Solutions for not exercising

One of the most common reasons  for people’s lack of exercise throughout the week, just isn’t enough time. I get it, we live in a fast paced world. We all strive to be better than the next person, so we multitask to create more time.  Eat as we run out the door, have Siri type up our meeting notes as we drive, I’m sure you can think of plenty of other examples.  In this article, although I could just use Nike’s slogan “Just do it”, I will try to be more informative and proactive.

Let’s start with how much is recommended:

The American College of Sports Medicine states:

Looking to maintain weight and not gain: 150minutes a week of moderate exercise.
Looking to Lose weight: 250minutes a week of moderate exercise.
(Moderate means that if you were to have a conversation with a person, you would be somewhat out of breath but able to hold the conversation)

The numbers seem big…  let’s convert.
Maintain weight 150minutes= 2.5 hours a week.
Lose weight 250minutes= about 4 hours a week.

These numbers may still seem big for some, however, if you think about how much time is in the week 24hrs multiplied by  7days a week = 168 hours. You really can’t find 2.5- 4hours out of 168 hours?!

Okay, no more math. You can break down the amount of sleep needed and activities on your own.

Personal trainer solution # 1

The drive to the gym, the time at the gym and the drive back.  DO IT AT HOME!  In addition, you don’t need to do a whole 45mins-one hour workout in one sitting.  Do 3minutes here, 10 minutes there throughout the day.  (Check http://www.youtube.com/user/trainingaspects, for how to warm up, as well as various exercise and techniques.)  Every two hours or so, take five minutes to do some exercises.  Go into the stairwell and do five minutes of going up and down the stairs, pushups, squats, the choices for exercises are endless.

Personal trainer solution #2

Meet with a qualified trainer who can create and teach you a 15-20 minute program.  This will make you workouts more efficient and effective.  There are certain exercises which are more effective.  Specifically: kettlebells, plyometrics, and power exercises; they’re all high-intensity exercises which will help you cut down your workouts by up to half the time.  At TrainingAspects, we create short and effective programs all the time, and people see great results.

Personal trainer solution #3

Find something active you like to do.  Play a sport, participate in an outdoor activity, ride a bike, get away from any sort of screen.  This could also be a good time to go back to your high school/college years and get back into whatever activity/sport you participated in at that time.  This way, you make time for it.

If something is valuable to you, no matter how little time there is, you’ll find a way to make the time for it.  Your health should fall into that category.  Too many times, you hear about someone changing their ways after  their health has failed them.  Be proactive—it will pay off in the long run.

As a Chinese proverb states:  “The best time to plant a tree was 20years ago, the next best time is today.”

By: Kirill Vaks
Fitness and exercise specialist
BA, CSCS, ACSM-cpt, NFPT-sns  

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