Name: (Kai Douglas); Age: 28; Sex: M

Can you please give me a 15 song playlist (please list artist and song) that you would listen to at the gym?
1.  ATWA : SOAD
2.  Public Service Announcement : Jay-Z
3.  Inertiatic ESP : Mars Volta
4.  One Arm Scissor : At the Drive In
5.  Juicy : Notorious BIG
6.  VooDoo Child : Jimi Hendrix
7.  Ambitions of a Rider : 2Pac
8.  Move on Up : Curtis Mayfield
9.  Deer Dance : SOAD
10.  Song About a Friend : Atmosphere
11.  Mirror in the Bathroom : English Beat
12.  Return of the Mack : Mark Morrison
13.   Trying to Find a Balance : Atmosphere 
14.  Hate it or Love it : G-Unit       
15.   Blinded by the Light : ELO
 
Q: What type of workout do you think this would go best with (certain muscle group, aerobics, cycling etc.) and why?
A: Its a mix of lifting and cardio.  70′s and 80′s genre for cardio, newer stuff for lifting.  Hip-hop and metal definitely used for motivation while lifting.
 
Q: What song can always put you in the mood to exercise and why? And to piggy back on that is there a certain genre of music that you prefer while exercising?
A: For lifting…. Public Service Announcement and hip-hop fuel the workout, while Curtis Mayfield’s Move on Up keeps me going during cardio.
 
Q: Do you find that listening to music is a motivator when you workout or do you find it to be distracting?
A: When lifting I use music as a motivator.  When doing cardio I use it to distract me and keep me going longer.
 
Q: What type of workouts do you typically listen to music during or do you typically listen to music every time you exercise?
A: I always listen to music during cardio.  It takes my mind of the mundane task of cycling or using the elliptical.  Sometimes I prefer not to listen to music while lifting, but usually I need the motivation to get through the last half of sets.

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Before I go into some of the responses that I received and the playlist that they have submitted, I would like to try and offer up a debate regarding the playlist (of any sort) and the work out. Is it beneficial to listen to a playlist or does it serve as more of a distraction? Is it fueling your fire or draining your efficiency? Does the playlist keep you focused or does it create yet another distraction for you? I only ask these questions because I myself constantly face these crossroad like conundrums.   And for the most part it really comes down to inconsequential factors for me, such as time I want to physically spend at the gym, the mood I am in, the muscle/muscles I am trying to target on that given day, the type of day I have had, the means by which I am getting to the gym and the amount of people at the gym, just to name a few.

                Most days I will take my iPod to the gym with me, but it is about a 50/50 crap shoot to whether or not I will actually put in the head phones and use it and it really has to do with running down the list above. If I get to the gym on a day where I am doing chest or back, I will most likely use a playlist, for three main reasons. One, those are usually Mondays and Tuesdays so I typically just need that extra “umf” to power me through my workouts – and believe me the playlists that I made for both days are more than enough to get the blood going. Two, I know that I will easily eat up an hour at the gym for either of these days, so I budget my work day and week out so that I take an hour lunch on both days and stay that extra ½ hour  (assuming I work an eight hour day which doesn’t really ever happen –usually 9-11hrs). So with that being said I have the luxury of listening to music while I work out because I can get caught up in a song and space out for a couple minutes here and there and it’s no big deal, because I have already allotted that time for my workout. But on bicep and tricep days I can usually crank out a 35 minute full workout and typically don’t listen to music if I am trying to get my workout in during lunch, because often times music distracts me because I love it and find myself more attuned to the songs I am listening to than to my workouts themselves. Three, my mood is always a factor. If I am in one of those, I can’t live without the new music I just got, then it doesn’t matter about anything else, I will definitely listen to my playlist. But if I have spent most of the day listening to music while I crunch numbers at my desk all day, I will take a break from it while I am at the gym and just enjoy the cluttered silence of my thoughts while I find some solace within my workout. And typically on Mondays and Tuesdays I have days of reporting that require my utmost attention, so I usually won’t be listening to music while I process them so I will plug in the phones at the gym and drown out the world for an hour while I work out. Another factor that comes into play is the mode in which I travel to the gym. Usually it is by car, but about once a week I will run to the gym and anytime I run I have to listen to music because it distracts me from all the elements that want to work against me when I run.  Then when I arrive at the gym I typically just leave them in and go about my work out.

