As many as  half the people who start training drop out again within six months – and the most frequent reason given is lack of time. If we looked closer, we’d probably see that in most cases it’s more a matter of managing the time available than having no time at all.  Let’s have a look where can you find time to keep yourself more active. Here are some small steps to help structure your life and give you back control.

Active transportation: Could you walk or bike to school or work? If you take the bus, could you get off a few blocks earlier and walk the rest of the way? When you go to the mall, could you park your car in the furthest corner of the lot and walk the extra distance? Could you take the stairs instead of an elevator?

Exercising cues: Could you remind yourself to exercise a little more? People use cues and reminders to make it a bit harder to forget about exercising. For instance, they keep a pair of walking shoes in the car to be ready whenever they find a few minutes to walk. Or they take their sports bag into the office to remind them to finish work on time and get to the gym.

Make it social: What about making exercise a social activity?  Is there a badminton club or hiking group in your neighbourhood? Or could you initiate a lunchtime walking group at work? Even if you just all walk to a restaurant a bit further away and back – it all helps make exercise social. The routine on one side and the support of a group on the other may be just what you need to help you  stick with a new activity.

Active TV watching: Could you get active while watching TV? Some former couch potatoes have started to change by just using hand weights (or cans of beans or packs of sugar) while watching TV. Would some yoga or core-strength exercises be something you could do during your favourite show?

Put it in your calendar: Lastly, could you plan your workouts and other physical activity in the calendar? Many people schedule physical activity as they would plan any other appointment during the day. It’s all too easy to change vague plans every time something else comes along—so we end up with a permanent lack of time, but specific plans with times and details make it a little bit harder to skip exercise.

Sportlyzer, a newcomer in sports web applications working on an intelligent online fitness instructor, closed venture capital investment from Estonian Development Fund and a private angel investor Rein Lemberpuu. Sportlyzer has made its goal to become the leading online fitness advising artificial intelligence in the world.

In August 2010 Estonian Development Fund and private angel investor Rein Lemberpuu made a seed capital investment into a sports technology company Sportlyzer that is developing a social web application for workout tracking and consulting. Sportlyzer’s uniqueness stands in workout and motivation management algorithms that give birth to a digital online fitness instructor. Rein Lemberpuu, former CEO of Playtech Estonia, head of  Supervisory board at Sportlyzer, explains his investment into Sportlyzer: “I invested into Sportlyzer because I find its idea contributing to community and the team has potential to build a major leader in the area of fitness-management applications.”

Sportlyzer focuses on fitness level exercisers with sedentary work style. Online application helps to find workout buddies, manages exertion and motivation if needed. As Kristjan Port, the director of the Institute of Health Sciences and Sports of Tallinn University and the author of Sportlyzer’s workout management algorithms, states: “There are huge crowds of health level exercisers working out and taking part in sports events. Isn’t it surprising and paradoxical, that still they are so alone in their workout management. At the same time our team has the ability to support them with useful technology for that. I find it really inspiring and contributing to solve such a challenge.”

The first target markets of Sportlyzer are UK and USA. “There are many reasons for that: there are well developed fitness infrastructures, our target customer proportion in both populations is high, we are familiar to their cultural background, and of course, English is the No 1 language in the Internet,” says Tõnis Saag, the founder and teamleader of Sportlyzer. “It takes a little time until public launch, but it is already possible to subscribe to private bet at www.sportlyzer.com.”

Sportlyzer was founded by Tõnis Saag and an internet entrepreneur Jüri Kaljundi (CV-Online, Nagi, Emp.ly,  Talentag) in July 2009. Soon the team was joined by Kristjan Port and a well-known sports psychologist Aave Hannus. The project was funded by Enterprise Estonia to develop the algorithms and in August 2010 Sportlyzer raised seed capital. Tõnis Saag is the manager of the company and the supervisory board consists of Margus Uudam from Ambient Sound Investments, Rain Rannu from Fortumo, Andrus Oks from Estonian Development Fund, Rein Lemberpuu and Jüri Kaljundi.

Contact: Tõnis Saag, tonis.saag /at/ sportlyzer.com, +372 5690 4988, Skype tonis.saag