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No excuses

As a trainer and a coach, I hear a lot of excuses.

As a trainer and a coach, I hear a lot of excuses.

In fact, this year after my crash and subsequence recovery, I have made a lot of excuses. Some of them are really great ones. But they are still excuses and they all do the same thing: create a result. I guess I could stand proudlyand say that I didn’t grab hold of a lot of the excuses I could have. I started running just four weeks after surgery. I stopped taking the harsh pain drugs as soon as I could so my body would clear up from all those side effects. Igive myself a C+ on all of it, because I did come up with some excuses that didn’t serve me.

One excuse I hear a lot of in the gym is: “I don’t have time”. I find that interesting. We all have the same 24 hours a day, nobody gets more, nobody gets less. 86,400 seconds per day, period. The truth is this: you choose whatyou do with your 24 hours and if exercise and being healthy was important, you would get it done because it would matter to you.

Don’t believe me? If you got a call during your busy day and your child or your best friend was really, really sick and needed a ride to the hospital immediately - would you make time? Absolutely. Would it matter that you werebusy? Not a chance. I risk being preachy here, but I hear people say they don’t have time to exercise and later I hear them talking about the T.V. show they watched last night or the video game they played all weekend.

Please don’t get me wrong watching T.V. isn’t bad or good, it’s just a choice. Just like getting healthy. It’s a choice.

It’s often a difficult choice, because life is not set up to support us in choosing something like daily exercise. Work demands more and more of us all the time. Children and family demands can be overwhelming. Let me ask you this:What could possibly be more important than your health? If you are healthy and have more energy you can be more productive at work, keep up with your kids and be sick less often. Exercise is not a task, or a ‘to do’ item, it isan investment in yourself and if you are like me, it is way too easy to put yourself last on the list. So I challenge you to change that: make your health a priority and get it done.

For those of you that work away from town, do not choose to afford a gym membership or aren’t quite ready to step into that environment for whatever reason, there are still plenty of options. The thing is, you have to get moving!Walking, jogging, running, hockey, aerobic classes, yoga, cycling, swimming, cross country skiing, square dancing, etc. Find something you like and stay active. If you are away from home, there are plenty of workouts that don’trequire any equipment at all.

For example, everyone’s favourite - burpees. Created in the 1930’s by psychologist Royal H. Burpee (I know you’ve always wondered), the burpee is an intense full body exercise that helps burn fat and tone muscles. A burpee isdone in the following five steps: 1) Stand with feet shoulder width apart. 2) Drop to a squat and place your hands on the ground. 3) Kick your feet back and perform a push-up. 4) Jump your feet back towards your hands, to returnto squat position. 5) Jump up with arms overhead in celebration. It’s an amazing workout, and you can do it anywhere, any time. So no excuses right?

Performing 50 burpees in 15 20 minutes is a powerful workout for anyone and can be done in minimal space even a hotel room beside the bed.

The rewards for committing to fitness are endless and it really is worth your valuable time. Fitness saved my life many times over and I hope the same for you.

No excuses.

Happy Training!

Scott