                As you can see I have created this complicated mental equation for using or not listening or listening to music while I work out. I was just really curious if most people preferred to listen to music while exercising or preferred to just go without. I ask this question not only based on my own antics but also on those of others I see at the gym. I see about 20 of the same people at the gym every time I go at lunch, of those people I see about three who always have headphones in about four that never have headphones in and the rest have them some days and some days they don’t.   So as usual this peaked my curiosity. I am sitting here talking about how music distracts me but as I am writing this I can see that I am often distracted by the practice of others – sheesh I got to get it together here.  Like I have said my mind is constantly going it is what space mountain would like if you turned the lights on. Anyways please, if you have any opinions on this one let me know, because I am genuinely curious.

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The last time I started a new “Blog Segment” I made the mistake of saying how many posts it was going to encompass (4) and I ended up branching out with many new ideas on the subject and ended up with a total of 14. So this time when I start fresh I am not going to limit myself because as I have come to find out, when it comes to the fitness world and getting my thoughts on paper the little mice in the cage that is my brain are constantly turning that wheel.

While in the  midst of my last set of blog posts, I was reading a fellow Designer blogger’s post, Nathan’s well written piece on Motivation, and saw something that really intrigued me; “the playlist.” And I thought to myself I will write a post about the playlist and its importance. But then when I began to think about it a little more, what playlist would I talk about.  I know that I alone have 6 different playlists for each day at the gym – in which I cycle songs in and out of. But while listening to one of these mixes I saw someone else at the gym, a significantly older man, who had his head phones in and looked like he was rocking out and really using the music to push him through his workout. Then I thought to myself I know that everyone listens to different music when working out but I wonder what types of music gets certain people going, moving and shaking at the gym.  And honestly how hard is it to find this stuff out. In my email archive alone I have tons of people that I know from all different races, ages and slices of life that would probably be able to answer this burning question for me, so of course I threw it out there.  I got a lot of responses with a lot of different playlists, so I pried even further and asked questions about their playlist and reasoning behind it, which helped me narrow down the responses that I received, and found a few that really stood out to me. 

I decided to take all of these electric correspondent interviews that were a cut above the rest and write blogs about them (of course with the consent of the interviewee) and just change the name of the person.  But in the course of doing so I realized that this might not be as enticing as I thought. To make these posts a little more intriguing I thought I would pick out a couple of my playlists that most closely corresponded with the playlists that I received and add a little blogging pizzazz to it – Ok you caught me that makes them more intriguing to me but hey it might make for a good read for you.

The bottom line behind doing this series of blogs was to determine the overall importance of the playlist to different personas within the fitness world. Who’s to say that what I use a playlist for at the gym is what others use it for? I use some playlists for motivation, some for rhythm, some for tempo, and some for empowerment. In trying to unearth the different uses and motivators that the playlist can contain, I wanted to be able to offer what I found to everyone else so that these findings might be applicable to the many different personality types that read these blogs. My main struggle with the fitness world as I have commented on time and time again, is finding the proper motivation to stay in that world. If I think of something that will serve as a little extra motivator that I need or that little piece of mind that I come across that will make my experience in the fitness sphere  a little bit easier and more enjoyable I want to pass it on because chances are someone out there might find it helpful. So over the course of these next blogs I will be exploring “the playlist” pertaining to the benefits they have on different people who are trying to keep fit. As always please feel free to comment especially on the different playlists that are thrown out there and the reasons behind them.  I will make one disclaimer, I was not able to find someone in the 58 or older category to complete this interview and am not going to chance asking someone at the gym what their age is.  So if you know someone of this age that exercises on a regular basis to some type of sound track, let me know and I will get back to you.

