Most successful people will highly likely attribute their success to a regular exercise routine.
Tony Robbins – Trains every day with his personal trainer on building a capacity for sustained energy.
Barack Obama – Runs three miles a day as a young man and to this day makes time for 45 minute workouts before assuming his duties.
Gary Vaynerchuck – Hires 2 personal trainers that follow him around the world so he can train everyday.
Oprah Winfrey – Does 4-5 times of strength training and 6 times of cardiovascular training per week.
Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, and Tim Cook all share the same habits as well.
If you are reading this, then we bet you are probably reading this in between work. How do we know? Well, that’s because a large chunk of the clients we work with at KD Trainer are as busy as you! From business managers to C-Suite clients, we want to reveal to you what their secret is and how they find time for exercise.
Blocking out the calendar
This is a pretty good technique to annoy yourself until you do it. We all know that nobody really has “no time“, that’s just a cover up for “it is not my priority“. So make it a priority in your calendar or appointment book. Take out your calendar now and set a 30-minute slot for twice a week. We’re serious. Do it. Now. We’ll wait.
Don’t forget to set the reminder. Now that you got the first step out of the way, the next step is the MOST important step. When the exercise time comes, make sure you respect it. Stop whatever you are doing and give yourself that time to do anything that is related to exercising even if it means just changing to your exercise clothes. Yup, you don’t even have to do the exercise, just change your clothes!
Don’t worry, we are not crazy. James Clear has a 2-minute rule in his book, Atomic Habits, which suggests that all you need is to build on the habit, not the results. (1)
One of his examples was a member of his community who set a rule for himself where he would only go to the gym for 5 minutes, he wasn’t even allowed to be there for 6 minutes. He was focused on building the habit of not missing workouts. After doing that for a month or two, he had established a routine of going to the gym and eventually he lost around 40kgs.
The same thing can be applied in your exercise time, start with the two times of 30-minutes a week and gradually increase the frequency, duration, intensity, you know the drill. And you will find yourself to be a whole new person in a month or two.
You can even break down your 30 minutes per day to 3 sessions of 10 minutes per day if you are REALLY short of time. Amazingly, the results you get from either format will give you similar benefits. (2). Now you really can’t use the “I have no time” excuse anymore!
So set your reminder, be prepared for it and RESPECT the sacred exercise time.
Hire A Personal Trainer
Come on, you probably would have expected this on our website. Getting a professional to help you in any field is definitely a time saver and in many cases, a cost saver! You must be thinking, isn’t a personal trainer a cost itself?
Let’s do a behind-the-envelope calculation for a training session to see why this is an investment rather than a cost.
- Accountability coach(commitment/consistency) : $50
- Motivation trainer(therapy/friend who listens) : $100
- Expertise(training correctly and nutrition) : $100
- Preventing injury(physio/chiro sessions) : $100
- Reducing medical costs(creams/painkillers) : $50
- Achieving your dream body (pain-free/disease-free/energetic/abs): Priceless
If you don’t trust our calculations, then probably we can convince you scientifically in the form of experiments to prove our point of how exercise really does save you money. Well, the money you would save comes from the long run and here are three studies that were done to prove it.
#Study 1
An American Heart Association study(3) did a study of 26,000 Americans found that even moderate exercise saved an average of $2,500 per year (and with rising costs, that number would be even higher today). That’s right, think about it, if you took all that money that a heart disease patients gave to hospitals and then take away the “cost” of personal training, you’d definitely end up saving more.
#Study 2
Next up, another study from the National Institute of Health detailed a University of Hawaii(4) in which elderly people (average age of 80) who did strength and flexibility training saved 20% a year in health costs. Well, this might not apply to you but maybe you have parents that would need strength training or you can look at strength exercise as a form of movement insurance, yup, we are coining that term!
#Study 3
And here’s our favourite study(5), this one from the Journal of Labor and Research found that men who exercise regularly make 6% more in salary than their counterparts—and women who work out regularly earn 10% more! And ladies, please don’t get us started on the benefits of exercising for women. This study isn’t really a cost-saving proof but more an income increasing proof, so in any case, it’s better! If this doesn’t convince you to exercise, we don’t know what will!
Take A Look At Your Circle
We all know the saying, “You are the average of the 5 people around you” or “Who and what we surround ourselves with is who and what we become”. This is very true especially when we take a look at what this study from Carron et. al. showed in their research where important people, family, class leaders and such has influence on someone’s exercise activity (6).
So audit your circle right now and see how many of them live a healthy lifestyle. If you are shocked by the amount of people who don’t exercise around you, here’s a few things you can do:
- Get in touch with the fittest friend you know
- Get your partner/family to be your workout buddy
- Join a health club/gym
- Play a team sport you really like
- Hire a personal trainer
- Engage with group classes
- Participate in an online health community
- Start following health experts on social media
Pick any of the above, stick to it for at least 4 weeks, and watch how things change with your actions and behaviours.
Well now that you know their secrets, you too can get out there and be the best version of yourself and live a better life.
If you want to be part of an online community that includes fitness trainers, dietitians, other health enthusiasts and more, click here to get things moving the right direction for you.
If you think that getting started during the MCO is tough, here are a few things you can do to get started during the pandemic to kick-start your journey.
Take action today and stay safe!
References
- Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (Illustrated ed.). Avery.
- Robert F. DeBusk, Ulf Stenestrand, Mary Sheehan, William L. Haskell, Training effects of long versus short bouts of exercise in healthy subjects, The American Journal of Cardiology, Volume 65, Issue 15, 1990.
- Preidt, R. (2016, September 8). What’s regular exercise worth? Maybe $2500 per year. Medicine Net. https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=198108
- Sugihara, Naomi, et al. “Cost-Benefit Estimates of an Elderly Exercise Program on Kaua ‘i.” Hawaii medical journal 70.6 (2011): 116.
- Kosteas, V. D. (2012). The effect of exercise on earnings: Evidence from the NLSY. Journal of Labor Research, 33(2), 225-250.
- Carron, A. V., Hausenblas, H. A., & Mack, D. (1996). Social influence and exercise: A meta-analysis. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 18(1), 1-16.