LA fitness news

Motivation - pressing the reset button

One of the things that you may not have realised is that everyone finds it challenging to maintain a regular fitness routine from time to time - you are not alone. Here are a few suggestions that might help:

1. Ever noticed how you seem to get into the zone when the right piece of music is on your MP3 player or the gym stereo?

• Good music can enhance the whole exercise experience considerably.

• If you find it a struggle to make it through an hour in the gym create a special workout collection that puts you in the right mood and keeps you there.

2. Make it fun and mix it up.

• Don’t hammer away on pieces of equipment that you don’t enjoy just because you’ve been programmed on them.

• If you don’t like a particular machine or exercise, talk to one of our coaches and we’ll look at an alternative.

• If you’re a pure gym bunny you might like to try taking a group exercise class, they’re great exercise and good fun.

3. Set a realistic goal - just one at a time.

• Give your goal a timeline, create an action plan, write it down and then knock it off bit by bit. The more emotional and powerful you can make the goal the better.

• Make sure it’s what you want to do, not what someone else wants you to do - intrinsic motivation (Self Determination) is much more effective.

• Goals are often just a means to an end. If you can figure out exactly why it is that you want to lose 10lbs or get fitter or whatever it us – “I want to get my confidence back” - the goal becomes significantly more powerful.

• Every time you achieve a milestone celebrate your success. This may seem frivolous but the psychologists say that it’s absolutely critical to achieving your goals.

4. Try having two completely different workouts that you alternate on each visit.

• Takes a bit more work to put them together but this helps to negate boredom and has the added benefit of keeping your body guessing, which is good for its development.

5. Surround yourself with motivational stuff.

• Books, fridge magnets, stickers, posters, whatever works for you. Put them in key locations in your house and refer to them often.

• Cut out helpful newspaper and magazine articles on exercise and activity and put them in a scrapbook. Subscribe to health and fitness magazines that you find inspirational and educational.

6. Make yourself accountable to someone else.

• Don’t bore them to death, but tell people that you are going to the gym and let them know what your goals are - it makes it much more difficult to quit when the going gets tough.

7. You’d be surprised at how many of your so-called friends will subtly (sometimes not so subtly) try to sabotage what you’re doing.

• This is usually because they want you to stay in the same space (condition) they are.

• Don’t associate with, or listen to, negative people who poo-poo your dreams.

• Surround yourself with like-minded individuals who have similar goals or, at the very least, support what you are doing.

• Even better, try partnering up and workout with one of them.

8. Develop a routine.

• Some people can pick and chose when they exercise pretty successfully but most of us work better with a routine.

• Treat your workout time as you would an appointment and put it in your diary if you need to.

• If you have to miss a session, either move it to another time or, if that isn’t possible, accept it and don’t beat yourself up.

• Make sure you’re exercising at the right time of day for you. You may be struggling to work out at 6pm but you find it a breeze at 7am.

9. Shorten your workout time

• If you’re finding an hour or more tough going, use an express 30-minute (higher intensity) session to break things up every now and again.

10. Think about buying a tracking device.

• There are a number of these on the market now, ranging from simple pedometers to full service body monitoring devices . They will give you feedback on how you are doing overall and also allow you to record the activity you are doing outside the gym, which can be very rewarding and motivating.