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This is the final thought of helpful tips and methods on “defeating the Itis” pertaining to the daily fitness routines that many go through.

Well once again I am coming to the close of another segment and with that I wanted to offer some final thoughts on the underlining message behind this last series of blogs, which is “it doesn’t matter how you get yourself into the gym, it’s just important that you do.” I say getting yourself into the gym but what I am really talking about here is following through in general when it comes to fitness resolutions. It can be as simple as doing pushups and sit ups in front of the TV or running a mile or two around the block every day or making sure that you stick to a certain caloric value on a daily level. Whatever your fitness goals are it is important that you follow through with them, and in order to do so you have to create some sort of routine or regimen that keeps you on the right path to achieving these goals.  That is what I was trying to do with this set of blogs, offer up some helpful tips and tactics to make staying on whatever path you set for yourself a little less trifling.

Staying on these paths that we make for ourselves is much easier if we make our goals realistically obtainable. Creating goals like seeing a drastic change in your body figure or a major decrease in your weight or wanting to be in the top ten for a marathon are all perfectly fine goals, and yes it is true that anyone can achieve them. But what is unrealistic are some of the timelines that people put forth to reach these destinations. If you are a hundred pounds overweight and in really bad physical health, you are not going see results over night in trying to be in the top ten places of a marathon. But you will see significant improvement and over time if you keep on a realistic schedule you will arrive at that goal. I read stories all of the time about something like this happening, so it is absolutely reachable. But within all of these stories that I read, there are always depictions of the (in most cases) long road that it takes to get there. Which is why it is important to set bench marks for these physical aspirations because while it is in fact important to always keep the main goal in sight it is even more important to mark your progression in reaching it. Lots of time we burn out on our habitual fitness routines because we are not seeing the results we want and we are not receiving that notion of self gratification that we feel when we accomplish our goals.  In this day and age with convenience in technology, schooling, and infrastructure break down, as a society we want immediate results. We loved this “internet thing” when it was brand new even though it took 15 min to change the page we were on. But now we spit at our computer when it takes more than ten seconds load. Don’t get me wrong this progression in life is amazing and I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but it has enabled us as a society in many ways. And part of that enablement is how we handle situations when the going gets tough.

We all hit walls in every aspect of life, there is no avoiding them. But it is what we do when we hit those walls that makes or breaks us. I for one spent a lot of my life getting to these walls and trying to find a way around them instead of a way over them.  I would set goals with unrealistic timelines to achieve them and when I would hit one of these walls I would just create a new goal with a new path, instead. And I would keep doing this over and over again every time a wall popped up.  This just creates a labyrinth where we often find ourselves circling back to where we started and losing a lot of ground and time in the process.  Sometimes when we get to these walls it is in fact good to try and go around them, but in doing so it’s imperative that you remember to find your way back to that original path or you will slowly progress away from your true objective until it is completely out of reach for you.

With the right goals and timelines, it is much more accessible to stick to your routines to help you acquire what you truly want. And when you hit these so called walls try and climb them, use some of the techniques that I have shared with you or create your own to keep you on that mental and physical corridor that is needed for you to reach your overall goals. Once again, these are simply the opinions of a guy who has opinions about anything and everything, take it or leave it as you will.

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This is part 7b of helpful tips and methods on “defeating the Itis” pertaining to the daily fitness routines that many go through.

