Ep.17 Prioritizing Fitness

Ep.17 Prioritizing Fitness

[00:00:16] Intro

Hey guys. Welcome to the Growth on the Daily podcast, the personal development podcast for athletes. My name is Rey, and I'm your host. I'm a former competitive hockey player, passionate about self-growth, and I'm here to support you on your journey to becoming the best version of you.

Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. If you're new to the show, welcome to the Growth on the Daily community, and if you're back for another episode, thank you so much for continuing to support the show. Just before we dive into today's episode, just a reminder to follow us on Instagram @growthonthedaily, to stay up to date with the show.

Today's episode is all about prioritizing fitness. In terms of specialties for success, we're focused on the physical category here because we're talking about taking care of your body. So if you're at a point in life where you're ready to get serious about your fitness goals, but you don't really know where to start, then this episode is for you.

[00:01:08] No Cap All Facts

Did you know that 40% of Canadians get less than 30 minutes of exercise per day? That is honestly an astonishing fact and just goes to show that there's a lot of room for improvement on prioritizing our fitness. We know it's important. I don't need to sit here and talk about why we need to take care of ourselves, why we need to move our body.

We all understand that there's benefits to doing that for everyone, whether you're an athlete or not. So why are we having such an issue with moving our body and prioritizing our physical health? Well, I did some research and it turns out these are the most common reasons why people struggle to exercise.

The first is people believe that they don't have enough time, and that really stems from having other commitments in life. So whether that's work, school, family, relationships, whatever that looks like, they really feel like they just don't have enough time to add to that schedule with a fitness routine.

Another reason is they feel like it's too expensive and they don't have the money to devote to it. I know gym memberships can go anywhere from $40 to $50 plus, workout classes as well. If you're doing organized sports, that's even more money. So that's definitely something that's going to turn people away if there's, that high barrier to entry because it's just so expensive.

Another reason actually is more about yourself than it comes from being self-conscious. So rather, people who tend to be inexperienced with fitness or they have low self-esteem, they don't feel comfortable in those public environments, so they're less likely to work out, especially at gyms and attending workout classes.

Another reason is boredom. People just don't enjoy their workout regimen. It feels like a chore. And why would you want to add more chores to your list? You'd rather just sit down and watch Netflix? I know I would if I was bored of my workout routine.

And then the final reason is just exhaustion and being tired. And so you just feel like you don't have the energy to work out. It's not even that you don't want to and you don't see the benefit, but you're just way too tired to work out.

And so for those reasons that I mentioned, and there's probably several more, those are the common reasons that people struggle to exercise, and that's really why we have that 40% stat there stating that 40% of Canadians get less than 30 minutes of exercise per day. So what do we do with this information? Well, I want to tell you about my experience on how I actually prioritize my fitness, and hopefully, you're able to get some value of that to apply to your own life.

[00:03:48] Combatting Excuses

So let's talk about combating excuses. The best way to combat these excuses we make to not prioritize our fitness is, make it easily doable. Why make it so hard? Why say, oh, we need to work out every single day and do a two-hour lift and focus on every muscle and element of the body?

Then we have to do cardio, after that an ab routine every other day. No need to make it just so demanding. Cause of course you wouldn't want to do that. It just seems like another chore. So let's dive into how we combat specific excuses.

So on the busy aspect, right? People are busy. I'm a busy person. Many people are busy people. The way you combat the busy schedule is by shortening your workouts. So instead of having those two-hour lifts, an hour and a half lift, focus on 20 to 30 minutes as much as you can do. And we're going to talk about how you build that structure later on.

But you could also leverage things like walking, you know, getting up from your desk if you are working a desk job every you know, hour or so and just walking around, you know, walk around the block or even walking around the house. That helps just keep your body moving.

And then also there's the aspect of making more time and the way you make more time is it alters your sleep, right? You wake up earlier and you work out or you work out after work, and you get that workout in before bed. Those are some strategies that I think would definitely help busy people.

Now onto the financial aspect. If finances are very tight, and I mean to the point where you can't afford a gym membership or buy gym equipment or play an organized sport. What I would look to do is look at community centers.

