How to Include Fitness in Your Busy Schedule
As your career flourishes, you’ll find yourself spending the majority of your day juggling your time between work, meetings, family and friends. But are you finding it difficult to include fitness activities into your schedule? Don’t fret, you are not alone. To help, we’ve put together a simple and easy-to-follow plan to help you incorporate fitness into your day without taking away from your vibrant social life, your sleep or your work.
Start the day a few minutes earlier
If you wake up just 20 minutes earlier than usual, you will have enough time to put on your favourite running shoes, and go for a quick 2.5km run around your neighbourhood. This is a great way to wake up too! Don’t have enough time to go outside? Use your workout mat to do two circuits of the “7 minute workouts”. These could be as easy as following along with an online video or by doing a quick yoga session. These exercises will not only work out the muscles in your body, but also help to improve your state of mind and allow you to begin the day with a burst of energy. We recommend trying different types of fitness activities every day to target different muscle groups. Each week, set a goal of waking up 5 minutes earlier to give you more and more time to workout. At first, the sound of the alarm will be painful, but before you know it will be part of your routine.
Move throughout the day
Throughout your day-to-day, there are multiple occasions for you to become more active, and all you need to do is seize these opportunities! For example, you can try to do 10 squats while brushing your teeth or waiting for your morning toast, or even use wrist weights while you are getting dressed and ready for your day.
Depending on the type of work you do and your commute, you can spend anywhere between 8-10 hours a day sitting. This is not the ideal position for your posture but is often unavoidable. Using a stability ball, however, is a great way to make the most of your time sitting and to help improve your posture while engaging the muscles throughout your body. If you start by sitting on the ball for two hours a day, once you get used to it, you can slowly increase the frequency and duration of time you sit on the stability ball. Don’t have access to a stability ball at the office? Make it your goal to keep your abdominal muscles engaged for at least 5 minutes each hour and increase that time each week. You will soon see results in your posture and body tone.
Don’t forget to get up and move as often as possible outside of your lunch hour, as well. Get up to fill up your water bottle at least 4 times a day, to stretch your legs. To make the most of your break time, try and pick an activity that doesn’t make you sweat too much - like a brisk walk with your colleagues (maintaining a good pace and engaging your muscles while walking) or scheduling a Pilates class in an available office space or conference room.
How to incorporate fitness into your weekend
Incorporating physical exercise into your weekly routine yields a ton of benefits: it reduces anxiety, increases your ability to respond to stress and can even improve your mood. When the weekend arrives, this is the perfect time to stay active and enjoy your healthy lifestyle by taking part in physical activities and sports with your friends or family.