Continuing on with the subject of little things you can do when you are at the gym to motivate you through those tough workouts: one thing you can do is go the “easy route.” Ok now the real easy route would be to get up and walk out and be done with your workout prematurely, but the easy route here pertains to your own personal definitions of “easy.” Trying to articulate this now in my head and put it on paper at this moment would make me sound like I am blurting out non-sense (not much different from my other blogs right?), so it is better suited in this case just to go off a personal example. On Mondays I typically do “chest” and Tuesdays I typically do “back” and both of these are by far the hardest two days to work through. After the first sets on either day I am exhausted, because I am maxing out (here I’m talking about doing about 4 sets of 5-6 reps at max weight and one set at 3 where weight is increased even further) two muscles that account for the majority of my upper body.  So what I will do is put the first three exercise sets that I do as the hardest three that demand the most physical exuberance out of all the different exercises planned for that particular workout. I have about 10 other exercises that I can do at this point regarding chest or back but I know at this moment I am physically exhausted and a likely candidate to throw in the towel.  So what I will do is then pick three to four exercises that I think are easier than the other six of those ten choices. In reality they are all equally challenging and work your chest and back muscles just as hard as any other chest or back exercise, but in your mind for whatever reason they are easier. Everyone has those couple of “easier” exercises for every muscle or exercises that you find really easy but work really well. Whether it is switching to a machine instead of trying to do it with free weights or whether it is running at 6 % incline rather than doing a set on the stair master, in your mind they are easier to do than the other option. I like to save these exercises as a form of a backup plan, meaning that I typically won’t employ theses exercises when working a certain muscle because most days and weeks I have enough energy and natural motivation to power through that particular workout. But everyone has those days where energy and motivation are as hard to find as Bobbie Fisher. When those days hit I always try and power through what I can of the normal routines and then switch to my reserve drills to allow me to truly conquer those fatigue demons.

Riding the coattails of this “easier” workout scheme, I also will switch up the order of what muscle I want to work on a given day. Like I stated before I try and get the toughest two workouts finished by Tuesday because I like to keep that mentality that “the hardest part is already behind you and it is a downhill battle from here on.” But some Mondays and Tuesdays I will have just about as much enthusiasm as a zombie from a 60’s horror film, you know the ones with their hands parallel to the ground moving at a pace of 10 steps a minute. So I will scrap the Chest and Back weekly startup and go right into a Triceps and biceps workout, because I actually look forward to those two workouts every week. Or I will completely flip the script and say that I am going to go to a full upper body workout on Mon, Weds and Fri or Tues, Thurs and Sat and fill the opposite days with non resistant core and leg workouts.  Some weeks this is my saving grace, because before trying to utilize these little tricks I would just hit a half a day’s work out or miss a day completely, which in turn would throw off my entire schedule. And you know what; sometimes your body and mental capacity within the realm of the fitness world need that derailment.  For me it is not beneficial unless I plan it. It is one thing to plan a week of half workouts or plan to take a two week break, but it is another thing to come up short on your goals because you were simply just “too tired.” Every time I think I am too tired and end up finishing a work out I feel so much better about myself and every time I fail to do so I feel like I have truly let myself down. So instead of letting yourself down and succumbing to the daily fatigue factors, take the “easy” route, for once it is actually ok and beneficial to do so. Once again, these are simply the opinions of a guy who has opinions about anything and everything, take it or leave it as you will.

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This is part 7 of helpful tips and methods on “Defeating the Itis” pertaining to the daily fitness routines that many go through.

So up until this point, I have just been bombarding you with all of these alternative ideas and concepts about how to motivate yourself into actually getting your foot inside the door at the gym. And although some of these might prove to be helpful I overlooked one key element and that is “what is motivating you once you have actually stepped into the gym.” Yes there are the typical reasons (very valid ones I might add): I want to lose weight, I want to improve my looks, I want to get stronger, I want to be more involved in the fitness community, I want something productive to do to relieve the stress of a hard day, I want to improve my health, etc. Like I said, these are all extremely valid reasons, I know because they are constantly recycled in my daily thoughts.  The great thing about these is that every person can have their own and create their own unique goals and lifetime milestones from themselves that stem from these.  And I say to those who abide be these ideals and others that follow a similar lifeline, rock on and use these as motivators to get you into the gym and to get you through your workouts, I know I certainly do – they are excellent tools. But they are obvious ones that we think about all the time. What I want to get at in these next couple of blogs are the little tiny tricks that keep you going when you are in mid work out. All this time I have been talking about the crash that we can all feel that prevents us from getting into the gym but what about that brick wall that sometimes pops like the annoying “punch the monkey in face and win a Car” web pop-up. I have a couple easy, tiny behaviors that you can employ as your so called pop-up blockers at the gym, to help you tear down that wall.

