Why September beats January

I realised something this week. The best week of the year to start again is the week the kids go back.

The alarm goes back on. The school run reappears. After six weeks of everything being loose, your week suddenly has edges again.

January asks you to build a habit in the dark, skint, in the coldest month of the year. September hands you that structure for free.

And there’s a bit of official cover for starting small that I don’t think many people saw. In July the UK’s four Chief Medical Officers updated the physical activity guidelines. The figure of 150 minutes a week is still there, but the report says plainly that it isn’t an absolute threshold, and that the biggest gain of the lot is going from nothing to something.

On strength training the line is even better. Two days a week ideally, and “any strength activity is better than none”.

That’s not a coach softening the message to keep you happy; that’s the Chief Medical Officers of four nations.

I see the same thing after every summer holiday. People come back committing to a near-perfect programme, and by half-term they’re doing none of it and have quietly decided they’re the problem.

The ones still going at Christmas nearly always started with one thing. One class, one session, one walk they’d actually protect. Then they added to it.

So pick the version of this you could still do in the last week of October, when it’s dark at five and you’re tired. That’s your plan. Anything above it is a bonus.

A quote worth sitting with

“Make exercise necessary and fun. Do mostly cardio, but also some weights. Some is better than none. Keep it up as you age.”

— Daniel Lieberman, Exercised.

A Harvard professor of human evolutionary biology landing in exactly the same place as the Chief Medical Officers. Some is better than none.

The Saturday Standard

The School Run

Nothing exotic in there, and that’s deliberate. One kettlebell, a bit of road and your own bodyweight.

It’s hard because the swings and the squats share a bell, so your legs never get a clean break. By round three the run has stopped being the easy bit. That’s what this is testing. Not your first round, your fourth.

Three ways to work with me this September

CommFit group class. Outdoors in Whickham, Mondays and Wednesdays at 7pm. £5 a class, and your first one is free. So is a friend’s first one.

One to one personal training. My garage studio in Whickham, £35 an hour. Pay when you book, no blocks, no contract.

Online coaching. Training, nutrition and sleep planned around the week you actually have, delivered in the app. £35 a week after a free seven-day trial.

Same coaching, three formats. Pick whichever one fits your life, then pick the smallest version of it you’d still be doing in October.