At Highgroove, we have a personal trainer, Cherri, on-staff and on-site, available twice a week to us, scheduled via appointment slots using Google Calendar. Our personal trainer has been with us since December of last year, and we just added more sessions. We have been delighted at the opportunity to get in shape (although, perhaps, temporarily less thrilled when “core day” came around). Personally, having someone motivate us to exercise – someone who thoroughly knows what they are doing was exactly the motivation I needed to start working out again. But we’ve also realized getting a gym session in during the afternoon has benefits for developing software (along with developing sweet abs).

The sessions are personally catered to each of us, last just thirty intense minutes, and with the gym just downstairs, it’s a quick walk over to start working out. It’s an even quicker walk when Cherri sends you an email, reminding you that your session starts in 1 minute. With such a short work out session, and scheduled in the middle of the work day (almost all sessions are after lunch), you would think it would cause a break in productivity, but the opposite actually happens.

In fact, Lifehacker has posted about the benefits of a workday workout, explaining that it improves energy and alertness as well as productivity. The article fits my and other Highgroover’s experiences perfectly: working out gives an energy boost that used to be gained by an extra double-shot of espresso, and also gives us time to mentally work out the programming problems wracking our brains. We can return to work refreshed (if a little sweatier) and ready to tackle things from a new perspective. It almost seems counter-intuitive, but after a work out, we have all remarked on the productivity increase. It’s real!

What healthy habits give you a productivity boost?