The first of these is what I like to call the “only” factor.  The “only” factor refers to the method by which you count while working out. When counting focus on what you are striving toward and what you have already done.  Meaning that if you are on your 2^nd of 4 sets don’t think of it as the 2^nd set but instead put yourself in mind frame that you “only” have two sets left or that you are half way done with your sets for this exercise. This works perfect for running as well and in fact that is where I got the idea in the first place.  When I used to run cross country to get in shape for the soccer season back in high school, I used to hit a giant mental barbed wire fence after the first mile in every race that I ran. On every regular run day I would be absolutely fine and be able to power through the entire run without the mental fatigue. But for whatever reason when it came race time I would be so drained psychologically that after that first mile I seriously always wanted to quit. After burning out my first couple races and losing my hard earned place after that first mile, my coach began to trouble shoot for me.  At first the obvious diagnosis was that I was just physically burned out after the first mile, but when he saw me run time intervals on the track he knew that was not in fact the case. He taught me this technique of focusing on what you have accomplished and then honing in on fact that you are already partly done so really you “only” have this much more to go.  I was thinking to myself in the beginning holy hell I still have two more miles to keep at this pace, but after I really focused on this new method of thinking everything turned around. I would hit that mile and not think about the 2 miles I would think to myself “ok just keep this pace for ½ a mile more (which is much more reasonable than for two more miles) then when I hit that ½ mile point I would think to myself ok that last ½ mile was very doable just go a ½ more mile at the same pace. I would have just enough mental and physical energy to do that for one more ½ mile and then when I realized I only had one ½ mile left I would actually pick up the pace because I knew that it would all be over in no time and I would be so much more happy with myself if I did it. The same I found out carried over for the gym. By far chest and back are the most physically and mentally demanding days for me out of the whole workout week.  So I started putting the 3 most challenging exercises at the very beginning of my workout, then once I hit that burnout point I would tell myself that “I have already done the three hardest exercises and that I only have 3 left.” Then I would do the two next easiest exercises and tell myself that I “only” had one more to do. Then half way through my last one I would convince myself to do one more exercise afterword just to push it and feel that much more accomplished because at most I only had 7 min left at the gym.

Looking at this on paper it might sound like a giant crock pot of self indulged crap, and it might even seem a little confusing,  but when actually set forth in motion and practically maintained, it really works. I always thought that it was just something that worked for me but I started telling people about this when they would share with me in passing about problems with burning out not just in the gym but in many different facets of their lives, and they told me that it truly started working for them as well.  Maybe they are just trying to make me feel good about myself by telling me that this works but hey it works for me and it is something that is so easily done that I whole heartedly encourage you to give it a try for a little while. Once again, these are simply the opinions of a guy who has opinions about anything and everything, take it or leave it as you will.

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This is part 6 of helpful tips and methods on “defeating the Itis” pertaining to the daily fitness routines that many go through.

