There are 168 hours in each week. I’ll hope/assume that we all get 7-9 hours of sleep, so I’ll deduct the average 8 hours per day, which leaves us with 112 waking hours. This is how many hours each week that we’re moving and making impressions on our bodies. Now think about this: how many of those hours are you doing something to improve your health? These numbers aren’t meant to scare you but are just the reality that we all have to live with. Here are some daily and weekly habits, some that I do myself and some that I recommend for others. These type of habits help break the week down into manageable increments that, when achieved, can be small victories that all lead to the greater goal: feeling better!

Coach Anthony's Habits:

1. Rolling and Corrective Exercise Plan Daily

Going back to the 112 hours that we’re (maybe) moving and making impressions on our bodies, that much time can lead to considerable aches and pains. Even if you worked out for an hour per day, that’s less than 6% of the time you’re awake spent on improving your movement - and that’s assuming you are working out correctly. At Perform for Life, we run our athletes through an assessment that can help us determine a plan to counteract those aches and pains we develop through bad posture, sitting, poor habits, etc. It doesn’t have to be at P4L, but make sure you have a professional assign you this corrective exercise plan, and then make sure you follow through and do it! This is the main way to improve your movement outside of the gym. A good strategy for making this a habit is to do it at the same time every day: mornings or evenings are typical times for most people to complete it. A little extra tip here is to keep an extra roller or lacrosse ball around your house and at your workstation to knock out any quick knots that pop up in your day. I personally do these before my first session in the morning, or in between athletes during the day.

2. Eating and Having More ‘Plus’ Days

Simply put, have more plus eating days than non throughout the week. I’m an ex-athlete, so I like to keep score on things, and that’s what I do in general with my nutrition. First, I break it down day by day, asking myself, ‘did I have a good breakfast, lunch, and dinner?’ That’s a simple way to look at it, or you could take more of an overarching look at your macros for the day if you’d prefer to be more specific. This can also be a check for yourself late in the day when you’re choosing dinner, thinking back on what you’ve had that day and being realistic if it aligns with your goals. Then it’s simple to give yourself a score of a plus eating day or not (better words than “good” and “bad”) and count how many you’ve had at the end of the week. There’s an odd number of days in the week so that makes this part easy… and if you’re ambitious go for 5:2, maybe even 6:1!

3. Planning How Many Work-Outs Per Week

This one is very different for people, but here are a couple good ways to look at it. Some people put all of their workouts in their schedule and commit to adhering to it, and to these types, I’d recommend just making sure that you don’t let travel mess up your routines, and if it does, find a way to work around that. The main type of person I’d recommend this for is the one trying to fit working out somewhere in their week and who isn’t sure when or where they’ll be able to. Set a goal, whether it be one, two, or five workouts a week, depending on your goals (they can determine what’s appropriate for you). I’d again recommend using the plus system: a plus week is a week in which all workouts were completed, and a non-plus week is a week in which one or more were missed. This can help you see the big picture with a monthly overview, and I’ve found that, for the people just trying to get their workouts in, this is really where they find success. I personally have a goal to workout four days per week at the moment, though this changes regularly depending on what I’m trying to do, and I still make sure to do the rolling and stretching mentioned above every day.

To be continued next week...