Crush Your Fitness Goals With an Online Calendar

Just like maintaining your online calendar, staying in shape requires diligence. But if you want to take your fitness to the next level, organizing your workout routines is critical. Here is how to crush your fitness goals with an online calendar.

To unlock your potential, you need a plan.

When you have to optimize your work whether at the office, home or your workout, you need a plan. What’s better than a fitness-friendly calendar app to structure how and when you work out?

Add Some Sweat to Your Calendar

If you want to improve your physique, check out these five tips for crushing your fitness goals:

1. Make a Plan for Each Day

Showing up to the gym without a plan is still better than not going at all, but you’ll get much more out of it if you go in with an agenda. Wandering the gym floor aimlessly and performing random exercises is inefficient.

Using your online calendar, you can break your week down into a detailed fitness plan. Choose what you want to focus on each day, whether it be legs, abs, glutes, or shoulders. Avoid back-to-back workouts that focus on the same muscle group.

I’ve found it’s better to do what I call top and bottom schedule. Work the top part of your body every other day and the bottom part on the odd days. Some people do whole body three times a week and stretching and cardio two other days.

2. Pick Your Gym Times

Do you prefer working out in the early morning, or on your way home from work? Either approach is fine, but it’s important to carve out specific times to exercise in your calendar.

Not everyone has access to a 24-hour gym, so you’ll need to keep operating times in mind. Think, too, about when the gym might be busiest. If you have to wait around for the equipment you need, you’ll have to block out more time for each trip.

Don’t forget to factor in COVID-19, either. Your gym may have reduced hours or other restrictions in place. When in doubt, call ahead.

At my apartment building, the gym is open less hours with COVID, and they only allow twelve people in at a time — and you have to wear a mask the whole time. Plus, first come first serve. Serious issue here. But no one is in there at five. I hate five — but better five than not going. Bonus — with no one there at five, they can stick-it with the mask.

3. Recruit a Gym Buddy

Working out with a partner can provide a healthy source of external motivation. Everyone needs the occasional push to reach their goals, not to mention new workout ideas.

Go ahead and share your calendar with your workout partner. Online calendars let you tag others in your workout events, which they add to their own calendar simply by clicking “accept.” Then, if you need to shift your plans, your workout buddy will get a notification of the new time. Sometimes it’s easier, during COVID, to go alone. But most the time, with an apartment gym — it’s safer for a woman to have someone with her.

4. Sign up for Classes

Although some gyms have cancelled their classes in the wake of COVID-19, these are great opportunities to build community and try new things. Take advantage of programs in areas you’re unfamiliar with: Learning the nuts and bolts of yoga or pilates is a lot easier when you have an instructor.

Add classes you’re interested in to your online calendar. If you fall in love with a certain class, create a recurring event so that it has a permanent place in your calendar.

5. Give Your Body a Rest

Rest days might not feel as productive as workout days, but they’re every bit as important. Overexertion can damage your muscles or reduce your motivation, making it tough to maintain your fitness regimen.

Use your online calendar to enforce off-days. Choose which days you want to take off, and create an event to remind yourself to take it easy. Remember, doing yardwork or bicycling also count in your body’s book.

I’ve found great power and strength in moving and cleaning under all furniture in my apartment. Using this cleaning technique also keeps you out of the fridge (during COVID) and helps you lose weight.

If taking rest days is tough, you can also turn to your gym buddy. If they going to the gym on the same schedule as you, they may also want to take the same rest days. Hold each other accountable.

6. Record Your Progress

To improve your form, fitness experts often suggest recording your workouts. This helps you look for mistakes that could cause injury, but also to spot opportunities to add new moves.

Record your learnings in your calendar’s “notes” field. If you know you struggle with a certain workout, you could type out tips or mantras for yourself.

7. Add Some Variation

Doing the same workout every day can become monotonous. Aside from keeping things fresh for yourself, adding some variety to your workouts helps you give a little love to every muscle group. Women, especially, need to work continually on upper arm strength. You don’t want that underarm doing the friendly “extra-wave” for you.

Get out of your comfort zone by adding some unfamiliar workouts to your calendar. An occasional bike ride or trip to the rock climbing wall is a great way to test your skills. You might even discover a new talent or hobby along the way.

I think bike riding is the way to go.

8. Don’t Forget Your Diet

Accomplishing your fitness goals is as much about what you put in your body as what you do with it. A calendar is a great meal-planning tool, especially if you struggle to come up with recipes or make time to cook.

Getting takeout or microwave meals is tempting, but it can offset a lot of the work you put into exercising if you’re not careful. Plan your cheat days carefully to allow yourself some treats without getting carried away.

I recently saw a pic of one of my friends in Shenzhen — on Instagram. Shenzhen had been on lockdown two months longer than the U.S. The China friend had immediately started a fitness routine — it is inspiring that someone took immediate action to do better. Do I ever wish I’d jumped on an inside fitness routine! I am exercising now — but I would have been so much further ahead to have started back exercising inside the house during quarantine. So, even an out-of-country exercise partner can work for you.

Plan for a healthier tomorrow with your online calendar. You’ll feel better, look better, and live more fully. The habits you form at home — will affect other things in your life — even during this weird time in history.

Your workouts may be tough, but then again, so are you