In a ideal world we’d all have ample time in our days to invest it in the activities we enjoy and that we feel give us the most benefit. In reality, after commitments like work and family are upheld, there can be little time or energy left to spend doing the activities we want.
In summer, our time can feel even more compressed. There are so many fun things happening, that it’s hard to say no. Plus for families there is the school holiday juggle. You may feel torn between staying committed to your health and fitness progress and being social / getting away for a family outing or holiday.
But with a little bit of planning and a fire in your belly, you can strike a balance, train enough to maintain your health and fitness, whilst freeing up enough time to do all that fun summer stuff.
Here’s some ideas to get you thinking and hopefully moving…
1/ Get into it early
Set that alarm and get up and get after it before everyone and everything starts demanding some of your time during the day. It’s often cooler too in the early mornings. It feels great knowing you’ve done some movement or a workout early and the rest of the day is yours to invest in other things.
2/ Don’t over think it
Not every workout has to be perfectly designed or planned. Sometimes if we can’t get to the gym that can be enough of a reason to skip the workout all together. But generally something is way better than nothing, so just keep it simple and relish the challenge of training in a different way with a run, a swim or bodyweight workout in the park.
3/ Little and Often Wins
Your workout doesn’t have to be atleast 1 hour long to be effective, so don’t write it off if you can’t find a free 1-2 hour gap in your schedule. We would rather you train 4 x 15mins per week than 1 hour once per week. Little and often wins the race.
4/ Integrate to feel great
Once you realise that short bursts can be effective you will start seeing opportunities for them everywhere, like a kitchen workout while cooking dinner, or squats in the ad breaks of your favourite show, or a game of tag with your kids. Blend activity into your day to day life!
5/ Don’t sweat it
Most importantly of all, don’t sweat it if your training plan doesn’t go to schedule, there’s always tomorrow and life is too short to be stressing about missed workouts.
In health, Team EFL