How to Fit Workouts in A Schedule with No Time

Peak Efficiency

100% show rate. Up at 3:40am. No breaks. 2 hours notes prep. 13 hours of appointments. 15 hours on my feet. Home at 7:30pm.

Where do I fit my workouts and food?

- Actually, I do train myself on the heavy days like this. While I prepare client notes and read scientific studies in the morning, I do cycling or treadmill incline walks. Throughout the actual day at the top of the hour I perform a single set of 1 or 2 chosen lifts for that day, usually below threshold. Wednesdays it is weighted pullups and grip. I performed 15 sets of 15-20 reps with 30lbs added on pullups and 15 sets of Iron Mind CoC 2 and 2.5 gripper for 1-5 reps. Each set takes 30-60 seconds.

But what about food?

Generally I like to fast. Hitting protein sufficiency can be a little dicey, although I have no problem eating 2lbs of bison in a sitting at 7:30pm, which is what happened yesterday.

For clients who are focused on more overt bodybuilding, shakes and many small meals are often an inevitability. I’ve done plenty of experiments with that too. It just doesn’t work for me anymore as I’m out with the kids all day 3 days per week and book 2-3 days like this calendar shot, keeping the 4th work day purposely as light as is realistic; and I’m simply not going to sit down to eat more than once or twice a day during 6 days every week.

Thus, I know busyness isn’t a proper excuse. People tend to think their schedules are pressured and it must be easy for someone who works at a gym to make it happen. But I'm telling you that even when I worked at the big box clubs it was a real challenge to have back-to-back appointments and meetings from 5am to 8pm and then work up the gusto to lift heavy and do hard workouts. A meeting might get moved or a cancellation might crop up and we had to immediately get our rear in gear to perform a workout. Guess what: in the middle of the workout I often had to go greet a prospective new member touring the gym anyway. You think you have difficulty getting your exercise done? Try working as a top performer in a corporate gym.

There is a way to manage peak efficiency regardless of the heft of a day. Evaluate how your idea of perfect can be the enemy of the good lifestyle. Up before 4am and going hard until 8pm, I do it every week and have without exception for 10 years, and nearly every week for 17 years. You may simply have to rethink what you call a “workout” and a “meal.” And when you do, it’s not just that it CAN be done. It will be done.