There's a lot of free access to the public, so community centers tend to have classes, that you can do trials or there's some sort of arrangement, with the government. So look out for those. You can also leverage your own environments, right? You have your house and you have outside, obviously, weather dependent, but it is great to consider those options.

And in terms of the workouts you can do, I would focus on calisthenics. And what I mean by calisthenics is simply just body weight. There is so much you can do to build muscle, lose fat, focus on your performance or your overall health just with your body weight that you don't even need to consider weights.

I love personally lifting with weights, but I can definitely tell you I have a lot of work to do on a body weight perspective, to getting stronger cuz it's just a different type of fitness. So leveraging things like, you know, pushups, air squats, those kind of exercises that will help you build up your strength and your routine.

And hopefully when you're in a better place that you can financially afford things like going to the gym and joining organized sports teams, then you're able to leverage that. But that doesn't mean your fitness has to take a toll now.

For those of you who are feeling self-conscious about maybe going to the gym or attending a workout class, start at home or even go to the gym with a friend who's experienced at the gym.

It helps to show your way around where you need to go and how things work. And I know that's kind of a really great way to get yourself comfortable in the environment, but for those of you who want to start at home, and that might be more about, not having that much experience with fitness, starting at home is great.

There's a lot of online programs, that you can, purchase or that are even free that you can follow to get yourself used to what working out actually feels like and looks like. So you're a little bit more confident when you're ready to go to a gym if that's what you choose to do.

As for the boredom aspect, the way to combat boredom and having working out feel like less of a chore. You have to move in a way you love. If you love to run, run. If you love to lift weights, lift weights. If you need to work out with other people, attend a class. If you are like, I just want something calm, that's also going to target like my mental health and my mind to work with my flexibility, then do yoga.

There's so many different types of ways to focus on your physical activity, it's not a one thing fits all. It's all dependent on your personal needs and your personal preferences.

And then the last one, my favourite one is exhaustion. What do you do when you're tired and you're exhausted? You just can't work out. Like you just, you just can't do it. Well, option one, sleep earlier. Sleep earlier, so you're getting more sleep so that you can sustain a longer day. You can also schedule your workout, and that makes it seem like it's a part of your day, you're less likely to skip it because it's an event in your day.

And so I schedule my workouts in my Google calendar so I know like this is an appointment in my day. That appointment is in my home gym. And then, another thing you can do is you can leverage supplements. So things like having pre-workout drinks, like the pre-workout supplement itself, or coffee or BCAAs, whatever works for you.

You don't have to, it's just something that other people do that can help them. I would be mindful if you care about caffeine intake to just monitor labels and make sure you're aware of what you're putting in your body because you don't want to have too much caffeine, especially if you're working out at night and that's going to keep you up longer. So just be mindful of that caffeine intake.

[00:08:54] Establish Structure

So now we've talked about how we combat excuses and how we actually get ourselves into the environment where we're ready to work out. But what are we actually going to do when we work out? You have to establish structure.

Establishing structure is about two things. It's about building a workout plan so you know exactly what you're going to do during a workout, and it's about tracking your progress so you know how to progress as you reach your fitness goals. The simplest way to do this is just to start off with working out three times a week.

And then slowly as that habit builds, you have some incremental add-ons. So maybe you add another day, a week, or maybe you extend the time that you work out those three times a week. But just start small. You want it to be achievable, right? So three times a week, pick the time of day that works best for you. If you're a morning person, you have time in the morning, work out in the morning. If you rather work out lunchtime or the evening, do what's best for you.

And then now you have to think of the components of your workout. So every workout has three main components. Your warmup, your main activity, so like your lift, and then your cool down. So you need to establish what's going in each of those elements. So what goes into your warmup, what goes into your lift, and what goes into your cool down. We can talk about those elements specifically in a future episode.

But a good way to get yourself started is there are a ton of workout plans and applications that exist online, and I'm sure for those of us who are former athletes or current athletes, you can leverage the stuff you do in your strength and conditioning programs with your teams or your individual sports and your coaches.

