How to incorporate sport into your daily routine

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You are a busy person and you want to get in shape. You might or not be exercising every now and then, but you want to become more consistent.

In my last entry, I wrote about how to organise your daily routine, based on Time, Attention and Priorities. I assume you’ve got the theory, let’s now put it in practice.

Studies have proved that sport is good for your health and your mood, but everybody has got a different reason to practise sport. Some want to get fit, some are healthily addicted by it, some want to build up muscle, some need to exercise to fight back some sort of condition, while others enjoy doing team sports.

At MarsBased, we encourage our employees to exercise to battle the effects of seating all day long. We wrote about it on our blog, a while back ago.

I have been successfully combining sport and work for many years now. I hope you can learn from what I do.

1. Block time in your calendar

Calendar This is what my calendar looked like on Sunday. In hindsight, the exercise order makes little to no sense to me right now.

I used to plan my week on Sunday evening so that I could squeeze in two or three workouts a week. I started off like this, then I progressively increased the number of workouts, shortening the duration.

I was never too strict about this, but it helped me to think constantly about doing sport. Or, better: it helped me not to forget about doing sport.

It’s easy. Think of it as blocking time for a meeting, for lunch with a friend or for your children.

2. Don’t over-exercise

The more often you exercise, the shorter your workouts should be.

It’s perfectly OK to go to the gym twice a week, if your workouts are effective, you eat healthily and you rest accordingly.

But it’s also perfectly OK to exercise a little bit every day.

If you go beyond your limits you seriously risk injuries that can set you out for a long time. Best case scenario, you will only have muscle fever, that you will need to shake off in the coming days.

It is also very wise not to rush it at the beginning when you’re extra-motivated. Working out five days in a row and then quitting forever is nothing short of useless.

3. Don’t make it painful

Exercising shouldn’t be seen as an obligation nor as something boring or tiring. When we perceive something is a chore or an obligation, we tend to look for excuses to skip doing it.

Typical excuses include: “The gym is too far away”, “I can’t afford a gym pass” or “I spend too much time in the gym”.

Is your gym too far? Get a closer one or exercise at home. Is your gym too expensive? Look for a cheaper one, look out for promotions/discounts or else get a job that includes gym pass (there are more than you think). Does it take too much time to go to the gym, park, exercise, shower, etc? This process can be optimised. There are solutions for everything.

4. Get advice

The solution to all the excuses we found in the previous section can be solved with professional advice.

I started off by learning from a gym-rat workmate and some professional trainers & nutritionists that spared me from doing rookie mistakes. They also got me into thinking in the long-run, not in immediate results.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to trust professionals. Do not believe everything you read on the Internet.

These past few months I’ve been using 8fit as my personal coach.

8fit offers free workout programs that you can do at home, without any equipment whatsoever, for as short as 3–15 minutes each. This way you cannot complain about inconvenience: you can work out at home for barely 10 minutes a day or wherever/whenever you want literally for free.

If you opt in to buy the PRO version, you get a personal coach, diets & nutrition and more personalised workout programs.

Exercising couldn’t get any easier.

Full disclosure: I do not work at/for 8fit, am neither an investor there nor hold any special interest in the company. I am just a happy user.


I am eager to hear how you included sport in your daily routine or how can I help you do it. Let’s talk in the comments section below!

This post was originally published on Medium on 2015-09-22: How to incorporate sport into your daily routine.

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit

Àlex Rodríguez Bacardit

CEO and Founder at MarsBased and Director at Startup Grind Barcelona. I run a team of 20 people, where I spearhead the sales and strategy areas. My background in consulting and development (ex-Deloitte, ex-VASS) and my international profile help me with the technical and the business perspective. I love loud guitars, cats, travelling and tacos.