The thread on the Harvard study about the benefits of exercise got me thinking: Everybody knows the benefits, but not everybody does it. So, among our crowd- those who mostly already exercise- what are the factors that limit your ability to train and exercise? How would you change them?
Wife and kids.
Time, baby.
I’m self-employed, but I need to be at this desk 9-4 because clients call. I’ve got three little kids. Each weekend involves 2-3 little league games and a birthday party or two. I like having breakfast and dinner with my family every day.
So, I steal a little time here and there and fit in 13 hours a week or so.
2 things:
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Family. I wouldn’t trade my life for anything, but if I didn’t have wife/kids, I would train more.
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Overtraining. Last year, any time I got around 10-12 hours a week, I got sick. This year, I’ve been able to keep healthy at about 12 a week, so I think that’s an improvement. All together, I don’t think I could jump right up to 20 hours a week and keep it steady, cause I’d be sick evey other week.
So what kinds of things could you do to free up time? Any thoughts?
Spend less time on the internet reading and talking about triathlon and more time actually doing it.
Dave
Like most of the above Tom - time is the limiter. In addition the weather can be a bit rough - on the WET Coast of Canada in Vancouver often at 5am it is tough to head into the rain for my run / ride. I know others have it worse in the snow and don’t know how you guys cope - I couln’t train for an IM like you did on a computrainer.
i’ll be honest. i could say time, family, work, ect. but the reality is: motivation. some days more some day alot less.
All those fast twitch fibres that I’ve been God given are my limiting factor to endurance training. Along with a bit of laziness.
I would say time and motivation. This last fall I had nothing racewise scheduled, so I did 0 training for 3 months. Coming in to january I signed up for the Martian Marathon Mar 27th (my first marathon) voila’ I am out freezing my butt off in the Michigan winter. If I am not training for a specific event or goal I tend to find other things to do.
Jim
You should do what I did and map out your entire day. I found I have about 3 hours I waste everyday doing nothing but whoring the forums and watching TV (maybe meeting with friends).
Here is my basic week:
Sunday - Thursday:
6:30 - Get up
8:00 - 3:00 (average, it changes every day) - School and getting back from school
3:00 - 4:00 - ‘Homework’ (yeah right) + Food
4:00 - 6:00/7:00 (depending on day) - Nothing
6:00/7:00 - 8:00/9:30 - Train
(On thursdays I go out, usually come back between 12:00 - 3:00).
Friday - Sleep in, meet up with some friends in the afternoon, and go to sleep as early as possible (say 11:00 pm). Day off from training, maybe an easy 30 jog or an easy 40 minute cycle.
Saturday - Long bike ride followed by short run. Then breakfast and nap. Afternoon is spend on doing homework or staring at the walls. I like to read too so that’s usually when I get some good reading done.
Basically if I wanted I could train a whole lot more, but I’m lazy and like my free time.
Injury is my #1 limiting factor.
Dan
Free up more time = spend time on a bike rather than in a car (i.e. commute by bike), less time on this forum, zero TV time.
My wife and son are cool with me training as much as I want (well, up to a point, but basically every weekday from 5:30 am to 9 am is my own time and every weekend day from 5:30 till 11 am is my time, so lots of time to train if I want to). Work wise, I am in the office from ~ 9am to 6 pm every day, with some 9:30 starts for longer morning workouts, so that is not an issue either.
Probably, the biggest limitation is that I really would not want to do any more training. I am very content with the amount of time I have available to train. Basically, I average 2 hours per day or 14 hours a week. My best Ironmans are on 12-16 hours per week. Whenever I do the 18-22 hour routine, I seem to do worse. For this year, with half ironmans and short course on the agenda, 12-14 hours per week will be plenty.
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work
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win lottery, quit work
.
Wow…reading you last post was like reading my own thoughts. That literally is my situation. If I have the energy and motivation to get up, I’m free to do as I please from 5am-8am. That leaves me enough time to say “good morning to my son and wife” before heading to work where I stay until 5:30-6:30 on average. I then come home, spend time with wife and son and around 8 or 9pm, I’m again free to spend that time as I please. The issue is, I run out of energy.
My one saving grace is a periodic workout at lunch at the local Lifetime Fitness. It’s about 3 miles from my office and that’s where I swim. Only problem there is motivation. I don’t always want to go work out at lunch b/c that’s often times the only time I can “relax”, surf the web and read these posts…although as you can see, today I have a little free time on my hands.
Nice to know I’m not a lone and when I toe the line, the everyman next to me is up against the same challenges.
-bz
I really dont have any limitations to speak of. I work 9-5 Mon-Fri. The only thing that keeps me from training longer are the type of events that I do. I typically race duathlons no longer than 8k/55k/8k, more sprints than not, and running races of the 5k 10k variety. So I dont feel I need to put in the super long rides and runs. I do enjoy training and do it 2x’s daily 7days a week. My typical week looks like the following:
Mon-Fri is run 7 to 8miles at 7am, work 9-5 then ride 20 to 30 miles after work.
Sat is 7mile run with a little longer ride for the afternoon.
Sun is long run of 10 to 12 miles and then another medium to longish ride in the afternoon.
I also visit my daughter on the weekends as well as various social activites as well.
Right now Im pretty content with things as they are the only thing I would change is the fact that an afternoon nap would be great:)
work. My job has made me her bitch, for now
Spend less time on the internet reading and talking about triathlon and more time actually doing it.
Dave
I always think of that. But you know, none of this forum lingering takes any time away from my training. It takes time away from a pile of stuff I need to read on my desk, but I’ll get it done eventually.
Ok, I have been lurking for a little while now and this will be my first post so please be gentle.
What limits my training:
- Work 2) Time 3) Motivation 4) Illness
What could I or have I done about them:
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Work … trying to better manage my time and make sure that I leave at a reasonable hour 5:30-6:00.
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Time … mapped out where I spent my time and found a few hours of wasted time (now used for training).
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Motivation … I hired a coach. Having to report back to someone other than myself about my previous week sometimes forces me to be more diligent than I might have otherwise been.
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Illness … changed my diet. Cannot tell you if this has had an impact yet but I did not get a cold or the flu this season.
I don’t need more time to train, I need to train smarter but I don’t know how. I could definitely benefit from expert coaching. I get the feeling that I’m putting in the max. number of hours that are going to be beneficial to my distance and ability and that I just need to use those hours better.