Becky is a specialist personal trainer based in Horsham, West Sussex, but fitness hasn’t been her only career. Here, she shares how she used to fit training around an office job without it taking over her life…
Although I’m now a full-time personal trainer, life has been that way for less than a year. When I first became a gym-goer in 2017, I worked full-time in a different industry, and ultimately was training four times per week alongside an office job and a social life. Fitting exercise in without compromising in other areas is a common struggle – here’s how I used to do it…
Exercising and your lifestyle
It is worth acknowledging for those who don’t know me that I am child-free, and don’t have any other caring responsibilities. My job involved very occasional travel within the UK, and my hours were semi-flexible, although the majority were worked in an office. So I did have some easy allowances around my routine, but ultimately if the job required me to be somewhere, the gym wasn’t a valid get out, and I had to make the sacrifice.
Once I started to enjoy strength training and appreciated the benefit it had on me, I quickly decided to prioritise it – I was at a point in my life when nights out binge drinking had little appeal, so it wasn’t particularly difficult. It also helps that I’m a natural early riser, which means that the social life I do still enjoy rarely gets in the way of training – if you receive an invitation to go somewhere, it’s generally for 7pm rather than 7am, so when you’re a morning trainer, you’re not choosing between social plans and the gym.
But, I was still making a conscious choice…
Set up for an early win
One of the other important parts of my character is that I’m naturally organised. So sitting down and looking at my diary to make plans isn’t a chore for me, it’s just a comfortable habit. I have general preferences for days I’d like to train – and this also ties into the fact that rest days are necessary – but I’ve always understood that flexibility keeps us from becoming bent out of shape.
To fit four sessions into seven days with rest breaks, a Monday or Tuesday session is non-negotiable, so that would always be planned immediately. The bonus here is that you start the week as you mean to go on, and if being the Smug One in the friend group motivates you, you win big.
Reverse engineering your routine
With one session already settled, the rest kind of maps itself out. It would then be time to look at anything else that I couldn’t move – what had I committed to in terms of work, weekday evening plans, and weekend plans? An early meeting on a Wednesday might write that day off, so Thursday would naturally become a gym day. If I were going out on Friday night, Saturday morning might not be practical, so that then would mean I’d pencil in Friday and Sunday morning instead.
Knowing yourself also matters – perhaps the Friday night is an early dinner which involves you being designated driver, so Saturday is maybe an option again, particularly if you have no plans later in the day and therefore don’t need to rush into the gym for 8am. It’s also worth checking in on your standards – if I’d made plans to meet a friend for coffee or brunch on the Saturday in the same town that my gym was in, is that someone I can happily meet post-gym? Would a freshen up in the gym changing room do rather than a full shower and outfit change at home do?
All of these things I evolved to consider over time – it didn’t happen overnight, and I readjusted as time went on and I honed what really mattered to me.
Ultimately, what I settled on is that training three or four times per week in the gym is my sweet spot, but that I enjoy other things too. For a time, I did a weekly yoga class on a Wednesday evening. I’m very happy to make the most of good weather when it’s available and take myself for a walk if that’s the more practical option than another gym trip in a given week. If you’re committed to fitness as a year-round concept, hitting your optimal state every week isn’t necessary, and you learn that it really can be an 80/20 habit, providing that you do have enough discipline to maintain that 80%.
If I’ve made this sound easy, it’s perhaps a sign that I was meant to do the job that I do. Would you like to join me? Get in touch to find out more…