Finding time to exercise is about as difficult as cutting a penny with plastic scissors for most people. The truth is: it’s easy after you get started. Exercise time management requires blocking off exercise as part of your daily routine. People that try to exercise when they can “fit it in” normally end up with the least results. Exercise time management involves scheduling, workout development, and program variety.
Organization with scheduling is half the battle. It’s important that you organize your exercise schedule while you are rested, as this will have a direct impact on your motivation to be in the gym. Planning to exercise based upon how you feel at that given moment can be problematic. However, by choosing a specific time on each day that you plan on exercising, writing this time onto a calendar for an entire month, and following your calendar just as you would a doctor’s appointment, you will be leap years in front of everyone else.
Exercise time management also involves pre-scheduling of your workout routine. Clients of mine who are most successful exercising independently develop their workouts ahead of time. In fact, the most successful plan their workouts for at least an entire week in advance. If you think about it, your choice of exercises for today should be based upon your choice of exercises yesterday and tomorrow.
Choosing which body parts to exercise on a given day can be a perplexing decision, although this is beyond the scope of this article. As a general recommendation, be sure to leave at least 48 hours between exercise sessions that involve a pure strengthening protocol. On the other hand, endurance workouts can have more frequent repetition, as well as decreased isolation of muscle groups.
Finally, in order to manage your time effectively with exercise, you’ll need to consider having a variety of exercises in your routine. The typical exercise program repeats once or twice a week, indefinitely. This allows your body to acclimate to the exercise demands placed upon it, thereby decreasing your results over time and leading to plateau. By selecting a larger variety of exercise, as can be done with proper workout development skills, you will be constantly stimulating your body to react to new demands, and thereby increasing fat loss and fitness results. For this reason, marathon runners are able to look relaxed while running at insane speeds. After awhile, the human body accommodates this ‘abnormal’ demand, and learns to burn fewer calories and conserve more energy. The same thing is true with your exercise program. Be careful not to make this mistake.
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