I was thinking about folks that I have trained over the years, and included in all those folks are some older athletes, some who have very busy lives with kids/grandkids, stressful jobs, spouses, recreational sports, etc.
What I have noticed is that the people who are most consistent with their weight training no matter what is going on in their lives are the ones who stay the healthiest regarding injuries, and just overall health.
I have espoused the benefits of weight training and making the time for weight training forever and in plenty of columns, but it is always worth revisiting.
What confuses me is how when some people get "too busy" in life, they drop the weight training first. Why anybody would ever, ever do that is beyond my comprehension.
So you train for 8 months out of the year and then life starts kicking your butt so you make a conscious decision to lose the strength and muscle that you have worked so hard the previous months to gain. You literally decide to get WEAKER AND TO LOSE MUSCLE. Doesn't make sense.
Drop other stuff out of your life if you are so damn busy. Drop all social media unless business related, drop Netflix binging, drop every damn thing that you are doing that is wasted time.
Get up an hour earlier
Buy home gym stuff( could be just dumbbells, doesn't matter)
Put your workouts on the weekends only
Put the training into your calendar and treat it like an appointment. Never break the appointment.
If you have a busy week coming up, either plan to train late in the evening or early in the morning.
Man, the best feeling is being finished with a great training session early in the morning and walk out of the gym and the sun is just coming up. You feel spent but accomplished and ready to crush the day. Much better than staggering over to the coffee maker, grabbing a donut and plopping on your couch to check Instagram likes on the picture of the barbecue ribs on your grill that you posted yesterday.
Get up, get that coffee and whatever other pre workout you need to get you going, and walk out the door and drive to the gym. Don't feel like it? SO WHAT? If you must, look at it like something that you just have to do, just like taking care of the damn kids or grocery shopping or working. If that's what does it for you, then that's what you need to do. Hell, perform one exercise and leave. Pick your favorite exercise for each body part and do a light , medium and heavy set and then leave. The next week if you have a day with some more time to train, add some stuff in, but know that if you want to, you can do one exercise and leave. You have given yourself permission to do that and it'll be a relief for you.
But don't let yourself get all weak and soft and let all of your hard work go to waste because your priorities got mixed up. Never forget that strength comes first, it's the foundation of the training and life pyramid.
