Creating Your Ideal Workout Schedule
Exercise Goal Setting and Planning: Part 3
So far in this series, we’ve set our SMART goals and we’ve identified our barriers to exercise. Now, we’re going to take a good, hard look at our schedules and calendars and plan when we will fit in our exercise sessions.
What days are best for my workouts?
Look at your calendar and determine what days you can fit in exercise. This will be different for everyone. For some, weekends are wide open and best for longer sessions. For others, weekends are completely tied up and weekdays are best. This is a good time to thing about how many days a week you can realistically fit in a workout. Many times, we jump in head first and try to workout seven days a week, only to burn out after a few weeks. For most people, somewhere between 2-5 days a week is realistic. It's better to begin with what you know you can handle and gradually add more later, rather than setting overly high expectations and feeling like you've failed when you can't keep up.
What times are best for my workouts?
What time of day is best for you both in terms of your energy levels and your schedule? This might be different for each day that you chose. Go back to the barriers that you identified in the last post. When are most likely to accomplish your workouts.
How much time do you have for each workout on different days?
This too, may vary for different days. Maybe on Saturdays you have an hour but during the week you only have 30 minutes. Determine the realistic amount of time you can set aside for each of your days.
Look ahead for big conflicts.
Are there any big things coming up that are going to get in the way? A big trip, moving, home renovations, etc? Think about how you will handle these interuptions so that you are prepared. Maybe you have to take a week off. Maybe you can alter your workouts to fit in during your travels. By creating a plan you give yourself the freedom to alter your workouts for a period of time without any guilt and its easier to jump right back in after the conflict is over.
Reevaluate and plan as much as needed.
Depending on your life situations you may need to reevalute your plan on a regular basis. For example, I have 2 kids that are very involved in sports. With each new sports season, I have to change my plan to fit in with their new schedule. If you have a set work schedule that never changes than you may not need to redo your plan very often. On the other hand, if your work schedule changes every week, you may need to plan week by week. The process is the same, you are just looking at each week individually.
Ok, time to sit down with your planner and get to work! Go through these steps one at a time until you have a plan that feels achievable, not overwhelming. Notice that we haven’t planned out what exercise we will be doing yet…thats coming up in our next post!
