It’s no secret that regular exercise and a good diet can dramatically reduce your risk of heart disease, hypertension, obesity, type 2 diabetes and countess other conditions. Yet, nearly 80 percent of American adults do not get the recommended amount of exercise each week.
According to the Center for Disease Control, the recommended amount of exercise per week is 150 minutes total—that’s only 2 hours and 30 minutes each week. Yet so many people claim they are skipping out on exercise because of lack of time, long work hours, proximity to facilities, family commitments, or lack of interest. But here’s the thing, regular exercise is one of the best ways to boost energy, increase productivity, and elevate your mood, so finding a way to make it part of your work day may help reduce fatigue and avoid adding extra hours to an already long work day.
Biggest Workout Roadblocks
In an exclusive report released to Paste Magazine from TreadmillReviews.net, their team surveyed over 2,000 people in the U.S. to find out what is keeping them from working out during the workweek and consequently, what would inspire them to take care of their bodies as well as their careers.
When survey respondents were asked what their biggest roadblock to exercising during the workweek was, almost 29 percent said they were just too tired, and another 27 percent admitted to being too lazy to make working out a priority. Other popular reasons for skipping exercise during the workweek included being busy with kids (9 percent), other commitments (nearly 9 percent), and working long hours (11 percent).
Given how critical fitness is to overall health, it’s important to take a look at how we can fit exercise in at the one place where many of us will spend a good chunk of our lives: the workplace. And considering that a large percentage of the workforce sits at a desk or spends the majority of their hours in an office, implementing a health and exercise programs inside the workplace is one way to tackle many of the excuses people give for not working out.
Preferred Methods of Exercise
When it came to working out during the workweek, survey respondents rated their desire to incorporate walking into their week 8 out of 10 (10 being the exercise they would definitely try during the workweek). Following closely behind was free time at the gym (7.2), walking the stairs (6.9), hiking (6.3), and treadmill desk (6.1). Rated the lowest by participants was Pilates (4.7), Spinning (4.5), and CrossFit (4.1).
Age, Location and Exercise Habits
All three generations surveyed (Millennials, GenerationX and Baby Boomers) ranked walking as their number one preferred workweek workout, free time at the gym as number two, and walking the stairs between work shifts as number three. But things change up a bit when the study looked at outdoor activities and competitive group sports. What they found is that millennials prefer to get outside and participate in activities like hiking and engage in team sports more than the older respondents.
And like most things in life, people are divided on the idea of exercising during work hours. When asked about fitting fitness in at work, workers in the South and Western regions of the country had the strongest positive opinion of mandated in-office workouts, while those in the Northeast and Midwest were the least inclined to support mandatory exercise sessions at work.