Wednesday Workout: How to Get It Done When You’re Out Straight

Bryan Fletcher knows a thing or two about being busy. The 28-year-old U.S. Nordic Combined skier spent the last several months ramping up for a single day — no, not an annual or once-in-a-lifetime championship — but rather his wedding day.

Last Saturday, Fletcher married Nicole Thorsen at the Canyons Resort in Park City, Utah. Some of their guests arrived the Sunday before, leaving Fletcher with the unique experience of bringing them along to his training sessions.

“I made my training a part of the wedding,” the 2014 Olympian explained in an email. “I invited my guests up to check out jumping or had them join me on a mountain bike ride, etc. This allowed me to spend quality time with family and friends while also getting in some training.”

So what’s his advice for fitting in a workout when you’re crazy busy?

“I found that training helped me stay on top of tasks,” Fletcher wrote. “Distance skis were a great way to get out and clear my head and focus on the tasks I had to do whether it was school, wedding projects, or other. But ironically when I was out skiing I had a clear mind and could organize my to do list for when I got back from the ski.”

Sharing the organization tasks helped, too.

“Nikki did a lot of the planning the week of the wedding, I did most of the entertaining of guests while Nikki finalized some of the details,” he added. “We did have a wedding coordinator for the day of who helped organize things on the day of, which makes things easier.”

If you’re struggling with checking off everything on your to-do list, consider Fletcher’s tips:

• Simply plan ahead and stick to the plan: Know your going to have a busy day and prepare to be productive. If you can clear and hour to hour and a half in the day to get the workout in, that’s perfect. I suggest doing something easy such as a distance hike/run with poles. Low intensity, but using the whole body efficiently, this is a great way to work on your whole body efficiency while getting some time to clear your head, refocus, and afterwards I think you will find it much easier to keep your productivity going.

• If you can’t clear the time for the workout, that’s no problem, make it a strength day and minimize your sitting time. Do some exercises like body weight squats (double and single leg), push ups, crunches, core stabilization exercise all between emails, or meetings. Another great thing to do is work on your flexibility, many skiers are limiting there potential power by not having the proper range of motion, so give yourself a leg up and while your typing emails, type each one in a new stretching position, Start with some dynamic stretches first to get warmed up and then when your nice and warm, switch to some static stretches. Do these at the end of the day post-workout, and remember to give your muscles some time to recover from the stretches!

“In terms of energy I felt great right up and through the wedding, however definitely felt the energy levels drop after,” Fletcher observed. “Just a day or two was needed to decompress. Monday I was back to training and skied 3 hours and by [Wednesday] I think I am ready to hit the intensity again.”

To review: Get the best bang for your precious minutes, such as:

– An easy distance hike/run with poles = low intensity, but using the entire body.

– Body weight strength exercises, such as single- and double-leg squats, pushups, crunches, & core stabilization.

– Work on flexibility = stretch while writing emails or talking on the phone, starting with dynamic stretches to warm up then moving to static stretches after working out.