Update 2025 – Looking back at this post about working out during lunch, I think it’s funny how our goals and preferences change over the years. There was a time when I would only train in the evening, generally after 4 pm. Then I tried and fell in love with lunch workouts. Then I finally started working out at 6 am and nowadays I have no desire to hit the gym after work, and prefer to workout early and not to exercise during lunch.
Many other aspects of my training and nutrition have changed over the years, but this is a big one. Take a read below to learn what a 20-year-old thought about getting exercise during lunch and working for an employer. Things sure do change.
Here is the original post published on June 1, 2007.
Do you exercise during your lunch hour?
Sometimes we have to realize when our lives are putting limitations on us and find a way to work around them. It has dawned on me that there is very little chance that I can continue to train after work with my business and family demands. To work around this, I must train either early in the morning or during lunch.
Since I can barely lift 5 lbs in the morning, I choose lunch. I will get up at 6 am, get the girl and kids off to school/work, work on Tasen Software (my sole proprietorship at the time) projects for an hour or two, be to work by 9 am, step out to train from 1 pm – 3 pm, and work from 3 pm – 6 pm. Somewhere I will have to fit in an additional hour or so per day, but this is not a problem, especially on off days when I can invest my workout time into the extra hours that I need to hit my 40.
The day will come when I will not have to work for an employer!
My first lunchtime training effort went off without a hitch, except that I am at my weakest point in my life right now. Now that my body weight is down to 184 and my strength is that of a novice, I should be able to make excellent progress on Project Swole.
Final Thoughts
Back to 2025 – Twenty years and forty pounds later here we are working out at 6 am. I’m happy working for an employer making steady pay and bennies after several attempts to build a small business. Rather than focusing solely on maxing out and lifting as heavy as possible, I enjoy supplementing with BootCamp workouts and dialing up conditioning using HIIT and HIRT-style workouts.
Please let me know how your training schedule has changed over time in the comments. Do you exercise during lunch, before sunrise, after work, or some other time?
Read more: What is the Best Time to Schedule Cardio Training?
Tags: lunch, lunch workout