How To Fit Exercise Into Your Busy Life

how to fit exercise into your busy life

Most people are in danger of living a sedentary lifestyle these days. People spend a lot of time seated in front of a screen, and it seems to become the norm where technology has allowed most companies to become lenient and allow its people to start working from home.

Unfortunately, a sedentary lifestyle may increase one’s risk of developing cardiovascular diseases, most types of cancers, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, lipid disorders, osteoporosis, depression, and even anxiety, among many more. And this is one major issue healthcare professionals want people to focus on.

Why Do You Need Exercise?

Exercising with COYA provides many benefits. So many people aspire to be stronger, fitter, lose weight, and build muscle. Any trainer can tell you that it’s possible if you’ll just put in the time and the hard work. Whether you’re doing moderate or intense workouts, studies suggest that you need to be active for at least two and a half hours every week. If you’re trying to lose weight or achieve a specific fitness goal, you have to increase your workout regimen too.

The number one obstacle people have when it comes to building a strict workout schedule is time. Because of how busy everyone is, it seems like there’s not enough time to exercise. Some couldn’t even drop by the gym or go to the park for a run with how busy they are.

But you don’t have to be someplace else to exercise. And you don’t even need to spend hours to be physically active. If you want to work out and become healthy, you’ll need to ease into it and find a way to integrate a few routines, like any fast metabolic workout for beginners, here and there to fit in your schedule. To show you that it’s possible, here are some ways you can do it: 

1. Finding The Right Workout 

There are so many types of workouts you can do, and it can be downright frustrating, especially if you’re not familiar with any of them. Knowing different kinds of exercises and what they can do for your body is necessary for you to pick which ones are right for you. Plus, choosing different routines and exercises gives you variety so you can try to incorporate the best practices from different routines to create your own workout plan out some of them to find out which one is for you.

To make things simpler, here are some types of exercises you can choose from:

  • Cardiovascular Training: This type of exercise has two varieties, aerobic and anaerobic. There are also different varieties of activities to choose from. To put things simply, cardio is supposed to increase your heart rate as you move so you can increase your stamina and endurance. Cardiovascular training can be broken down further into the following:
    • Steady-state (aerobic): This kind of cardio exercise can be done at any level of intensity. But it should still be done at a steady pace and intensity for the whole duration. Steady-state exercises include walking, hiking, running, and biking. If you want to exercise indoors, you can also use stair steppers and elliptical machines.
    • Low-intensity (aerobic): As you can probably tell from the name itself, low intensity keeps you at a steady heart rate below 50% of your maximum heart rate. Low-intensity exercises are usually pretty easygoing like taking a casual stroll or biking for fun.
    • Moderate-intensity (aerobic): This is a little more intense as you’re looking for a rate of 50%–70% of your maximum heart rate. You can try biking, hiking, running, fitness classes, and swimming. But make sure not to overexert yourself to avoid injuries.
    • High-intensity (anaerobic): This one’s going to be a real challenge because you’ll have to maintain a rate of over 70% of your maximum heart rate. Think of sprints and high-intensity interval training (HIIT).
    • Intervals (anaerobic): This is also rather intense. However, this is divided into several parts of work and rest. Expect to be doing high-intensity workouts like jumping rope and sprinting. This is also paired with low-intensity activities like walking as part of the rest portion of the interval. And later on, you’ll have to increase the intensity, which is why intervals are separated into beginner and intermediate.
  • Weight Training: This kind of exercise is great if you’re looking to build strength and incorporate cardio training too. Three of the most popular types of weight training include the following:
  • Bodybuilding: The bodybuilder’s goal is to improve muscle strength and size. However, just because the focus of bodybuilding is to increase muscle definition does not mean you can’t get a good workout out of it.
  • Powerlifting: The aim of powerlifting is to move as much weight as humanly possible. There are three main core workouts in powerlifting—namely, the squat, the bench press, and the deadlift and all their variations—that focus mainly on developing core strength.
  • Olympic Weightlifting: This is very similar to powerlifting but focuses more on speed and power for the two types of lifts, the clean and jerk and the snatch. The focus here is, again, to move as much weight but with an added emphasis on speed.
  • Flexibility Training: Not everyone is born with the gift of flexibility, but it doesn’t mean that you should skip it. Flexibility training is vital to improve mobility and may also help you avoid injuries. All kinds of stretching exercises can be done such as static, dynamic, passive, active, ballistic, and PNF, so on and so forth. Here are three types of training regimens to improve your flexibility for starters:
    • Yoga: This one has become a favorite for so many because not only does this benefit the body, but yoga improves the mind through meditation.
    • Pilates: Pilates is an easy pick because of how easy it is to do on your own. It’s great for coordination, balance, and flexibility. But it may also prove beneficial for breathing and strengthening the core. You can do Pilates at home by purchasing the pilates reformer machine.
    • Mobility Workouts: Warming up is always crucial for working out because it helps you avoid injuries and gets your body ready for more intense activities. 
how to fit exercise into your busy life

2. Know What Your Goals, Levels, And Limitations Are

Knowing what your goals are can help you choose what exercises you’ll be doing. If you’re looking to increase strength, go with weightlifting. If increasing your stamina is what you want, long-distance running and cycling can be beneficial. Nonetheless, you should consider your level and limitations first.

If you’re a beginner, you shouldn’t skip beginner exercises and immediately move on to more complex ones. If you’ll push yourself way over your limit, you might overexert yourself, leading to mild to severe injuries. 

Gradually working your way up toward the next level is the better way to approach working out. So, after you know what your goal is, make sure to set a higher goal as you go, so you can constantly challenge yourself.

3. Working Out At Home

The truth is, not everyone has the free time or opportunity to get a trainer or go to the gym. But that doesn’t mean that you have no other choices for staying fit. There are all kinds of workout regimens you can do at home, during your break, or even while watching TV. And you don’t even have to dedicate hours each day to do your routines. Half an hour doing aerobics dances is already quite helpful and fun. Even chair yoga can help you stretch muscles in your office!

Conclusion

As technology improves daily, more people spend less time doing physical activities. But blaming yourself or other things won’t solve the side effects of a sedentary lifestyle. Think of the opposite ends: a sedentary lifestyle increases your mortality rate, while proper exercise could increase your lifespan. It’s the perfect solution, and time isn’t a hindrance because there are fun and easy workouts that you can do a few minutes each day.