I know I run onto this and I suspect everyone does as well. You have great intentions to workout, to go to the gym and have a workout, but sometimes the motivation just isn’t there.
You know it is important, but there always seems to be something more important. So what do you do to make your workouts happen?
Here are 10 Tips to Get To the Gym
1. Decide what your priorities are today. Sometimes we just don’t feel like going to the gym when we are busy. There is sometimes other things that appear more important. More likely, though, your todo list is just so full of little things that you do not feel the time is right.
Go to the gym anyway.
That time away from home and work is rejuvenating and refreshing to the mind as well as the body.
2. Maybe you are just tired. I have run into the many times. The problem is that the couch is a lot more comfortable then being under a bench press bar.
Better to have a light workout than to skip it. Once you get off your butt and get your workout gear on you can trudge into the gym and make that workout time count for you.
3. Get in a Gym rut. Sometimes the workout today just feels like more of a continuation of yesterday. We all go through times in our workout schedules that everything becomes mundane and we are not motivated because the excitement is gone.
If this is the case then it is time to get a new workout schedule. Go to the gym with absolutely no plan (usually a very bad idea) and see why things are boring you.
Maybe too much cardio lately? Maybe too many weights? Maybe you just need a change and a new routine. Think about your schedule and change it up and make it exciting again.
4. Getting in a gym rut part 2. Sometimes that rut is just a product of overtraining. I have done this before when I am going for a personal best for a few weeks and my boy just gets burned out.
From a weight workout point of view, there are a lot of things that you can do to change up your workout to stop the overtraining. Make sure you are eating enough and resting enough. Look into what is going right and wrong with your eating and rest.
5. Sets, Reps, and Exercises. I find that it is important to change things up a lot. I change exercises often, probably every couple weeks a new exercise gets into my schedule.
Also, I will sometimes vary my sets from 2 up to 4 depending on weight and my plan. Reps are the biggest change I make.
My last set is usually 5 reps, but occasionally I will do a couple workouts in a row where I do one exercise for a couple sets of 100 reps. This feels a lot different than a usually 5-10 rep set and you really have to cut the weight down.
6. Cardio can get boring. If you are always dreading the gym on cardio days (like I do), it is probably because you either don’t know why you are doing it.
If you are not motivated by losing weight, or increasing endurance, then cardio seems like a waste of time. Remember though that the biggest reason for cardio is the health improvements with cardio.
Cardio can improve our concentration and stamina every day, cardio can improve our resting heart rate, and finally cardio will help us in hydration since we will sweat a lot and drink a lot.
7. Cardio is starting to hurt. Not many people can just hit a treadmill every day for months on end. I find that my body gets beat up by running a lot so I really have to cycle through lots of ways to do cardio.
I use a regular bike, an elliptical, treadmill, even rowing. All of these exercises can raise our heart rate and make us sweat but will not beat us down so it is important to change things up as much as possible for cardio.
These are my biggest reasons that I will stay on the couch or at my desk and make excuses why I am not working out. Of course, this changes for everyone.
I want to add one thing, and 8th reason and that is the rituals we build into our lives. I know that there are things that go on in my head and in my body before and during a great workout and that is the same for everyone.
If you can do a better job of recognizing these rituals before and during your workout, you will have better workouts more often and miss a lot fewer workouts.
I will try to write more on this subject tomorrow, just think about that today and see if you can identify some of those triggers in yourself.
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