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 2nd of 4 sets don’t think of it as the 2nd 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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