Exercise - Establishing A Routine

by Kareem F. Samhouri, DPT, CSCS, HFI

Finding time to exercise is about as difficult as cutting a penny with plastic scissors for most people. The truth is: it’s easy after you get started. Exercise time management requires blocking off exercise as part of your daily routine. People that try to exercise when they can “fit it in” normally end up with the least results. Exercise time management involves scheduling, workout development, and program variety.

Effective exercise programming involves planning it into your schedule while you are not tired. This suggests that you would be more likely to succeed with your fat loss goals if you choose to schedule in advance for an entire month, instead of each day. For example, you may choose to exercise at 8am on Mondays, but 5pm on Thursdays. This is perfectly normal, but planning for exercise to be as binding as a doctor’s appointment is a suggested strategy for success.

Planning your exercises for a whole week at a time allows you to set small and manageable goals, while improving the flow of your exercise program. After all, whichever exercises you choose today will have an impact on tomorrow. Naturally, with this approach, you will see more variety in your exercise program as well.

Selection of which body part to exercise today based off of yesterday’s workout can be confusing at first. While this is another topic in and of itself, avoiding repetition of an exercise or muscle group for two to three days is usually only necessary in a pure strengthening program. On the other hand, sub-maximal exertion for endurance workouts allow for greater amounts of repetition throughout a week.

Creating a dynamic exercise environment is the last piece that will ultimately lead you towards finding more time to workout. By constantly changing which exercises you choose, and how you approach a workout, you will become more entertained, shock your body with each workout, and improve your results dramatically. By selecting the same fifteen exercises to perform every time you are in the gym, you are allowing your body to accommodate to these demands and become more efficient over time. Long-distance runners use their efficiency to burn less calories while running, thereby allowing them to run for longer. In the case of fitness, this is also true, so be careful or you’ll end up burning less calories as well!

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