Recently I was having a conversation with a friend and I went off on one of my classic tirades. I swear if I had a super power based on my personality it might be the ability to produce a soapbox under my feet instantly. I would be known as Tirade Man. But I digress…
What we were talking about and what I subsequently went on and on about what the importance of training, and by training I mean actual training. The problem I have noticed increasingly is that we all seem to be just too busy to get any real training done. It happens to everyone, even the most dedicated practitioners, but sometimes life just gets in the way. This weekend for example I was tied up with family business and by day’s end I was just too tired to do anything. For many this is a feeling that comes up everyday and becomes an excuse to never train. What is even worse to me is what starts to fall under the category of “training.” Even though I spent many hours this weekend chasing around my two year old niece which was very physically and mentally taxing it still wasn’t real concentrated practice or exercise, rather it falls under what I like to call “normal life.”
More and more things are getting credit as “exercise” when they are really just “normal life.” If you ride your bike to work one day per week that is excellent for your body, the eviornment and your wallet, but it isn’t enough. Most city commutes are only a few miles and involve a lot of stop and go, but somehow in the mind we remember it as “I rode my bike 6 miles today!” And we don’t consider that it took an hour and we spent 20 minutes at stop lights and coasting.
“But I don’t have enough time in my hectic schedule for concentrated training right now?!” When career changes happen, couples become parents, illness or injury loom their ugly head or whatever the change may be sometimes you can’t train like normal. In that case you have to turn your normal life INTO training. Cut out motorized transportation completely for example. Walking/riding everywhere you go is excellent exercise while you recover from a minor injury or when you are on a hiatus from concentrated training. It may take a little longer to get to and from your destination but the health benefits (mental as well as physical) shouldn’t be trivialized. (And let’s not forget the money and environmental bonuses!)
One of the greatest benefits to learning to lead a more active lifestyle is that when you do have time for regular training again, you’ll have built in healthier habits that also save money and will have you ready to get back to the real work. Don’t give up those great daily habits you build, instead use them to enhance your training.
Feel free to sound off in the comments with other ways you can work some training into your daily life.
Tags: discipline, time management, training
[...] with life than you shouldn’t beat yourself up. Remember sometimes it’s difficult to make time for training and if you took it because you’re (2) lazy then this point still applies: it’s too [...]