How to squeeze workouts into your busy college schedule
By Brittany Anas
College is a time when you develop lifelong habits — whether it’s washing your face every night before you go to sleep, making your bed first thing in the morning or setting Saturday afternoons aside for manicure and pedicures. One bad habit trap you’ll definitely want to ward off with all your willpower is the “I’m too busy to workout” excuse. It’s true. College is demanding. Midterms will try to rob you of your beauty sleep. And the end-of-semester finals frenzy can trigger stress. But a good work-out strategy will help you handle stress and stay healthy during the best four years of your life.
Before the reading assignments start to rack up and the tests creep up on you, come up with a game plan to help make sure you stick to your workout regimen.
Here are four golden rules for staying fit in college.
Rule No. 1: Unplug when you’re at the gym. Turn off your smart phone and focus solely on your workout. Give yourself a mental break from those e-mails popping up from group project members in your constitutional law class and those addicting Buzzfeed lists in your Facebook feed. Instead, listen to music on a Sony Sports MP3 player with wireless headphones from Best Buy, where you can earn 2 percent Cash Back and get “deals of the day.” When you focus on your work out, you’ll knock it out on time and get the most out of it.
Rule No. 2: Join an intramural team. Or commit to going to a class at the campus recreation center. You’ll be much less likely to play hooky from the gym when you have a lacrosse game scheduled or your hip-hop dance class is building a week-by-week progression routine to Robin Thicke’s catchy Blurred Lines song.
Rule No. 3: Build your class schedule to sync with your body. For example, if you’re a morning person, schedule your toughest classes in the morning when you’re the most alert and focused. When you’re making your schedule, block out time to fit in the gym — whether it’s an early-morning date with the elliptical or an hour in the middle of the day to attend a kickboxing class.
Rule No. 4: Squeeze in workouts. If you’ve got an extensive class schedule eating up Tuesdays and Thursdays, for example, make getting to the gym a priority on other days of the week. On the days you can’t get in a formal workout, try to squeeze in activity as much as possible — whether it’s walking or biking to campus, taking the stairs, or breaking in the afternoon for a 15-minute yoga session on the quad.
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