You come home from work, and you’re exhausted. It’s the end of the day. How should you exercise?
You shouldn’t. Grab a beer, sit down on the couch, and watch your favourite TV show. Just kidding.
Original source: here.
So you want to get fit, but you have no time or energy. What do you do? I have a few ideas for you:
Just Do the Warmup
This is one strategy I use with both myself and clients. If it’s a day when you’re not feeling so great, I say “just do the warmup.” If at the end of the warmup (which takes 5-15 minutes), you still don’t want to exercise, that’s fine, you can go home. But if at the end of the warmup, you feel better, then great, let’s do your full workout.
About 70-80% of the time, at the end of the warmup, most people feel good enough to go and complete the full workout.
Why does this work? Because if you warm up properly, with increasing heart rate also comes increased adrenaline. Adrenaline really starts to rise at an accelerated pace when you cross 100-120 beats per minute. And just like adrenaline in a life-or-death scenario would give you energy, it’ll also give you energy for a workout.
Another reason why it works is that feelings lie. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt not great, but my workouts have been fantastic. In fact, some of my best workouts happen at the very beginning of a cold. When you feel not quite 100% but not quite sick yet. At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve also had times when I’m feeling fantastic, but my performance in the gym doesn’t match how I feel (ie it sucks!). So again, feelings lie. That’s why I recommend you do what I did: get your feelings surgically extracted. Now, I have no feelings J Well, that’s not true… I do feel hungry sometimes. That’s a feeling, right?
So don’t base whether you exercise or not based on how you feel. Do the warmup, and do the rest of the workout, based on actual performance (that’s things like heart rate, speed of the bar that you’re lifting, how the weights feel, etc.). Performance doesn’t lie. Feelings do.
Shorten the Workout
If the “just do the warmup” strategy doesn’t work, another option is to shorten the workout. If you were planning on a 1-1.5 hour workout, do a 30-45 minute workout. It might not be as effective as your originally-planned workout, but it sure is more effective than not doing a workout.
Lighten the Weights
Sometimes, you don’t have energy for a workout, because you’re anticipating that it will be very difficult. You know it’s going to be intense. So simply, reduce the intensity. Instead of lifting 50 pounds, lift 30 or 40. Psychologically, that’s a lot easier.
Use Isometrics
Isometrics are a group of exercises where you’re not moving. You’re either trying to cause motion (like pushing against the wall), or prevent motion (like doing a plank or a wall sit). But isometrics can seriously strengthen your muscles, without taking much time or energy. In fact, many of my strength elements from my Look What I Can Do video were developed using isometrics (that video is worth check out just for the soundtrack ;).
I’ve already written about isometrics in other articles, so I won’t rehash that here, but if you’d like to check out those articles, here they are:
