Top athletics coach and aeronautical industry specialist Simon Duberley looks at how to sustain fitness targets while on the move in business.
In case you thought I was going to tell you all about the merits of flexibility regarding stretching, think again. Not that stretching shouldn’t play a part in anyone’s fitness program. Of course it should. But we can cover this subject in a future issue of RiverTribe.
In this issue, I am going to talk about the merits of a flexible approach to when, where and what we are going to do to stay Fit for Business. Without it your plan has no sustainability. I suppose in many ways the term plan is where things might fall apart a little, for when we can’t stick to the training plan, we tend to skip training. But do we need to?
I once had to finish late whilst working near Blackpool. I had planned a gym session after which I intended to go and see Blackpool Tower which was, as far I could see, not that far from the hotel. Anyway, as time wasn’t on my side, I decided to ditch the gym session and run to the tower and back. Killing two birds with one stone right? Unfortunately, that’s the thing with towers, they always look quite close. That run almost doubled my record distance. Great example of flexible training but probably best to always take a quick look on Google maps before you set off on a run in an unfamiliar area.
I still maintain that keeping fitness is more about flexibility that sticking to a rigid plan. It might make you feel organised to have set times for all the different elements of training in which you engage in, but what are you going to do when that demanding boss throws that curved ball at you? I’ll take a wild guess that you will enter a period of training disruption that will mean demotivation leading onto more disengagement. Not everything will always go to plan, take it from a guy who had to leave the Middle East twice this year, quite abruptly.
Physical fitness training can come in many forms, but for me seldom does it involve a booked class at the gym. In fact, on many occasions, what I had planned to do has had to be traded for something completely different and not necessarily what you would view as a classic training activity. Remember if it exerts you in some fashion, in my book its contributing to your long-term wellbeing.
So next time you see me on a plane looking a little hot and bothered, it wasn’t necessarily that I almost missed my flight, it’s more than likely that my boss deployed me at short notice and I power walked rather than caught the transit shuttle – torching the calories lost from a missed training session. Flexibility indeed.
