As a former elite athlete in an endurance sport, my body and mind are used to completing hours upon hours of training. A typical day for me between the years of 1997 and 2008 consisted of 3-5 hours of daily training. Obviously rowing made up the bulk of this training, but there was also a fair amount of weight lifting, cycling, running, bodyweight circuits & stretching. Spas, saunas, ice baths & massages were extras that added even more time onto the daily commitment required of an elite athlete.
As you can appreciate, I've had to adjust what I consider to be "normal" training. These days, I am a mother, a wife, an employee, a coach, a cook, a cleaner, a shopper, a taxi driver, a play dough maker. I simply do not have a spare 3-5 hours each day in which to train. Unless I want to eat into my sleeping time, and (a) I don't want to, and (b) that would be a really stupid thing to do anyway.
So, rather than doing 3-5 hours of daily training, I do between 0 and 2 hours. Most days are 'one hour training days', a few days a week I manage two hours and occasionally I don't fit in any training at all (unless you consider running around after a 2-year-old to be training)!
But, even with the dramatic drop in training duration, it is still hard to find the time and energy to do it. In fact, it's not really that I find the time, more that I "make" the time.
If something is important to you, you'll make the time to do it. And exercise for me is crucial. So, I schedule it in. I organise my life so I can do it daily (or almost daily). I organise my daughter's life so I can fit it.
Here are my top tips for making exercise a habit:
A) MAKE time for it (if it's important to you, that is. If not, continue doing what you're doing).
B) set some realistic health and/or fitness goals
C) be realistic about what you can actually manage (don't tell yourself you're going to do an hour of daily exercise if you are currently doing none. Why not start with 10 minutes of daily exercise?)
D) make changes gradually (when 10 minutes of daily exercise becomes your new norm, bump it up to 11 or 12 minutes).
E) do exercise that you enjoy & that your body responds well to (that way it wont be a chore & you're more likely to stick with it)
E) be consistent (this is by far the hardest part!)
Thanks for reading. Now, go and move that body for 10 minutes! And, if you need any inspiration for what you could possibly do in 10 minutes to give your body a decent workout, just ask me!