Something that I have been doing lately that has kept me motivated at a constant, continual and healthy rate is to fully document my physical progression. Meaning the whole kit-n-kaboodle: weekly and monthly pics, daily, weekly and monthly measurements, diet journals and of course exercise journals. I have always been opposed to this whenever it has been brought up in the past because for some reason it carried a very narcissistic stigma for me. When magazines or people I knew spoke outwardly about this, for some peculiar reason, I thought that they were just being vein but after working in operations in the business world I have changed my mind. Now I know you are thinking to yourself, what the hell do the business world and your perception on this particular subject have to do with anything, the two go together like “ketchup and mint cookies” (I know you are thinking random comparison right, but once as a kid I got dared to combine the two and believe me I can think of nothing worse: validating this opposition). So anyways, I realized that in order for a business to be successful they have to evaluate everything from head to toe on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. And being in operations I crunch these numbers and evaluate progression and unfortunately sometimes decline. Being able to see, have and evaluate these numbers is the only way a business can successfully set, retain and reach the goals that will make them flourish. The same should apply to the gym.

What diets have been working the best? How much weight am I sustaining, gaining or losing? What did I look like at the start of this venture and have a progressed? Why have I been stuck on the same weight for these reps? All of these questions can easily be answered if you are documenting what you do at and outside of the gym. It is really easy and will take no more than 10-20 min a day to keep up with. This is extremely motivating for several different reasons. The first obviously being that if you can see improvement on a weekly-monthly basis and especially a yearly basis, you will be much more motivated to stay on that path and keep in the gym or keep on an exercise plan. Just looking in the mirror when you get home does no true justice because your mind is conditioned to have a certain perception of you…I know that sounds weird but it is true, whereas pictures and actual numbers don’t lie. The same goes for daily measurements; they can also be deceiving depending on if you just worked out, if you just ate, if you just did something extraneous, which is why it is helpful to have ongoing data so that you can truly measure progress or as I am about to bring up, back sliding. The second main motivator can be a plateau or decline in your measurements or appearance. Some people get really attuned to how they look or what they weigh because they feel that because they are going to the gym everyday they have to be improving their physical fitness and appearance. But this can most often lead to falsehoods, because many times we plateau or even, what I like to call back slide. For me I was increasing the weight that I was lifting but I was not increasing the mass of my body. This had to do with several factors like daily calorie intake, protein intake and not enough recovery. But I did not notice because I mentally convinced myself that I was getting bigger because I was going to the gym everyday and hitting it hard. So once I started documenting everything and saw that I was at the same level, I was able to isolate the things negatively impacting me and try and improve them one by one. The whole grand scheme of the fitness game might be as hard to understand at first as the initial reaction to a nerdy dude dating a perfect ten: “how is this really supposed to work.” But truly figuring this “game” out is the key because once you can isolate your downfalls and weaknesses you can move on and improve, which acts as a huge motivation. It is like when a teacher yells at and punishes a student for acting out when called on in class. It seems like the right thing to do because this child is being disruptive. But in reality this kid can barely read and was put into this class due to social promotion and lack of funding for special programs, so he is acting out as a defense mechanism. You can not expect motivate this kid and see progress until you take the time to fully understand him, and truly evaluate his skills. And like in the world of teaching and in the world of business, there is no better, cheaper easier way than to personally document this stuff as you go.

These are simply the opinions of a guy who has opinions about anything and everything, take it or leave it as you will.

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This is part 5 of helpful tips and methods on “defeating the Itis” pertaining to the daily fitness routines that many go through.

One thing that I found was extremely helpful when trying to find that extra nudge to get into the gym on a daily basis was focusing on my eating habits. I mentioned this briefly, earlier in this series of blogs, but I would like to focus in on it a little more. For me sticking to an eating schedule, so to speak, makes a world of difference in maintaining that ongoing fitness drive. Like I have mentioned previously I have found that for my daily schedule and lifestyle, going to the gym during my lunch break seems to work best for me. With that being said, I have come up with an “eating plan” that aids my daily motivation process, concerning me finding my way into the gym. The main goal of this eating plan is to make sure that I have enough energy to keep me going through the day, but also to make sure that I am hungry enough for the gym. Meaning that I eat just enough to keep me going but not enough to put me over the edge and transform compulsion into sluggishness. A personal example will hopefully better illustrate what I am talking about.

