5 Golden Rules For Fitness If You Have A 9–5
A dad bod is not an unavoidable outcome of an office job, let me show you how.
You’re 20 years old, your knees are like springboards, your back doesn’t ache and you have a full head of hair. Fast forward 20, hell, even 10 years and you’re in your office thinking ‘how did I get so unfit?’
If that sounds familiar or if you’re willing to do everything in your power to prevent that from happening, read on for the fundamental things you can do even if you have to go to work everyday and find that extra energy is a scarce commodity these days.
I’m here to tell you that you’re not doomed and your dad bod or mom bod needs to leave. It is not welcome and you can regain your fitness no matter what age you are. All it takes is a little bit of forward planning and routine. I will not even use the word discipline here because you don’t need it. It’s about executing a solid plan and just accepting that you don’t have a choice. Much like going to work or simply brushing your teeth, you may not like it but what you like and don’t like is irrelevant here, you have to put food on the table or not have your other half throw you out for having bad breath. It’s a non-negotiable.
There is a way to take back control of your health and fitness at any age and I will show you how.
1. Fail To Plan, Plan To Fail.
The first thing you have to do is to come up with a plan. If you are starting from square one, think about what you like doing. It doesn’t have to be going to the gym. For example, you may like playing tennis or you just like clearing your head and going for a jog. Either way, you need to plan what it is that you need to do.
An common example would be going to the gym 3–4 times a week. Believe it or not, that is enough. You don’t need to go 7 days a week, twice a day. The best workout program is one you can stick to. Maybe even try 2 times and then gradually increase it because you’ll realise probably that it isn’t that bad.
Plan your general structure. If you picked gym, what days will you go? How will you get there? Before or after work? Will you shower at the gym?
Picture your ideal routine and start with what you can reasonably commit to. The opposite of this would be to just wing it and do some exercise on days you feel like doing it. Chances are, you’ll never feel like doing it or you’ll feel more like watching TV than going for a run. Winging it is the definition of relying on willpower. You make a plan and you execute.
2. Celebrate Small Wins, Ditch The All-Or-Nothing Mindset.
Carrying on from the previous point, it does not have to be perfect. To quote Han in Tokyo Drift, ‘50% of something is better than 100% of nothing’. Make your plan and then do it. If you planned for a perfect workout split consisting of 6 days a week and 5 cardio sessions in the evening, good luck with that. Start with 3 or maybe even 2 then increase.
The idea is that you just need to get started. Don’t overthink it.
Once you have stuck to something consistently for a month or two, congratulate yourself and advance to the next step. Maybe now add an extra day or do a jog on the weekend. ADD it to your plan.
In other words, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Forget about what you used to do as a teenager with raging hormones and a supercharged battery, you are who you are at this present moment and you just need to do something.
3. Consistency. Pick Something And Stick To It, Forget Perfection.
Consistency is the king here. The main driver of muscle growth is progressive overload, meaning the act of increasing the weight lifted over time. In order to achieve progressive overload, you have to be doing the same activities i.e. exercises whilst keeping a similar frequency each week.
The formula for muscle growth, thus looking better, is to keep doing the same exercises and keep going to the gym at similar times each week whilst trying to increase the weight lifted.
Fitness is a long game and for the same reason you won’t run a marathon in one week of training, you will not build sufficient muscle to change how you look in one week of training.
One or two workouts can be dropped or let’s say you haven’t had enough sleep and you lower the weights by 10%, that’s fine. However, if the weight lifted increases over a month, that is sufficient stimulus to build muscle. You won’t achieve that by having an erratic schedule.
4. It’s Not About Feeling Like Doing It.
There are many things in life you may not feel like doing. I don’t feel like brushing my teeth all the time, sometimes I don’t even want to take a shower but will I do it? You bet.
Fitness is the same. Motivation is fleeting and if you hype yourself up to go to the gym after watching Ronnie Coleman deadlift 500lbs or hype yourself up to go for a sprint after watching Usain Bolt do his sub-10 second record every single time, it just won’t last.
There is no option not to go, you have to make it part of your life. The very same reason you go to work, you wake up in the morning and you get off your butt to cook your dinner after a hard day… Fitness is no different.
Learn to reframe everything you do to keep yourself fit as something that is just part of you. You’re someone that likes to go for a jog after work 3 times a week or you’re someone that plays tennis every weekend. You’re not someone that hates fitness and does it because your doctor told you to. It’s just part of your identity. If you can frame it like this, it doesn’t become you wanting to go but rather, it’s just something you do.
5. Remember How You Felt Afterwards.
The final tip to staying fit with a 9–5 is to remember how it makes you feel when you’ve done something related to fitness. They don’t call it a runner’s high for no reason. It’s exhilarating, you feel accomplished. Try to picture what it’s like when you finish work and you have no energy left. Chances are, you’ll feel much more energetic if you actually go and do the activity than if you just went home and ate cheetos in front of the TV.
No one has ever regretted doing exercise. It’s the initial ‘getting up’ that is the hardest.
Final Word
In conclusion, the 5 tips, if used together, can ensure that you stick to any fitness program that you have set out for yourself even if you think you don’t have the time. Everyone can set aside 1 hour or less a day.
Remember:
- Plan out what it is you’re going to do, what it will look like in the weeks coming and any contingencies such as a long day at work or a night of bad sleep. You can work around it and have a plan for ‘if X happens, I will still get my fitness in by doing Y’.
- Don’t strive for perfection. Rather, just get going. Make that plan then execute. You can fine-tune it later.
- Consistency is king. Take this scenario where you’ve got 10 weeks. 10 weeks of going to the gym 3 times a week make a total of 30 sessions over time where your body can adapt and get stronger. 1 session for 3 weeks because you couldn’t be bothered then 5 for another 2 weeks and back again at 1 session for the remaining 5 weeks nets you only 18 sessions and makes it all the harder to stick to it.
- There’s no ‘I feel like doing it today’. Feelings don’t come into it. It’s just something you do like brushing your teeth. Whether you go to the gym before work or after work, it’s part of your commute, it’s part of your job and who you are. No excuses, don’t even let yourself make excuses. Just do it.
- No one has ever regretted a session of basketball or a workout. Remember how it makes you feel and hold on to that.
