There comes a time when we all reach our limits and February certainly showed that for me in terms of work load. Being a trainer is not easy, there’s long hours and being available for your clients involves early starts and late evenings but through the last several months I’ve been involved with a growing amount of work, which accumulated to an unmanageable load. Being the type of person who has a lot of energy and can easily be a workaholic if not careful, I thought I could cope with the workload (which I think was the equivalent of 5 Jobs) for a short time and then tone it down a bit. That short time resulted in a rather long time and then burn out! 7 days a week, long hours, clients to see, programmes to write, discovery to film, articles to write, continuing research and education, working on my projects and creative work… way to much. I was putting my clients training even before my own training and started edging towards the caffeine fix more and more.

The time came when I sat up and thought “what the hell am I doing? Im doing what I tell my workaholic burn the candle at both ends clients not to do!”… So I started to manage the situation thinking it’ll all work out and bang, an unhappy family situation happened and while visiting in a hospital I ended up catching the Norovirus (a stomach bug that’s rife in hospitals at the moment). I lost 5kg due to working too much, family stress, getting ill and felt exhausted. The truth is, I don’t think it was the virus I caught that brought me down but the fact that I put myself in a position where my immune system was compromised and so caught it.

The moral of the story is that we all have our limits. I deal with exhausted people every day and until recently always followed the advice I gave them about rest they need to help them get back to full vital health. Some of us need to find what our limits are and at least now I know mine!

I know a lot of you work long hours and feel tired most days, the statistics on fatigue and lack of sleep are really quite something. In fact a massive 53% of Britons say they feel “continuously tired” in a recent poll.

So what can we do about it? Know what you need personally for you to function optimally. To simplify this, look at your sleep needs, dietary needs, hydration needs and how much time out you really need. Many busy people think that taking time out to meditate, walk in the park or simply spend the entire morning in bed watching your favourite TV show is a waste of time. It isn’t, everybody needs time away from their demanding workload and quite often this will make them far more efficient when they go back to the job they were doing! Remember, Sir Isaac Newton got his idea when relaxing in the park under a tree 😉

For me now everything is far more structured and manageable (lesson learnt). Ive also managed to put my weight back on in record time through adapting those simple principles of needs and my energy and strength is through the roof so I’m enjoying training again. Here’s a few shots of me in the gym yesterday, I ended up doing about 25 sets for a chest and back workout:

Chin ups with a weighted jacket

Dumbbell chest press

Explosive chops with the tornado ball

Have a fantastic week

Rupert Hambly