Fitting Training Around Life: How to Keep Your Workout Motivation Alive When Life Gets Hectic!

Have you ever found yourself struggling to complete all your planned training sessions for the week? It’s a common challenge, especially when work, family, or travel demands start to eat into your schedule. When this happens, you’re usually left with two options:

1. Stick to the plan but miss sessions and feel discouraged
2. Adjust the plan to ensure you complete the key sessions

I call the second approach "fitting training around life." It may seem straightforward, but over the years, I've seen many athletes set overly ambitious training goals, only to fall short regularly. Some believe they need a set number of hours each week to train for an Ironman, while others assume more training is always better. Unfortunately, when they can’t keep up, it can impact their confidence, self-esteem, and even mental health.

As a coach, I emphasise understanding how much training an athlete can realistically commit to and recover from on a consistent basis. Recovery is just as important as training volume—if you’re using all your available time for workouts, will you actually have enough left for full recovery and fitness gains?

Everyone’s ideal training volume is different, but there are a few ways to calculate yours. You can conduct a life audit, or you can review your training history.

Conduct a Life Audit​
Take an honest look at where your time goes. How much of your week is spent on work, family commitments, sleep, commuting, and daily chores?

Review Your Training History​
Go through your training logs from the past five years and calculate your average weekly hours. You may find your training volume stays remarkably similar from year to year. Unless there’s been a major life change, this is usually a reliable baseline. If I had a goal to train 20 hours a week this next season, but see I've averaged 10-12 over the past 5 years, how realistic is my goal?

Finding your ideal training volume can help you maintain balance and avoid burnout. It’s about creating a routine that challenges you, but is also sustainable around the rest of your life. In the long run hitting a smaller number on a regular basis will bring better results than the occasional heroic week.

How do you work out your weekly training hours? Feel to share your thoughts on my Facebook page.

I really appreciate you being part of my tribe and I look forward to helping you achieve better health and better performance. Simon

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