Trying to reshape my fitness regime- how do you arrange your fitness around your life?

dragonsfire1981 · 3 July 2019 at 2:07PM

Hiya,

Would like to hear how people arrange their workouts around their lives.

I've generally done 2 occaisionally 3 hard sessions a week. I do them from Friday to Sunday though recently because I've started working on the weekends I've had to re think this and unable to workout on weekends as much. I've only done one session a week the last few weeks as I've been working a few 6 day weeks.

I find that when doing a hard session I'm very tired, and don't have as much energy to work/think. I should I suppose split it into 3 or 4 smaller sessions, maybe 2 of which are light ish and at home, and the remaining 1 or 2 hard sessions at the gym.

I'm not a huge morning person- I'd like to be able to get to the gym at 7am (I'm self employed so technically I could do 9 or even 10am) I rarely go weekdays historically so the new working on weekends has kind of skewed my schedule a bit.

richj · 4 July 2019 at 6:58AM

it would help to know what workouts you are currently doing.

ruperts · 4 July 2019 at 8:28PM

If you're talking gym workouts then before work in the morning has always worked for me. If you do it often enough it soon becomes routine. It helps to have everything organised the night before so you can just get up and go.

It doesn't really matter that you're not a morning person, it's not like you need to socialise and be nice to people. Just head down and get on with it. You'll probably find exercise soon clears up the morning fog anyway. I usually arrive at work full of the joys of spring, much to the chagrin of colleagues who still look half asleep.

trailingspouse · 7 July 2019 at 5:45AM

I do a 45 minute session every other day.

The gym I go to runs sessions pretty much throughout the day, so there's always a session that suits, whatever I'm doing - https://yourzone45.co.uk/

The 6am weekday sessions are the most popular generally, but I admit they don't really suit me (I never know when to eat - can't eat immediately beforehand, can't do it on an empty stomach, don't want to be having breakfast at 4am...). I prefer an evening session, usually 6:45 but sometimes 8pm.

What does your 'hard session' consist of - I'd be concerned that it's making you so tired that you can't work or think. I find that after about half an hour, a session in the gym makes me feel more energized, not less. Maybe it's the workout itself that you need to rethink, not the timing.

EdSwippet · 7 July 2019 at 12:54PM

dragonsfire1981 wrote: »

I've generally done 2 occaisionally 3 hard sessions a week. I do them from Friday to Sunday ...

You probably want to spread these out more evenly across the week. Three relatively intense workouts in a week is a good thing to aim for, but not if they are on three consecutive days. Otherwise you're not giving your muscles time to benefit from a session's overloading before pushing them again.

If you really must exercise on consecutive days, work different sets of muscles on each to avoid the worst of this problem. Ideally though, try to spread out exercise sessions evenly across the week, and make sure to allow two or three rest days somewhere between.

dragonsfire1981 · 10 July 2019 at 12:33PM

Usually some variation of this:

2.5, 3 or 5km treadmill run.
Powerplate 10 mins (combined with kettlebell)
Situps with kettlebell
Russian twists
Freeweights
Chest press
Leg press/half press
Punchbag
3km cycle (this is getting to and from the gym- the returning home part is uphill so is punishing after a workout)
Suana for 60 mins

The above is typically split into 2 or 3 sessions. If I'm only able to do 1 session that week I won't do all of them of course but the vast bulk of them.

richj wrote: »

it would help to know what workouts you are currently doing.

dragonsfire1981 · 10 July 2019 at 12:36PM

I think its because very frequently I'm up working till quite late at night, sometimes beyond 11pm depending what needs to be done, so naturally I'm frazzled in the morning and don't rise that early or at the very least I take time to gather myself. Now there was a period where I was able to get up at 6.30 7am without any prompt, but I've slipped back into the standard routine, having said that I did get up at 6am yesterday and had a very productive first 5 hours but I had only 5 hours sleep so had to nap again at midday! That meant I wasn't able to go to bed early unlike the rpevious night because my sleep was a little broken.

ruperts wrote: »

If you're talking gym workouts then before work in the morning has always worked for me. If you do it often enough it soon becomes routine. It helps to have everything organised the night before so you can just get up and go.

