I love the gym and I love the energy that regular gym-goers bring. There’s something about walking into your favourite gym and seeing the familiar faces all doing their thing, running, pushing, lifting, jumping and more. I always get a buzz and as soon as my headphones are in I can switch that accumulated energy into focussing on what I am there to do.

I know my plan well in advance of arrival at the gym – I rarely make stuff up on the fly, the exception is when someone is using the piece of equipment I need. And this rarely occurs as I can always switch stuff around.

My time outside of the gym is valuable, I am guessing just like yours so I really don’t want to waste it with poor planning or execution. I love to catch up with people and I factor in a bit of this to my timing but otherwise I try to be strict on my schedule.

The interesting thing is I do watch and see what others are doing and sadly, I see a lot of time-wasting. It’s cool if you’re in the situation that you have 2 or more hours for your daily session but many aren’t in that position or don’t want to be in that position.

So here are 5 tips for you to better manage your fitness time –

1. Schedule your training for early morning or late afternoon. Lunchtime sessions can be easily derailed by colleagues, customers, family, errands or laziness! The very best time to train is first thing in the morning. Not only is it a lot harder for it to be disrupted at this time by the things that disrupt the lunchtime session, for instance but by training early you will also give yourself more energy for the day ahead. Personally I always preferred afternoon/evening training and I always got it done but other commitments meant I had to switch to mornings – and I soon realised what I had been missing out on! Gym and general exercising in the a.m. is the bomb! If morning really doesn’t work (and I am sceptical why that should be) then after work will have to be it.
2. Have a goal for why you are training (weight loss, a race or competition, health reasons – there’s a variety of markers you can use and many are becoming more readily accessible with “at home” test kits) and plan sessions around this goal. I do my strength and mobility training on Monday’s, Wednesday’s and Friday’s and do outdoor strength and cardio sessions on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s and finally I do an interval running session on Saturdays (I also play tennis twice a week). My goals are all around my athleticism as it relates to tennis primarily but not only for that. Within athleticisim I put speed, agility, strength, cardio endurance, joint resilience, power and dynamism. All of us have basic physical function we need to maintain, the next level is basic athleticism and then fine-tuning for any sports or physical pursuits we engage in – there must be a PURPOSE to what you are doing and it must progress. Random does not cut it.
3. Put a time limit on your sessions. My Saturday session will be 30-45 minutes dependent upon the work-rest protocol for that day. And that is determined by the macro-cycle I am in. My gym sessions are 60 minutes. The Tuesday and Thursday sessions are 45 minutes. I can pare back all sessions if required by eliminating optional warm up protocols and decreasing rest times (I run a clock on all my weight lifting and outdoor sessions).
4. Ditch the time-wasting exercises. What are these? Anything that doesn’t challenge you! 25 reps of anything will give you a “burn” but I can assure you physiologically you are wasting your time. Same with ambling on a treadmill or watching tv on a bike. You get nothing out of either (unless you’re watching a decent documentary and you may have learned something). Add to that “crunches” of anything, pec-dec stuff, leg extension stuff, bicep curl machine stuff – there’s probably too much to mention. Don’t do this stuff, do exercises and protocols that work, do it time-efficiently and move on!
5. Plan your sessions or at least have bullet-pointed notes on what you are doing that day. I am AMAZED at the number of professional people I know that are extremely well organised in every part of their lives except their fitness and health. And yes fitness relates directly to health and like health markers, fitness is measurable, unlike the term and concept of “wellness”. What exactly does being “well” mean, anyway?

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