Back in December, I decided that it was time to finally create an actual workout plan. For a couple of years now, I’ve been deciding on what I would do for a workout at the end of my workday. Well, more accurately, around dinner time. That meant that I was often in the middle of eating dinner and thinking about what I was going to do for my workout that evening. Back in October I started doing two forms of workout every night. So I would do a round on the stationary cycle and then a second round on the elliptical or treadmill. Some night I would lift hand weights and done one of the other three. I set aside 60-65 minutes for the workouts. To be completely honest, I always did that amount of time, but there was no rhyme or reason to the sessions. I just did whatever appealed to me with no plan for progress.

And the stagnation in my fitness and weight showed it. I’ve been stuck just under 240 pounds for the longest time. My BMI has been hovering at the very bottom of the obese range, despite the fact that I’ve been decreasing my body fat and increasing my lean mass. In some ways, it’s really frustrating that I can’t get to the overweight range! Who ever thought that being overweight would be a goal? I know I didn’t…until I discovered that I was in the range above that.

Since Hectic Wife is a physician treating patients who are trying to improve their Fitness through lifestyle changes, I talked with her about what my goals should be and how to achieve them. One of the first things she mentioned is that I needed to mix up my workouts. When I commented that I was mixing them up, she said I should consider doing something outside the endurance/cardio spectrum that I was focused on for the majority of my workouts (treadmill, elliptical, and cycling).

So I started to do some research and found a ton of information out there. One thing that hit me was that there are really four areas of fitness that I ought to be focusing on:

• Balance
• Cardio/Endurance
• Flexibility
• Strength

Like any good nerd, I decided that I would address each of these in equal measure, with equal workout counts and times. And like any nerd…I was setting myself up for failure without even realizing it. First off, I wasn’t doing any balance or flexibility training when I started on this part of my journey, and my strength training was barely a quarter of my total workouts. Furthermore, due to a shoulder injury, my strength training was very low-weight and non-symmetrical (one arm got a better workout than the other). But I forged ahead with my plan…without any clue as to the potential issues it would present.

I created a spreadsheet that included the four types of exercise and all the days of the month. I even set it up in such a way that I could create the workout plan and import it into my Google calendar. Part of the reasoning was to get me out of the business of deciding what I was going to do for workouts. I would do that while taking the time to make a plan, and then each day it would already be decided for me. I was smart enough to build in a total recovery day every seven days so that I wouldn’t overtax myself.

I mixed up my cardio forms (treadmill, elliptical, and cycling) with session of Kickboxing and Sweatin’ the the Oldies. Yup, I was going totally old school here! My strength training combined kettle bells (we already have a set), hand weights, and machine lifting (we even have a four station weight lifting machine). For balance I decided that I would use the second half of the P90X Yoga-X routine that focuses on balance. Flexibility concentrated on a 12 Day Introduction to Yoga from the Daily Yoga app. At first, I planned to do 30 minutes of two different exercises each day, but during my test run I discovered that some cardio session had to be limited. Kickboxing, P90X Kenpo, and Sweatin’ to the Oldies 2 were a lot tougher than 30 minutes on the other cardio equipment. I also discovered that I was dying after 15 minutes of Yoga flexibility work, and Yoga for balance was almost as taxing.

So I revised my schedule to 60 minutes of workouts, but the time devoted to each component was different depending on what I was doing that day. I finally got this working in the middle of January. After six session of P90X Yoga-X I decided that I needed something different. Tony Horton is great and all, but I simply was getting tired of the exact same workout so often. Since we have a balance ball…and I lack balance…I decided to try out a balance ball routine. I found one called Total-Body Blast Stability Ball Workout and replaced half the P90X Yoga-X routines with that workout.

After making those changes, my workouts for February look like this:

It’s now halfway through the month of February and I’ve stayed on schedule throughout with one exception. Due to a change in my travel schedule, I was traveling on the 5th, so I made it a recovery day. Then on the 6th I was traveling again and just couldn’t face the two workouts from the 5th. But on that Sunday I did the two workouts from the 5th as well as those scheduled for that day. It was a rough four workouts (P90X Yoga, Daily Yoga, Treadmill, and Kettlebells) but that allowed me to stay on schedule with the number of workouts that should have been completed by that weekend.

While it’s not completely accurate to say that I’m enjoying this workout plan, I am noticing some gains. My strength and balance are greatly improved. Admittedly my weight hasn’t changed dramatically, but my lean body mass has increased and my fat body mass has decreased…even in this short time. Most importantly, I’m not saddled with so much decision fatigue when it comes time to figure out what workouts I should be doing today. I simply look at the calendar and then figure out when I can fit them into my day. I’m definitely going to be following a similar plan in March.

So what are you doing for exercise? Do you have a plan? I’d love to hear what you’re doing and how it’s working for you.