How can I get my workouts in when I work long hours already? How does Peter?
I work a fairly high-hours, high-stress job as a solicitor - the UK equivalent of an attorney - and I struggle to get all of my hours in. Ideally, I'd like to be lifting 3-4x/wk, doing ~4hrs Z2 and 2 sessions of Z5, doing 5 sessions of stability/mobility work, sleeping 8.5hrs/night and doing ~15m meditation every day for mental health reasons. Honestly though, this is so difficult to fit in with a busy routine. If I'm working a 10-12hr day 5x/wk and also want to spend quality time with friends and family, there simply aren't enough hours in the day. I know you have a history of high-hours corporate work, as well as having worked as a doctor. So I wanted to ask: (1) How did you find the time to work out? (2) Did you take any steps to optimise / multi-task on workouts? For example, doing your Zone 2 on a stationary bike whilst doing routine work tasks, or extending your cycle to work? (3) In your practice, have you observed that there seems to be a hard limit on how many working hours a person can do whilst still getting an ideal amount of exercise? For example, do some of your patients work 60hrs/wk, and simply can't get the hours in in the gym, whilst others work 50hrs, and have no trouble?
Peak vs Sustainable Fitness
It seems like your emphasis is on achieving a high level of fitness today that sort of acts as a bank for future years, and I do see that if you are going to inevitably enter into decline in the last decades you want to start at the highest height you can reasonably achieve. But I suspect the basis and assumption for what you are promoting is that exercise is a lifetime activity? I don’t think that really comes across in much of your teaching, and I do think that if this is the case then I would expect to hear more about establishing a sustainable routine that will enable (me) to continue and indeed “want” to continue to the end of my life, though perhaps with adjustments of intensity. Is this something you spend time developing with your direct clients?