No time to exercise?

This month’s British Military Fitness blogger, Jim Preece, gives you tips on how to make every day more active.

What's your number one excuse for not making a class or working out?

Lack of time. Sure, We all have days where meetings overrun, public transport is delayed or you really do have to spend an extra hour online to ensure you have ‘liked’ all your friends’ latest holiday photos. However, no matter how busy you are there is always a way to squeeze some exercise into each day.

I don’t need to sell any of you the benefits of exercise, but sometimes you need to remember exercise doesn’t need to be an ‘all or nothing’ approach. Not all exercise needs to last an hour and leave you exhausted and sweaty.

There is no substitute for your hour long sessions in helping you achieve your fitness and health goals. However, a few extra minutes of physical activity each day, especially on your non training days will not only have a massive effect on your overall health, but will also have the added benefit of making you better in your planned sessions.

I often have days where I can’t get to the gym or a BMF class for one reason or another. On those days I do one of two things - I either squeeze in a couple of 5-10 minute periods of intense exercise, or I do everything I can to up my incidental exercise. Incidental exercise is all the non-planned activity you can squeeze out of every day activities. I’ll cover off some of the best ideas now.

Active commutes

Without doubt the best way to add exercise into your day is to cycle to and from work. Now that summer appears to be upon us, it’s not only beneficial to ride your bike it’s a much nicer way to start and end your day.

Rather than battling the crowded and sweaty public transport network, you can bank your minimum daily exercise requirement with as little as a gentle 15 minute each-way commute (any more is a bonus). Often you will find over shorter distances in large cities cycling is the quickest route door-to-door.

If issues like bike security and your office’s lack of shower facilities are a limiting factor, consider doing what many of my city friends do. They sign up for a budget gym near their place of work and use it solely for its showers and storage facilities. You see, budget gyms do have their uses.

If you are like me and already commute by bike, here are some ways I’ve found to make my commute more like a workout. All of the suggestions below come with a health warning: beware of the cars.

• Sprint the first 100 metres away from all sets of lights
• Leave your bike in a high gear so starting after a stop is a hard resistance workout
• Stop at every set of red lights, get off your bike and do 10 air squats. I did this once and it was a great workout. Only try it if you can handle the strange looks you will get.

Active meetings

See if you are able to schedule any of your daily meetings so you can walk and talk. It a great way to get more time out of the office whilst still being productive.

Active TV watching

A bit of a contradiction considering this is meant to be about not having enough time in the day. However we all watch TV now and then. Next time use the ad breaks to get in some quick fire circuits. Try doing as many rounds as possible in each ad break of 10 press-ups, 10 sit-ups, and 10 squats. An hour-long programme typically has six two-minute ad breaks – that’s 12 minutes of quality exercise time in every TV hour.

There are obviously many more inventive ways of getting exercise into your day without having to change clothes or commit to an hour of time. The most important thing is to look for ways to be more active everyday and you will reap the benefits over the long term.

Next month, we will explore ways to tackle your weaknesses and complement BMF with some micro-sessions outside of your classes.