The summer can be a wild time for sticking to any kind of routine. For parents, the kids are home, the schedule is upside down, and nobody knows what’s going on. Maybe there’s travel happening, maybe you’re a teacher and off from work. And I hate to rush time along, but most of us are staring down back-to-school happening sometime in the next few weeks.
So if you’re anticipating trying to get some structure back in your life in September, this might be a good time to look at your fitness routine. It’s not about getting “back on track” because you “fell off” or whatever. It’s about working with the realities of your actual schedule and your life. If you’re considering trying to use September’s return to a more predictable routine as a time to work on your health and fitness, here’s a few tips to support you.
Choose just one or two things to work on. You don’t need to overhaul your whole life because it’s September. It can be tempting to decide that this is the month you’re going to start working out five days a week, drink more water, meal prep every Sunday, get eight hours of sleep every night, and also become a person who remembers to clean out the fridge before the vegetables become science experiments.
Pick one or two things that would actually make you feel better and focus on those first. Once those things become more routine, you can always add something else. Building a routine that you can actually maintain is a lot more useful than creating the world’s most ambitious plan and abandoning it three weeks later.
Put your workouts on your calendar rather than hoping you’ll fit them somewhere. This makes a huge difference for me. I also can drag them around my calendar when things change, but having them there ensures that I get them in and have the time allocated. Then I try to think of them like an appointment that is important and I should not miss, rather than treating those workouts as something cool to do if it works.
Pro-tip for our members: you can sync your reservation schedule in PushPress to your calendar! On the members app, click the little gear icon by your name, then go to “Preferences” and toggle on “Sync reservations on calendar.” One less thing for you to have to remember!
Get some help if you need it. Sometimes the thing standing between you and a consistent fitness routine isn’t motivation. It’s that you don’t really know what you’re doing, you’re not sure how to structure your workouts, or you just do better when somebody else is expecting you to show up.
This is where coaching can be really helpful. Having the community and accountability of a small group can be game-changing for a lot of folks. And when you’re brand new to strength training, it can be a lot more comfortable having someone show you what to do. You don’t get bonus points for figuring it all out yourself!
If you know your schedule is going to get more predictable in the next few weeks, you can start thinking now about what you want that routine to look like—and what might make it easier to stick with.
One other thing I’d encourage you to do: make your goal about what you want to do, not what you want your body to look like.
“Get stronger” is a goal.
“Be able to keep up with my kids on a hike” is a goal.
“Finally learn how to deadlift” is a goal.
“Feel more confident in the gym” is a goal.
Wanting your body to change isn’t wrong, but if that’s the only reason you’re exercising, it can be pretty damn hard to stay motivated when progress isn’t happening as quickly as you’d hoped. There are a lot of things you can work toward with strength training that have nothing to do with the number on the scale.
So as you look toward September, don’t think about what you need to fix or make up for from the summer. Think about what you’d like to add to your life.
You don’t have to overhaul your whole life. But if having a little more routine this fall makes it easier to fit in regular strength training, we’re happy to help you figure out what that could look like. Whether that’s LIFT, personal training, or something else, send us a message and we’ll help you find a place to start.
