How do I work out when I'm tired after work?

Make the session smaller and start easy. Tell yourself you'll do 15 to 20 minutes and you can leave if it still feels awful. Most of the time tiredness after work is mental, and it eases within 10 minutes of moving.

That's not true every time. There's a difference between "I've been sitting and my brain is fried" and "I slept four hours and I'm sick". The first one usually improves with exercise. The second one is a sign to rest.

Tricks that help

• Go straight from work. Don't sit on the couch first. Once you sit down, the odds of leaving again drop sharply.
• Change clothes immediately. Getting dressed for it is half the decision.
• Eat something small beforehand if you haven't had anything since lunch. A banana or some toast an hour before is plenty.
• Keep the bag in the car or by the door so there's nothing to organize.
• Play something you like on the way over.
• Give yourself a deadline. A League of Fitness match is decided when the day closes, and a short session still counts toward it, which is often enough to get you out the door.

Pick the right kind of session

On a tired day, choose a session that's easy to start and hard to ruin:

1. A walk or an easy jog, 20 minutes
2. A short full body circuit with light weights
3. Your usual workout at about 70 percent of the normal weight or pace

You still keep the habit and the schedule, and you're not asking for a personal record on your worst day. Light days count.

When to skip

If you're sick, running on very little sleep, or feel dizzy or unusually weak, skip it. Pushing through real exhaustion tends to make workouts worse and recovery slower. If you're tired all the time for weeks, that's worth mentioning to a doctor. It can come from poor sleep, low iron or other things that are easy to check.

If it's every day

If you're wiped out every single evening, the problem might be the timing. Some people simply train better earlier in the day, and moving the workout to the morning or lunch break solves it. Starting to work out in the morning has a way to do that gradually. Otherwise, lock the evening sessions to two or three days a week and make them the short kind.