I take my lunch break right before the 6 hour mark because I work in California and I am HR friendly with our crazy labor laws. I get in around 7:30a to the office, so I usually take off for lunch around 1:15-1:30p. Since I spend my lunch at the gym I have to make sure that I am properly giving my body the nutrition that it needs. To do this, I will eat a heavier snack around 10:30a, with a second cup of coffee. It is just heavy enough to give me the boost I need that will fuel me through my lunch break at the gym, but not heavy enough, to make me full when I am ready to go to the gym. Because lets face it, being full is a huge deterrent to getting your butt in the gym. If you don’t give yourself enough time to digest you end up feeling like you are trying to run a 5k after a Thanksgiving meal, which by the way is not cool (damn Turkey Trot). Then when I am done at the gym I come back to work with about 10 min to spare before my hour break ends and I scarf down my lunch and a protein shake and Walla like “hulkamania” magic I feel ripped, fueled and wrestle – wrestle the cooperate world of course. This is what I call my extra inspiration. It’s not much but honestly when I started to do this I began to feel its effects immediately. When lunch time rolled around I was ready with full force to hit the gym. I wasn’t lacking energy and I was bogged down with a full stomach, I was in perfect condition to go.

So the key here really, and to most things in life, is trying to find that balance. No matter what time you go to the gym, try and create some sort of comprehensive digestive schedule to allow yourself and your body to receive the full energy that it needs. Like I said before it doesn’t seem like much of a thing to focus on, but if you are struggling to find that enthusiastic groove that sticks, every little thing counts. Not to mention, it’s always good to throw something new in the mix, if the old routine is beginning to weigh you down. These are simply the opinions of a guy who has opinions about anything and everything, take it or leave it as you will.

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This is part 4 of helpful tips and methods on “defeating the Itis” pertaining to the daily fitness routines that many go through.

One little tip that might seem mundane but I have found extremely helpful in terms of motivation when working out is to create a comprehensive workout plan and put it in writing. Yes it is really important to always have some type of routine or regimen planned ahead of time before you actually attempt a work out or hit the gym. But when you put it in writing it almost becomes like an appointment that you can’t break because “this, this, and this,” need to be completed before “that, that and that” can happen. I have since November kept a log of all of my workouts on my computer. I first before I attempted this looked up and thoroughly read through all the different exercises that you can do for each of the different muscles. This literally took me about 3 hours which is nothing, and it went so quickly because there is an infinite list of credible sources regarding all this info at your disposal on the net (but make sure it is from a credible source). Once I gathered all this information I saved each muscle group to a different word doc, and then the magic truly happens – especially for all you computer savvy, spreadsheet happy, home row key freaks like me.  

I then create a spread sheet with the day of the week and the muscle that I am working that day. Next I open up my word doc for that particular muscle and copy and paste 6-8 different exercises for that work out in the first Colum which is labeled Exercises and all the rows beneath it are the different exercises. The second column is labeled Last week and in the rows below I put the weight that I lifted the previous week and the next column is labeled this week and the rows below it are the weights that I lifted for each particular exercise, pertaining to the current week. Finally I will label the fourth-8^th columns sets, and I will leave all the rows below it blank. I do this so that when I am at the gym I can check the empty boxes so that I know exactly where I am in my work out without loosing track. This is a fantastic way to stay on track with your fitness goals. I will save the Doc by the muscle and the two months that I will be in and then I just create different tabs for each of the four-five weeks within the month depending on how the days fall for that month. I do this so that I can do one set of exercises for that muscle one week and another for the next week and then rotate in that order, an with the spread sheets I can monitor and total the progress of each muscle and each exercise in terms of progression in weight. I do this for a two month period because it is just enough time to get a good data range. Once all this stuff is set up, it literally takes me 10 min to set up a daily schedule for each day and muscle for the week.

