The biggest victim of my corporate success was fitness. In my 20s I worked out regularly with a personal trainer, played squash, hiked and mountain biked. As I grew in my career fitness became less consistent. Today, it's challenging to get 1 workout in a week. Frankly, I take little time to do much for myself beyond work and family.
To get back on track I decided to look up my old personal trainer and physical mentor, Tom Motzer. Tom owns a little fitness haven called Latitude Fitness in Montreal, Canada. After catching up, Tom told me that his team refers to those things like work, time management and family obligations as "The Opponent". The opponent is an ever present partner in life, it will always be there in some form or another. He advised that to fight the opponent I should implement some simple body weight exercises like push-ups, squats and lunges for 30 minutes, three times a week. Feeling inspired I pulled together a quick plan that I can do in the morning before work or in the evening when I get home.
This is a circuit with each exercise being done for 60 seconds. Always be careful to maintain good form. Do the circuit 1 to 3 times depending on fitness level;
- push-ups with row
- Goblet Squats
- single arm dumbbell swing
- Mountain climber
- Standing dumbbell row
- Box jumps (I jump onto a bench)
- Reverse lunge
I've done this circuit 4 times and I'll be honest; it was tough. I do what I can and it gets a little better each time. I'll likely stick with a variation of this routine until I build the habit and carve out some free time to get to the gym. My goal is to go from a skinny sack of bones to having a decent shape and fitness level by the end of June.
