Everyday life is full: How are you supposed to find time for exercise and sport? Hour-long sessions don’t have to be necessary, experts say. And provide ideas on how to start very small.
Job, family, household, friends, doctor’s appointments: many people’s calendars are pretty full. The plan to move more quickly falls through – even if we know that it would be good for us.
But even with small changes we can incorporate more exercise and sport into our everyday lives. The fact that we have to sweat for hours in the gym or on the running track is a myth.
1. Bring more exercise into your everyday life
“Small exercise units are better than none,” says Lena Henning from the Institute for Sports Science at the University of Münster. “Being aware of this and wanting to incorporate exercise into everyday life is the first step.”
But how exactly? You can try combining certain places, times or situations with movement. Anyone who goes to work in the office in the morning decides: I will use the stairs, not the elevator.
Or you can take an active route to work by taking a bike or walking the last three bus stops. Further ideas: “Do a few squats while brushing your teeth or take a few steps while talking on the phone,” suggests Barbara Halberschmidt, who also researches in the sports psychology team at the University of Münster. Incorporating exercise into social activities, for example meeting up with friends to go for a walk, can also help.
In general: “It’s easier to start with small and simple steps,” says sports psychologist Halberschmidt. If you repeat these regularly, they become more and more routine – we no longer have to try so hard to motivate ourselves to do them.
2. Combine strength and endurance training – even in small bites
“Every step makes you fit”: There is something to this saying. Ultimately, walking helps counteract a lack of exercise, as sports scientist Jürgen Gießing from the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau says. However, to really get fit you need more than that: training. Because: “Not every movement is training or sport.”
In addition to everyday exercise, we also have to challenge our bodies a little. It’s best to do a combination of strength and endurance training, which results in the greatest health benefits. It doesn’t take as much time to achieve this as some people think.
Strength training
“Regular strength training prevents age-related loss of strength and muscle and preserves our largest sugar storage and energy consumer: our muscles,” says sports scientist Jürgen Gießing.
According to him, just 30 minutes a week is enough to achieve measurable success. “If you train all of the body’s major muscle groups once a week with five to six exercises – and do so until you reach muscular exhaustion – you will notice a change after a short time,” says Jürgen Gießing. And if you do this for a year, you will most likely never want to miss your training again.
Endurance training
Endurance sports such as running, cycling and swimming strengthen the cardiovascular system. Here, too, it doesn’t have to be for hours: clear effects can be demonstrated with just 60 minutes of exercise per week in the target heart rate range, as Jürgen Gießing says. This so-called target pulse range is 65 to 80 percent of the maximum heart rate.
The maximum heart rate can be calculated using a rule of thumb: 220 minus your age. An example: Anyone who is 40 years old has a maximum heart rate of 180 beats per minute. The target pulse range is therefore 117 to 144 beats per minute. Anyone who uses a smartwatch or wearable can keep an eye on this area.
Good news for everyone with little time: “These 60 minutes can be divided into portions or training days,” says Jürgen Gießing. “So, for example, 3 x 20 minutes, 2 x 30 minutes or even 6 x 10 minutes.” This principle is known as “workout stacking”, which means doing the workout in small batches – a short jog here, there a short HIIT workout. It is quite possible that the sport can be better integrated into everyday life.
3. Use insights from psychology
If you want to build a movement routine, you can use the SMART method to formulate your goal. SMART stands for the following characteristics: specific, measurable, attractive, realistic and timely.
“I want to go jogging three to four times a week” is probably not the optimal formulation for beginners: This goal may be unrealistic – and it is not scheduled, i.e. fixed in time. The better option would be: “I go running for 20 minutes on Mondays and Thursdays after I get off work.” You should ask yourself: What exactly do I want to achieve and in what time?
Other factors that influence whether we pursue a behavior – i.e. our sports routine – over the long term are:
Feeling of autonomy
In order to integrate exercise and sport into everyday life in the long term, it is important that we have the feeling that we can make our own decisions about what, how and for how long we do it. “This means that decisions are in line with your own values, interests and goals,” says Barbara Halberschmidt.
Experience of competence
The experience of improving and achieving goals also keeps us going. According to Lena Henning and Barbara Halberschmidt, this so-called experience of competence promotes intrinsic motivation. So the drive that comes from within ourselves. Because these experiences strengthen the confidence “that you can also overcome future challenges – even if obstacles arise,” says Lena Henning.
This experience of competence can also benefit if we track our training via apps or smartwatches – and thus keep an eye on our progress. However, caution is advised here: “Tracking your own performance can also have the opposite effect and lead to stress,” says Barbara Halberschmidt.
Collaborate with others
What also makes us stick with it: “Agreements to train together,” advises sports scientist Jürgen Gießing. If someone else is counting on us, the inhibition threshold is higher to simply skip the training because they don’t feel like it. Or you can look for a sports course with a fixed group. “The feeling of not being alone but part of a group or team also influences the quality of motivation,” says Lena Henning.
Read more on Techzle\.com:
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