That is a really great way to start. You can definitely keep that and do that on your own end. And then if you're not familiar with fitness at all, and you have no idea about setting up this workout. I would definitely leverage online sources. I'm going to share a few, in this episode and we'll talk about it a lot more next week as well.

And then the part about tracking your progress. Tracking your progress, this is where you actually write down what makes up those components. So what's your warmup? How long is it, how many reps are you doing? Same thing with the main activity, same thing with the cool down. And you're going to record of what weights you're doing, what reps you're doing, just to see how you're progressing over time.

 I recommend the following ways, either using like the notes app in your phone to keep track, using a workout app or a physical journal or my favourite is Google Sheets. I love building the template on my computer and then I have my phone with me everywhere I go, but I work out at home anyways, and it's just a lot easier to just track on my phone.

[00:11:27] Staying Consistent

The final aspect about prioritizing your fitness is staying consistent, but it's a lot easier said than done. So how do you actually go about this? My best piece of advice is don't rely on motivation, rely on habit. And the reason I say that is because motivation ebbs and flows. And honestly, when you need motivation the most, it's oftentimes that you don't have it.

But pushing through that to get that workout done, assuming you are healthy, conscious, you're in the right state of mind, those sort of elements are there, then that's when I would definitely say you still need to push through and get that workout done. And oftentimes those workouts are the ones that feel the best, even though they're the hardest to get to.

So how do we do this? Well, it goes right back to tracking, right? Maybe you have a fitness app or a fitness watch. I'm a Fitbit user, so I have a Fitbit Sense three, which I use to track many of my habits, but one of those things are my workouts as well as my steps.

And then the workout sheets that I mentioned where you're tracking the elements of your workout, those will help keep you on track. But on the motivation piece, if you really need something to just give you that extra nudge, I would say either have someone to be your like accountability partner or set some fitness goals that you want to achieve, and obviously, you know that you're not really going to reach those goals if you're not actively working on achieving them.

Right? So missing, you know, that week of workouts, assuming that you're skipping workouts for the wrong reasons, then you're not going to reach our goals. But there's obviously times where it makes sense to have that week off. You're burnt out either from working out like you've just overtrained or you're mentally exhausted and your brain needs a break, you're going through something. There's a ton of reasons why it makes sense.

And you should definitely skip your workout for those reasons. But if it's about above excuses that I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, then we really need to sort of get you in check on how you can stay consistent.

[00:13:21] Hold the Mic

So as I mentioned before, there's a ton of resources that you can use to establish that workout journey and schedule. So if you're looking for some sort of resource, I recommend the free app Fit on. They have free workouts and fitness plans, and they have a lot of variety of types of workouts, and I especially think it's great if you're starting with home workouts. You have minimal equipment. Great way to get your body moving. You have a ton to pick from. So I've linked it down in the show notes, check it out and let me know what you think.

[00:13:53] Meaningful Mentions

I want to leave you with three key takeaways today. The first is make your workouts doable, and that means do what you love to do and do it when you actually have the time to do it. Secondly, it's enjoy moving your body. Move in a way that you love. Don't move in a way that you think you must move. And finally, it's have a system to hold yourself accountable, whether that's through establishing structure in a workout planner or that's having a workout partner to keep you accountable.

[00:14:28] Quality Quote

And to keep you guys going this week, I have a quote for you from John C. Maxwell who stated that "motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing". I think that's a great quote to start your fitness regimen because, you know, we often enter our fitness journey super excited, and we're like, I'm ready. I'm going to focus on this.

And then a couple weeks into it you're like, I'm just exhausted. I don't want to do this anymore. This is hard. And there's a lot of excuses that tend to creep in, and that can really set you off course. But if we really just stick to it as thinking about it from a habit perspective rather than a motivation perspective, you're more likely to succeed that way.

[00:15:06] Outro

I want to thank you guys so much for taking the time to tune into today's episode and committing to Learn, grow, and Thrive. Just a reminder to follow us on Instagram @growthonthedaily, to stay up to date with the show. And of course, check out our website growthonthedaily.com. Thanks guys, and I'll see you next week.