The 4 Most Common Excuses Not To Exercise Debunked

I’ve been a trainer now for 4 years and I’ve heard my fair share of excuses

Some are valid like a client’s hectic work week or poorly child

Some are dreadful like “I can’t train Saturday because I need to book Spice girls tickets” – that’s not a joke. I’ve had that one before

And some are lies that the clients are telling themselves so they can get away with not training

That’s right. It’s so common that people thread themselves lies so they can find a way out of training

Excuses were the bane of my life when I was a full-time personal trainer, I’ve found that the longer I’ve been in the industry the less patience I’ve had for crappy excuses

So I’ve written down the most common 4 excuses I heard and I’ve debunked them. I’ll explain why they’re either nonsense or I’ll advise you a way around the logical ones

1. “I’m Too Tired To Exercise” 

Okay, I get this one. You work full time, you’re perhaps a busy mum or student and you’re rushed off your feet

I 100% get it, it can be hard to fire yourself up for a workout when you’re dead on your feet

And as excuses go I like hearing a client say this, because It’s truthful. They haven’t masked their reason for not exercising behind some smoke screen

Solution:

1. Train when you’ve got the most energy. Maybe you can squeeze a quick HIIT session in before you start work or you can go for a walk through the park on your lunch break

Perhaps you can just train for longer at the weekends or perform a less demanding form of exercise

For example when if I’m knackered a weight lifting session is a lot less tempting than a yoga session from my living room

2. Just go for it. Maybe you’re telling yourself you’re too tired to exercise or run down as a way out?

Plus exercising will 100% wake you up. Within 4 minutes of training, your head will be clearer and less “cloudy” after work. You’ll begin to feel great and completely forget why you didn’t want to train in the first place

2. “I Can’t Afford The Gym”

Yep, that makes sense. Depending on where you live you might not have the flexibility of multiple gyms competing for their membership price’s

But there are a few obvious answers that you can probably see coming

Solution:

1. Train from home. Every single one of my online client’s train from home

It’s cheaper and more flexible

If you don’t know where to start, flick on Youtube, find a workout and get sweaty for 20-30 minutes

2. Go for a walk, ride your bike, go to a trampoline park with your kids, go sea swimming or do some gardening

Honestly, it doesn’t really matter. If your goal is to lose some weight, then all you need to do is move more

That could be anything. Just do more of it!

And there are hundreds of things you can do without spending a penny

3. “I Get Bored Easily”

Hmm, this one kind of annoys me

What I don’t like about modern society is that exercise is for some reason a choice

Like you can do it if you want

Go back ten thousand years ago and early man would have had to have exercised just to stay alive

If they sat there and said “I don’t really enjoy hunting” – they’d be dead within the week

Now we don’t have to run to catch our protein or forage to collect our fruit. We can sit on our asses and have food sent to our front doors

Solution:

1. Power through. You won’t always enjoy your workout but you have to get it done to get the results you want

I don’t really want to pay my taxes or complete my tax return

But I also don’t want HMRC knocking at my front door

Just like how you don’t want to feel sluggish, unmotivated, unconfident and squidgy

Sometimes you’ve got to do the things you really don’t want to do, to get the results you really want

2. Find something that really excites you 

I’ve listed a few options above, but the list can go on and on

Image if your favourite hobby was a form of exercise

It’s unlikely you’d ever have to worry about your weight ever again!

Let me give you an example:

Imagine I’ve set myself a goal of learning a musical instrument

And I pick the guitar because that’s what everyone else seems to be doing

The problem is I find the guitar SO BORING!

Now I know I need to practise 3 times a week for 45 minutes to an hour

Will I stick to it? No way

Now, If I had picked up the saxophone, trumpet or triangle, I would have absolutely

loved learning to play a musical instrument

I would have looked forward to practise and would have smashed my goal of learning an instrument 

Maybe your “saxophone” is football, hiking, running or swimming?

4. “I Don’t Have Enough Time”

Okay this one gets me

Picture this scenario:

I’m warming up with a client on the cross-trainer. It’s midafternoon, I’ve already had back-to-back clients all day

I know that after the session I need train myself, go home and create content for my social media platforms, check-in with all my online clients, continue building and overseeing work on my website and then get ready for my evening Bootcamp

I ask my stay-at-home mum if she’s trained this week and she turns to me and says “No I haven’t had time”

This is when I turn green, grow 5 feet and throw the cross-trainer out the window, landing on her brand new Range Rover

Of course she had time! This is a smoke screen

It’s a lie to cover the fact she hadn’t trained all week and needed a cover story that she could deem logical

Here are a few facts for you. The average person:

Works for 8.8 hours a day

Sleeps for 8 hours a day

Okay, so that’s 2/3 of the day. What about the rest?

The average person is on their phone for 3 hours and watches TV for 5

That’s 1) slightly sickening and 2) proves their not in fact “too busy”

Now I’m not saying that all you do is watch TV and sit on your phone, but every single person has time to train

I specialise In helping busy women get into amazing shape. The programmes I create are built to get people lean from their homes in just 28 minutes

It can be done

And If you’re really struggling to find the time. Sit down with a notepad and pen and write down your weekly schedule. See if you can wiggle anything around or swap days you complete tasks to squeeze more time out of your day

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog, I’ll link two of my blog posts that will help you find time,

Ben