Does the following sound familiar?

It's another weekday, meaning you’re getting the kids out of bed, preparing their lunch for school, commuting to work, spending long hours at the job, commuting back home, driving the kids to their various activities, getting dinner ready, sitting down to eat, tidying up the house and putting the kids to bed. By the time you look up, it's late in the evening, and very close to bedtime. In other words, before you know it, it'll be time to go to sleep, only to wake up and repeat the entire process over again.

With a schedule like that, who has time to work out?

More than diet choices, workout regimens and individual motivation, finding the time to train is the #1 obstacle in the way of people achieving their fitness goals. That’s why finding, prioritizing and committing small blocks of time during your day to training remains the best way to ensure you get your exercise.

While it can be a challenge, let’s explore several different ways you can potentially make that happen.

Incorporate At-Home Training

There’s no question that the most convenient way to get in your exercise is to do it at home. Whether that’s running on the treadmill that you purchased, using some additional equipment that you might’ve bought or following along with any workout programs you can find online, you can exercise without ever having to leave the house and drive back and forth to the gym. That time saved translates into more time you can spend with your family.

The question then becomes: when do you make time to work out? Some people prefer to exercise first thing in the morning, before their kids or significant other wake up. Others prefer to exercise immediately after getting home from work, and then eating dinner and catching up with family duties immediately after. Some people even prefer to work out late at night, when their kids are asleep; that way, they can workout, take a shower, and go right to bed.

If you choose to work out at home, the two most important factors are identifying what time works best for you amidst all your other day-to-day responsibilities, and choosing a workout program that sufficient challenges you in a way that your exercise will make a difference.

As far as the first factor: if your goal is to lose weight or reduce body fat, getting in a workout first thing in the morning, before you consume any calories, might be a great way to achieve your goals. Performing aerobic exercise in a fasted state-- i.e., on an empty stomach-- primes your body to burn fat at a higher rate than if you performed the same exercise after you’ve already eaten.

So, you can work out first thing in the morning, fully maximize the benefits of your workout of choice. Then, take advantage of the fact that you’re still in your house, allowing you to tackle all the things on your daily to-do list.

Make Exercising A Family Commitment

In today's world, parents work long hours and sometimes have to bring their work home with them. Kids are constantly attached to some technological device, such as their computer, smartphone or video game system, for the majority of the day. All of those distractions, which often involve sitting in one place and staring at a screen, are huge factors in why families aren't getting enough exercise.

If possible, try and incorporate some family-based physical activities. Whether that’s taking the dog for a long walk around the block, playing a sport together, or scheduling outings like hiking or cycling, if you build in these activities as part of your weeknight or weekend rituals, you’re killing the two proverbial birds with one stone: getting in your exercise and spending time with your family.

However, if you’re someone who prefers the structure of working out at a studio, look for one that offers programs that either allow your children to hang out in a kids area while you work out or classes that get the kids exercising as well. By creating a habit of working out on the evenings or weekends, your kids will be more apt to create these habits and routines for themselves, leading to healthier lives.

Sign Up For Scheduled Workouts & Classes

One of the biggest reasons people sign up for a studio membership is because they’re making a financial investment in -- and commitment to -- themselves. By paying a monthly fee to attend a training studio, they’ll likely be more committed to training, since they’re spending money toward that goal each month.

Further, signing up with a studio that offers pre-scheduled workout classes and sessions -- like the ones at Gloveworx -- allows you to build a daily routine in which you carve out a specific time dedicated for exercising. If you know you have to make it to your workout class at a certain time, you schedule your day around it.

There are more benefits to group-based workouts than simply the consistency and routine they allow for. Participants who took part in an evaluation of group exercise sessions showed significant improvements in their mental, physical and emotional quality of life, as well as a huge reduction in perceived stress levels. Further, when compared to participants who took part in individual, self-directed exercise sessions, the individual exercise group had virtually the same physical and emotional quality of life measures, despite the fact that they exercised for twice as long as those participants in the group exercise measure.

Simply translated: whatever physical and emotional benefits you'd enjoy by working by yourself, you can derive virtually the same level of those benefits by training in a group session that lasts half the amount of time as an individual workout. You can do a 30-to-60 minute training session and get your exercise in for the day, without having to feel guilty that you didn’t spend more time at the studio.

One bit of advice: if you go for a session that starts after you get off work, create a routine in which you go straight from your job to the studio, and either change your clothes there or before you leave the office. Trying to go from work to home, change your clothes there and then leave the house to go to the studio is a recipe for failure for most people. Once you get home, see your family and think about all the things you may need to take care of in the house, it’s almost impossible to get yourself motivated to leave the house again.

Fail To Plan, Plan To Fail

The most important thing is to create a plan around when you’re going to exercise, and what you want to accomplish while training.

Taking the right steps to prepare for your workout is an enormous indicator of how consistently people will stick to workouts. Your preparation routine -- like deciding what type of workout you’re going to do, taking out your training gear the night before and having a water bottle ready for you-- is a huge factor in consistently executing on your plan.

Once you’ve devoted time to training, scheduled your day to make it happened and prepared your gear, you’ve got no other excuses to make your workout not happen.

If your plan and preparation happens to lead you to a Gloveworx training session, we’ll make sure to give you a challenging workout that’ll get you in and out in about an hour, so you can get on with the rest of your day’s challenges.