Finding Balance
Building a strong, healthy body isn’t about doing one thing well – it’s about mastering balance.
A truly effective fitness program blends foundational movement, resistance training, and metabolic conditioning to develop not just muscle, but resilience, mobility, and endurance that carry over into everyday life.
Your Fitness Program doesn’t have to be complicated – it just needs structure.
Let’s start by focusing on these three things
Your Goals
Your Available Time
Your Passion
Goals
Your goals are not just there to motivate you to show up. Your fitness program should be designed around what you want to achieve.
Improve overall wellness
Build lean muscle mass
Lower body fat percentage
Run a 10K or half marathon
Perform a pull-up(s)
Improve baseline health markers (resting heart rate, lower blood pressure)
Time
Start by identifying how much time per week you can reserve for exercise. You have family obligations, career goals, and many other demands on your time. As I mentioned in my last blog article you need to identify your protected time slots for exercise.
A Protected Time Slot is reserved for you – a time when you can consistently show up for your workouts without distractions. Recommend you find at least three of those a week. You may exercise outside of your protected time slots, but these are the three you protect, meaning there is an extremely small chance you have to cancel or move a workout from that time slot.
Passion
If you enjoy something whether it is riding a bicycle, hiking, walking around the neighborhood, playing tennis, lifting weights, yoga or pilates - those should absolutely be a part of your fitness program. Anything that energizes you to move your body on a regular basis has physiological and mental health benefits.
I love cycling and the feeling I get watching the scenery change as I ride through nature. So I choose to ride versus run for my cardiovascular training. Walking is another great alternative – lower intensity compared to running — walking a great option for longevity. Cycling and walking are part of my fitness program along with yoga and strength training.
Your Action Steps
Write down your goals
Lock in your protected time slots (try for at least 3)
Write down exercises you are passionate about and others you would like to explore
A Program Built Just for You
Now that you have identified or validated your goals, established your protected time slots, and determined the exercises you are passionate about, let’s start constructing a plan built just for you.
Three Key Categories for Your Fitness Program:
Foundational Training (yoga, calisthenics, pilates)
Resistance Training (weightlifting, gymnastics)
Metabolic Training (HIIT or Cardio)
If you are a beginner and just starting to envision a fitness journey that’s great! Starting from these building blocks will put you on a path for success. Remember a fitness journey is not linear – you will evolve. You should explore what works and what doesn’t, and learn what brings you passion, joy and ultimately long-term health benefits.
For those of us who have been training for a while, most of us have one exercise modality we are most passionate about and it forms the basis of our fitness program.
I am a yogi
I am a bodybuilder
I am a cyclist
I am a runner
This is great. I want you to be passionate about your training. I also encourage you to find balance in your fitness program. If you’ve been following me for a while and read my blog you know that “KeepRidin” embodies longevity - the drive to keep moving forward no matter your age.
A major aspect of longevity is balance. Balancing movement with nutrition, recovery, and a healthy mindset.
Finding Balance
Every modality of exercise benefits the body with specific benefits dependent on the form of exercise. How long and how often you train each modality is structured around your goals. As a personal trainer focusing on longevity here are my general recommendations for a well-rounded fitness program.
Looking at this table it may seem like a lot. Add up the total number of minutes and it’s 6 to 7 hours a week. You can view this as an average of an hour a day or 7 hours a week of which there are 168 total hours in a week. Seven hours represents 4% of your week spent exercising. Let me know if 4% resonates with you or if you still think 7 hours is a lot.
Every individual is different. Your goals matter and so does the amount of time you can commit to exercise on a weekly basis. As mentioned earlier this is a general guideline not a hard and fast prescription for every individual.
If your goal is bodybuilding, more time would be spent on strength training. If your goal is to run a half marathon or triathlon then more time would be spent running. If you do a lot of running or cycling, it is very important to maintain strength and flexibility to maintain range of motion and joint health. I advise against completely abandoning any of the three primary training categories (foundational, resistance, metabolic) because it can lead to muscle and joint imbalances, increase risk of injury, and sub-optimal long-term health outcomes. Reducing the amount of time allocated to one category is fine - just make sure you incorporate enough time to stay balanced.
Another consideration to Finding Balance is including your loved ones in your fitness program. You can walk or ride bikes with your spouse and kids for one of the cardio workouts as an example. Or you might share an interest in yoga or weightlifting with your partner.
Exercise is a very important aspect of my life, and I also love spending time with my wife. I would feel guilty sometimes leaving the house to go spend an hour or longer at the gym while she was home alone. Fix = she became my training partner for two strength training sessions a week. I love seeing her progress and enjoying her workouts. And I don’t feel guilty now about the time I commit to my fitness program because she is a part of it. Funny story - she’ll often joke about how often I look in the mirror after finishing a set or grunt as I push through the final reps. It’s wonderful how the people we love support us as we are - quirks and all LOL..
Finding the balance that works for you as an ongoing process. Learn from others what works well for their fitness programs keeping in mind every individual is different. Incorporating ideas that align with your goals and sharing your learning and experience within the fitness community can be very rewarding. Avoid just copying what others are doing or try out the latest challenge you saw on Instagram without considering “Does this align with my goals and help me stay on track for long-term health and longevity?”
If you would like to discuss your goals and how to get started structuring or perhaps modify your fitness program, I offer a free 30 minute consultation. I would love the opportunity to discuss your goals and passion for fitness setting you on a path for success. Click the button below to book time for us to chat.