I've been training 10-15h a week on average - come rain, come shine - for the last two and a half years if not longer. I usually do a session in the morning and one in the evening. This led to some seriously confused faces, especially during times when I had loads of stuff on plate, like uni, work, internships etc. One of my friends straight up asked me, how I am able to deal with having no spare time at all.
The secret is: sports and training to me are spare time. Quality spare time to be honest. Whenever I got a crazy schedule, the first thing to go is tv. Now, I don't even own tv (I got a tv, with a dvd-player, that's not hooked up to satellite or anything), so if I watch tv shows and movies, it's after a longer period of contemplation of what I could watch. If I have no time, well, then there is no tv. You got no idea of the amounts of hours one can while away by just hanging around in front of a tv (or mindless surfing on the internet for that matter), even though there isn't even anything interesting on. So, there's a goldmine of hours you can potentially use for exercise.
After useless time in front of the tv is gone, I start to plan my days more effectively. There've been times where my life was scheduled down to the minute (well, 15min intervals to be exact).
Me this morning at 7am waiting for Body Pump class to start.
But why would I do all that for... exercise?
Because training to me is a habit that helps me deal with stress, is fun and lets me interact with people. I don't even think about it any more, I have a routine and I stick to that routine, sometimes for months. There are days when I don't even think about it anymore, the act of packing and shouldering my gym bag being so natural that I might find myself at the gym at the time I've always been there, without even noticing it.
There are times when this is more difficult, though.
When I am on a really tight schedule. I plan ahead. I write down every single engagement and meeting and then I fit in the classes or the exercise I can do around them. Sometimes I also make appointments according to my workout schedule (actually I do this as far as possible).
When I am exhausted or my muscles are extremely sore. But. That is actually a sign to consider. If I'm so sore that getting out of bed in the morning seems like a daunting task, then I know I should consider a rest day. Mostly I get up, stretch a little, do some light sun salutations and evaluate the situation again when I got the morning stiffness out of my limbs. If it feels okay, I go, if not: rest day (or some light alternative exercise like Body Balance or Yoga) it is.
When I really don't want to go to training. Well, that happens rarely enough. And if it happens then it is mostly a certain kind of training I am not particularly interested in at that moment, which may be due to having done too much of it for a prolonged amount of time or just not wanting to do it at that moment. Mostly I just try to figure out what my problem is exactly and then see if I might be interested in another way of training or another class. If this goes on for a prolonged amount of time, I try to get behind the reasons why I don't like to do that right now and why I started doing it in the first place. Right now, I'm a little stuck with MMA, because spring has been pretty rough and full of major and minor disappointments, plus I trained a lot in spring, sometimes just forcing myself to train because "I have a match coming up and I have to go". In addition I wasn't allowed to do any submission wrestling for a few weeks because of my neck-shoulder-condition (that starts getting better) and my work schedule has been pretty stuffed. So, I decided to not feel guilty about taking those few weeks off, because afterwards I can go back to training for the fun of it.
When I'm feeling generally uninterested in anything. That's when I just kick my own butt to the gym, because I know that afterwards I will feel better. It helps that many of our instructors at my gym are just great guys and gals, who I really enjoy seeing/meeting. Plus, normally, I love MMA, submission wrestling, Body Combat, Grit, bouldering and Body Pump. And maybe that's what's most important: finding a sport or class you love to go to. Finding a way of training you enjoy. And once you've found it, it's like I said in the beginning: training is quality spare time.
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