Time-Effective Fitness: The 4 Ways to Make Your Workout Most Effective— Part 1…
A question that often comes up is how can today’s top employees and leaders increase their performance and effectiveness and at the same time maintain their health and emotional well being? For today’s busy leaders and ambitious employee’s the answer is simple: time-effective fitness. In this four part post we’ll clearly outline how busy and stressed executives can use fitness to have the time, energy and productivity necessary to reach their career goals, while maintaining health and avoiding costly trade-offs in their personal lives. For a long time fitness was a nice to do for executives when time allowed for it in their schedule. In today’s corporate climate, executives are more stressed, with more complex responsibilities, and more pressure to have them done than ever before. For many this means that the time available for fitness is rare if not gone altogether, as are the associated benefits, such as reduced stress, clear thinking, healthy attitude, and having energy to perform at your best throughout the day. To get these benefits back, you must make fitness work into your schedule so it is time-effective. To determine whether your fitness plan is time-effective for you, there are two questions you have to ask.
1) Will this workout or fitness plan add to the time I have available in the future, increase my energy and increase my productivity?
2) Will this workout or fitness plan give me the greatest results in the shortest amount of time needed?
In order to answer a resounding YES to these two questions, your workouts and fitness plan must consist of four components, the first of which I am covering today in this post. The following three will be included in posts later this week.
Focused on Aerobic Conditioning
The heart and lungs are what give you the energy, stamina, stress relief, and endurance you need to be effective through-out the work day. As opposed to lifting weights and other exercise which are important, by focusing your workouts on aerobic exercise you specifically gain the benefits most likely to give you what you need most. Here is a list of the benefits of aerobic exercise:
• Increased Energy and Stamina
• Better Health
• Stress Management
• Mood Elation
• Clear Thinking
• Improved Sleep
• Improved Decision-Making Capabilities
• Improved Image and Impact
• Company benefits through increased productivity with lower heath care costs and reduced absenteeism
Depending on your current level of fitness, you will receive these benefits by completing at least 3 aerobic workouts a week for 20-30 minutes each time, with the eventual goal being 5 aerobic workouts a week, each 20-30 minutes long. Since this eventual goal can take months or longer to achieve, it is essential to know that many executives begin receiving some if not all of these benefits after the first week.
In the upcoming components you will learn how to make these workouts even more powerful and effective by including key principles and tips like intervals, however right now it should be clear that the benefits to your future time, energy, and productivity listed above make these workouts a time-effective investment. This is the first of the four components that are the foundation of the principle in Executive Stamina that fitness is a key resource in the success of today’s top executives.