It doesn't really matter that you're not a morning person, it's not like you need to socialise and be nice to people. Just head down and get on with it. You'll probably find exercise soon clears up the morning fog anyway. I usually arrive at work full of the joys of spring, much to the chagrin of colleagues who still look half asleep.

dragonsfire1981 · 10 July 2019 at 12:39PM

Yes that definately has been my aim all along...

I think the main challenge I've always found with that was before I wanted to focus really hard working Monday to Friday and wanted to avoid distractions... then just work out really hard ovet the weekend, but it may have been uneven. Now because my work/business patterns have now changed I have to rework it anyway.

EdSwippet wrote: »

You probably want to spread these out more evenly across the week. Three relatively intense workouts in a week is a good thing to aim for, but not if they are on . Otherwise you're not giving your muscles time to benefit from a session's overloading before pushing them again.

If you really must exercise on consecutive days, work different sets of muscles on each to avoid the worst of this problem. Ideally though, try to spread out exercise sessions evenly across the week, and make sure to allow two or three rest days somewhere between.

dragonsfire1981 · 10 July 2019 at 12:46PM

The workouts I do are pretty punishing, they are probably close to training at the intensity of a short triathlon at times... not that I'm entering for any at any time soon. I've also done cycles of 20-40 miles on odd day as well (though not recently because of having to work many weekends)

A 45 min session every other day sounds like a good balance, I also don't know how I'd do a 6am session, I'm just not hungry at that time if I'm awake anyway and I can't work out meaningfully if I don't eat. I could I suppose attempt something like eating nuts and then a protein shake and banana, as I sometimes have that for breakfast anyway...

trailingspouse wrote: »

I do a 45 minute session every other day.

The gym I go to runs sessions pretty much throughout the day, so there's always a session that suits, whatever I'm doing -

The 6am weekday sessions are the most popular generally, but I admit they don't really suit me (I never know when to eat - can't eat immediately beforehand, can't do it on an empty stomach, don't want to be having breakfast at 4am...). I prefer an evening session, usually 6:45 but sometimes 8pm.

What does your 'hard session' consist of - I'd be concerned that it's making you so tired that you can't work or think. I find that after about half an hour, a session in the gym makes me feel more energized, not less. Maybe it's the workout itself that you need to rethink, not the timing.

zacjyeo · 18 July 2019 at 3:56PM

Hi there,

I currently work for a personal trainer company and in my opinion, I believe the best way to include fitness around your life style is to plan what type of exercises you want to do during the week and set aside a portion of your day to whatever you want to do. For example, if you want to do like a heavy session, I would suggest maybe breaking the heavy session to one on the weekend as it seems that's the most time you have and maybe if you're not tired to one a day. You definitely don't want to do 2 heavy sessions on the weekend as you will be too tired during the weekdays!

The gyms are always very busy before 9am in my experience many people would go to the gym before they go to work, so actually going at 9am - 10am is perfect because a lot of people would've started work by then.

I also think if you're a night owl and want to de stress, there are many gyms like The Gym or PureGym who are 24 hour gyms so you could always go later on in the evening to complete your work outs.

I personally think a minimum of half an hour for a light gym session would be an ideal time if you want to have a quick session or even run around your neighbourhood would be a good way to de stress if you don't want to go to the gym.

I hope this helps!

BananaRepublic · 18 July 2019 at 6:45PM

You don’t have to push yourself to benefit, and make sure you are eating and drinking properly. If you sweat, you will benefit from a hydration tablet in water, which will help recovery. A PT is useful as they will encourage you and chatting takes the mind off the hard work. Find something you enjoy, and then you’re look forward to it. I do one hour gym per week, and at least 6 hours ice skating which I love. An exercise bike is an easy thing to fit in to a schedule. Stretching is very beneficial and can be quite hard work.

Trying to reshape my fitness regime- how do you arrange your fitness around your life?

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