So I have been thinking about my workouts or the lack of them recently and I think that I need to start working on building the habits now that will get me through the winter when its harder to wake up and exercise straight away! I have decided to start building the habits that will get me waking up, getting dressed and hitting the gym every morning Monday to Friday as that is more sustainable than 7 days a week although that may change as I find it harder to stick to if I switch up but we will see!
I have decided that I am going to put myself first from now on so I am dialing back my morning start time at work to start at 7:30 instead of my usual 5-6:30 am starts that I have been doing recently! This then gives me plenty of time to get to the office on Monday and Wednesdays after the gym!
In order to wake up at 5 and get up and head to the gym I am going to need to make some changes to my evening routine too to facilitate my mornings. These changes are:
- Shower before bed so I can get up and go in the morning not stinking too badly
- Get workout clothes ready before bed
- Be in bed and trying to sleep by 9:30 pm
These 3 simple changes will mean that when I wake up at 5 I can get dressed, drink some salt water, clean my teeth then head out to the gym.
For now I plan to concentrate on just going to the gym more than what I actually do when I am there but I plan to do the 3-12-30 walking on the treadmill (Incline of 12, speed of 3mph for 30 minutes) to start with as I found that that helped a lot with my back and knee issues and really helped my aerobic fitness a lot when I did it before! On Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I can add some weights as I will have a lot longer until I need to start work as I am working from home usually so I just have to be home by 7:25 to log in and start working! For now I am going to use the machines to build a base strength and do nothing crazy or sports specific until the winter when I should have a good base fitness level.
On Monday and Wednesdays mornings I will also try and do 30 minutes on the sitting bike after the 3 12 30 as well to get some extra cardio in as I found last time I went to the gym a lot and did this it burnt the blubber really quickly!
On Monday and Wednesday Lunch times I plan to go to the track and ride the BMX as I am in the office anyway and now with the motorbike I can get to and from the track fairly quickly so it means I can get at least an hour in at lunch time! I am going to be building up my StayStrong V4 Cruiser frame up so leave it in the container as my container bike so that I always have a bike at the track to ride. I bought a new bottom Bracket and headset spacers so that I can build the bike up. Th ebike is basically a parts bin bike so it will be fine to leave at the track and I already have a helmet, gloves, goggles in my kit bag in the container so that is all good. I will have to leave my clipless shoes in there as well but other than that its all there.
I am just about to get up and sort out all the parts for the StayStrong and also get the other StayStrong built up ready to take photos and get it ready to sell. I will also build up the parts that I have for the V4 at the same time!
I also have 2 20″ bikes to get built up and sold too that are in the container at the moment so I will need to get them in the week and bring them home. I will not have all the parts for the V4 until the end of the week so I will not do any BMX this week while I get used to doing the gym first thing!
Tonight I will start on my morning routine too so that I can get up early, get ready and go to the gym and walk/cycle for the first day in the gym.