When life is busy, weekends often feel like an elusive glimpse of free time. They’re over in a blink, leaving you wishing for just one more day before the weekly grind starts again. Entrepreneurs, company managers, and even regular employees can’t seem to catch a break in the 21st century.
We can only imagine an ideal world where we can have an extra day to blow off some steam. Unfortunately, that will rarely be the case. It’s up to us to do our best and organize our time well if we plan to stay in top shape.
Mind the balance
The importance of regular exercise can’t be overstated if you have a high-pressure work environment, but you should also keep the intensity of your workouts as consistent and as balanced as possible. For example, three 90-minute training sessions, or five hourly sessions per week, should be ample enough for a casual athlete.
Balanced exercise will help ensure optimal hormonal balance, as long as you avoid excessive exertion. Overworking your body leads to chronic inflammation and increased Cortisol levels in the bloodstream. This, in turn, will impede you in every conceivable way, and you’ll perform worse both at work and at your training sessions. In this sense, having a busy schedule comes as an advantage, as you’ll hardly have enough time at hand to overwork your muscles and joints.
Speed up your metabolism
Sweating is a wonderfully useful natural process. Most notably, sweating encourages an increase in your metabolic speed and turnover. You can even enhance the process by wearing a sauna suit, which helps to extend perspiration long after you’re done with your workout routine. It’s practically a portable sauna that’s unnoticeable beneath your formalwear.
Of course, you should also drink at least eight glasses of water a day to keep your blood pumping and your metabolism working smoothly. It’s best to kick off every day with a tall glass of freshly-squeezed lemon water, and then keep the water bottle close by for the rest of the day. This habit, coupled with induced perspiration, will significantly increase the effectiveness of your training.
Have a plan B
No matter how diligent you are at the gym, there is always a possibility that you won’t have enough time on your hands to reach the gym, prep, and do it all in reverse once more before you return home. That’s why your workout consistency will sometimes depend on your plan B.
You can reserve a corner of your home for a yoga mat and a few helpful pieces of gym equipment so you can at least do a bit of exercise even on the busiest of days. Remember – always take something over nothing, and it will pay off in the long run.
Additionally, you can practice an athletic discipline that allows you a flexible schedule. Regular jogging comes to mind, and it has just as profound of an effect on the health of your body as, let’s say, a cross-fit session at the local gym.
Take quick walks
Even if you’re the busiest person in the world, your day will be a fragmented cavalcade of obligations with short time-outs in between. These pauses are usually brief, lasting fifteen to twenty minutes on average. And they’re an excellent opportunity to cram in some light exercise.
Head out of the office at lunch and take a quick walk around the block. You can time yourself on your smartphone’s stopwatch so you’ll always keep track of the time you have to blow off some steam and leave the stress on the sidewalk. Not only is it relaxing, but walking also has a wonderful effect on your glutes.
By practicing this whenever you can, you can accumulate fantastic scores by the end of the day. If you take about five walks a day, each lasting ten-to-fifteen minutes, you’ll have a sound baseline for keeping yourself in shape.
Sleep is like a workout
Regular sleeping patterns are like a good workout. If you want to stay in top shape with your busy schedule, you need to set a specific time window for your daily rest.
Once you’ve set the bedtime, do everything in your power to stick to it, and you’ll notice a plethora of meaningful improvements. That includes better focus, enhanced decision-making capabilities, improved patience and confidence, as well as better workout performance.
Conclusion
We all owe it to ourselves to stay in top shape, even as the overbearing schedule looms over our daily lives. With the tips and tricks listed above, you’ll be able to create an extra slot in your schedule to take care of your body.
If you feel as if you can’t manage that extra athletic element in your life, all things considered, you can always turn to exceptional role models. Think of the leaders of multi-billion dollar businesses, entrepreneurs, and artists who, in spite of having work schedules worthy of three lifetimes, manage to find time for regular exercise. All because they know how crucial it is for their success.