Your training schedule should be aligned with your life schedule.
“I didn’t have the time” is one of the most common reasons given as an excuse for not sticking to an exercise routine. Honestly, everyone has free time, usually a lot more than they think they do.
If the busiest person on the planet is honest, he or she will be able to find 3 to 5 hours to work out every week. The real reason for giving up on a workout program is usually not time, but rather schedule clashing.
Let’s say you find the perfect running routine. It is guaranteed to shed body weight quickly, make you look slim, trim and sexy, add long, healthy, lean muscle, and improve your mental sharpness as well as your body. You can’t wait to get started. You are finally going to realize all of your fitness goals and dreams.
There’s just one problem.
The requirements for this dream exercise plan can’t possibly fit into your schedule. At first you may juggle your responsibilities and chores around, working hard to adopt to this exercise plan. But before long you are missing workout sessions, while also throwing a monkey wrench into your personal and career schedules.
Whatever type of exercise you undertake, it should fit seamlessly into your current schedule.
If not, you are never going to stick to that plan, because it creates problems in other areas of your life. Remember, your exercise program should be a source of stress reduction, and should definitely not create more stress in your life.
Be honest about your personal and career schedule requirements, and adopt an exercise plan that fits perfectly into those schedules.
Choosing the Right Type of Exercise for Your Unique Situation
If you want to find the “perfect” exercise regimen for you, it’s time to go back to school.
Don’t worry. You won’t have to enroll in classes and spend months completing a course. All you have to do is take a simple and quick quiz that will reveal your Fitness Personality.
It works like this.
You answer a bunch of questions that seemingly have nothing to do with exercise. They revolve around how you would take vacations, how you handle bad news and what you do during the holidays.
These types of questions answer a lot about you and your personality. Using your answers to them, the Fitness Personality Quiz presented by author Elena Rover can help you pick the workout or exercise routine or program that gives you the best chance at seeing the results you’re looking for.
The revealing quiz is found in a book titled “Chelsea Piers Fitness Solution: Achieve a Lifetime of Health, Weight-Loss and Vitality By Discovering the Activity You Love”. The book is available through Amazon as a used hardcover purchase. This book purchase ensures you always choose a workout plan you enjoy. When you like exercising, you do it more frequently, which automatically leads to better end results.
2 Questions You Must Answer to Choose the Right Exercise Plan
Do you want to lose weight? Or do you just to become fit and healthy? Those are the 2 questions you absolutely must answer to choose the right exercise plan… every time.
Losing weight means cutting calories and probably carbohydrates, while also adding some type of cardio-based exercise. You do this by trimming carbohydrates and calories, while simultaneously walking, jogging, swimming or enjoying some other type of cardiovascular exercise.
If you want to get fit, that usually means a combination of primarily strength training, along with a little cardio.
In other words, you really need to know your specific goal for exercise.
Once you answer the 2 big exercise questions (I’m looking for weight loss, or I’m looking for fitness), and you can begin to cater your workout plans accordingly.
If weight loss is your goal, how many pounds do you want to lose, and in what time-frame? Are you looking for a short-term fix or long-term answer? Burning 1 pound of body weight means a 3,500 calorie deficit. Jog for 5 or 6 hours and you will shave off about 1 pound of weight.
Becoming fit means building muscle mass, something that is more catered to strength training. You should still add some amount of cardio to your exercise regimen, but the primary focus should be on building muscle. Again, what is your time-frame and specific goal here? Are you trying to get fit so you look good in a swimsuit, or did your doctor present you with some scary health numbers at your last checkup?
First choose whether weight loss or overall fitness is your main goal for working out. For weight loss, restrict your caloric intake and perform mostly cardio. For overall fitness, you predominantly strength train, sprinkling in a little cardio as well.
Consider Physical Factors before Choosing Any Type of Exercise
Don’t underestimate (or overestimate) your current fitness level, and take into account any injuries or physical inabilities.
If you are drastically out of shape, 100 pounds overweight with all of your important health metrics headed in the wrong direction, take this into account. Your current state of fitness doesn’t mean that eventually you can’t be in the best shape of your life. It just means you have to consider where your body is “right now” when taking up any type of exercise plan.
Choosing the right fitness program means being honest about certain things.
Do you have an injury or some other physical detriment that doesn’t allow you to move in a certain way? If you have bad joints or weak knees, or strains and sprains in your legs that haven’t yet healed, taking up a running routine probably is not the best thing to do initially.
This doesn’t just apply in a negative fashion.
If you are in pretty good shape, you need to push yourself to see results. All exercise is about stressing and straining your muscles to a greater extent than they are used to. When your muscles repair, they burn calories and fat, boost your metabolism, make your heart and respiratory systems stronger and healthier, and lead to other health benefits.
This doesn’t happen if you are in great physical shape and think that walking 1 mile a day, 3 days a week is going to significantly impact your fitness in a positive manner.
Be honest about where you are now fitness-wise, consider injuries and other physical limitations, and choose an exercise plan that takes those conditions into account.
Choosing 1 “Perfect” Exercise Plan May Mean Sampling Several
When it comes to finding the perfect exercise, try a little bit of everything.
When choosing an exercise plan that will fit your emotions, schedule and fitness goals, you may need to have a “buffet eating” mindset. Buffets offer dozens of food items to choose from. There is usually a blanket price for the buffet, and you can eat as much as you like, anything that you like.
Apply this to exercise if you are not sure which one is right for you.
You may have heard about the incredible head-to-toe, inside and out benefits of strength training. Try that on for size. Give it a good 30 or 60 day run, and approach it seriously. Are you seeing the results you’re looking for? If not, try something else.
Start running 3 days a week or jogging, take up calisthenics or body weight exercises, or join a local softball or basketball league. Again, give these exercise routines time to work. Take a look at the results you are achieving.
Continue to do this until you find a single exercise, or a combination, that fits your schedule.
Choose those routines or programs that deliver the results you’re looking for, while also spiking your “fun meter”. This will ensure that you are more likely not to skip a workout session, as long as your exercise doesn’t conflict with your non-exercise routines and schedules.
You might find that you enjoy performing different workout programs every 30, 60 or 90 days. This keeps you from becoming a victim of exercise burnout, eventually giving up on your fitness plans altogether. Treat your exercise plans like a buffet, and sample several to find the one, or combo, that is right for you.