Above is the tech version of what you can do but it can be as simple as grabbing a little pad of paper and do in the same in written version. Being able to see your progression while working out and being able to check off your exercises as you go can be an extremely valuable tool when trying to find reasons and motivation to get in the gym and while actually at the gym. I like to think of it in terms of Legos. On the one hand it is fun to just play with them in a freestyle fashion and create something on your own, but after a while you get tired of doing that. But when you get a brand new box of Legos with instructions, you are super stoked and blow right through the entire box and are then ready for the next one. Why because you had a set game plan laid out in front of you in the form of instructions, but when you have to constantly spend a lot of time trying to think of something new every time, you begin to loose interest. The above is also geared towards weight lifting routines but you can easily modify it so that it fits a different cross-fit work out every other day or different mileages and times on running routines or different abdominal exercises. It is really simple and very easy to do so I suggest that you give it a hot and see how it might benefit you. These are simply the opinions of a guy who has opinions about anything and everything, take it or leave it as you will.

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This is part 3B of helpful tips and methods on “defeating the Itis” pertaining to the daily fitness routines that many go through.

The Cons of going to the gym during your lunch break:

As great as going to the gym during my lunch break is for me, I realize that it is far from compatible with many people’s daily routines. For one, not everyone is allotted a full hour to take their lunch break. When this is the case it is pointless for you to even attempt the gym during the lunch break because by the time you get to the gym and get dressed you pretty much have enough time to by that protein drink that you like and turn around and get in the car to head back to work. Which brings me to my next point, if there isn’t a gym within a 5 min driving distance from your work, it really isn’t worth it. For me, I have two with in 5 min walking distance to my work so it suites me perfectly, but many business establishments are not in close proximity to places where you can work out. If you cannot get in the work out you want during the time that you are allocated for your lunch period then you are either jeopardizing your job by pushing its time limitations and getting your full work out in or you are compromising fitness ethics, goals and morale by cutting your work outs short. And no one who is serious about making money or working out would want to ride this line. Piggy backing on the time factor is the showering issue. I will be the first one to tell you that I am raw about this and not proud of it. I schedule all of my meetings for the first 6-7 hours of my day and then go to the gym after all of my meetings. So for about 80% of the day I am at my desk/cubical meeting with my employees and the last 20% I am tucked away in an office out of smelling range from anyone. I know this seems dirty but honestly I wipe down with a towel afterward and put on cologne for those last 2-3 hours of work and then I go right home and shower. But this “hippi-esh” routine might drive some people up the wall.

The last con that really comes to mind is that you are for the most part missing out on a break. For many people, going to the gym is a chore, but they do it because they like how it betters them – the same reason that they keep going to work every day. For these people going to the gym during their lunch break would seem like hell because it would be using up their break and replacing it with more work. This is probably especially true when doing physical labor work and substituting a well deserved lunch break with more physical demands on the body. Also, people need that mental break where they eat in about five minutes and space out for the rest of their lunch. Going to the gym during lunch may not give their mind the rest it needs and in fact may add more stress and dumbfounded logic to it weighing it further down. That thing that sits nestled in a fragile state with in my skull is constantly moving, even when I “veg” out it is going a mile a minute, which might make me look insane, but it actually keeps me going and surprisingly at peace. So for me going from one activity to another is somewhat of a mental break because when I switch activities it invites a whole new stream of thoughts that help replace all the stale ones beginning to drag me down. But I once again am fully aware that this is not how everyone’s mind works.

With these three suggestions I have given you both the pros and cons that I have suffered myself or that I have gathered from the opinions and conclusions of other people who frequent the gym. I did this because I wanted you all to weigh them out and truly consider them before diving head first into any of these. I also realize that I have missed several pros and several cons to all 3 of these, so if you any please post them. I have a couple more tips on how to face the “itis” head on, but as far as defeating it by choosing different times to work out at, this is all I got. I hope you get something out of one of these. Let me know if you try any of these and let me know what works and what doesn’t. These are simply the opinions of a guy who has opinions about anything and everything, take it or leave it as you will.

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