make progress, not perfection, your goal.
If you’re doing resistance training, combining two or more muscle groups in one move can help you exercise efficiently. An example is combining squats with bicep curls. Pushups and planks also work more than one major muscle group at a time. When you’re exercising, multitasking can work to your advantage.
If you make your health a priority, you can find time to exercise even on the busiest days. The effort you put into maintaining your health will pay off in all areas of your life.
