There’s a huge difference between doing something that you enjoy and doing something because you have to do it.
And that right there makes all the difference to sustained motivation in your fitness journey!
In fact, it’s the very feeling that fitness is more like a chore that leads many people to drop out.
Some want quick results and believe that consistent high intensity training (and sometimes together with a restrictive diet) is the answer. They typically end up disappointed when the results don’t happen fast enough, feel burnt out (or get injured) by the experience and then drop out.
But clearly, that’s not you.
Others, more like you, are keen to make fitness part of a lifestyle. To find that sustained motivation. To challenge themselves physically and mentally as part of personal development. To invest in their longer term health.
The question is: how can we develop a better relationship with fitness so that it becomes something we look forward to rather than thinking it’s a chore?
After all – why should we do things that we don’t enjoy? Especially when this activity is during our leisure time. We won’t get that time back. Ever.
The great thing about fitness is that it’s much more diverse than we tend to realise. This means that there is so much potential to explore different exercises and training systems and find the combination that works for us.
And so, fitness is something beyond the sets, reps and time duration that we often think about – whether this is for home training, gym training or training elsewhere.
It all starts with self awareness.
What do you want to achieve?
Why do you want to do this?
With these answers you can identify the training focus…and then the real fun begins!
I’m a huge advocate of core work, so we’ll take it as the example to illustrate the point.
After understanding how the core is structured, we can design a workout that targets specific muscles in isolation and exercises that work the core muscles in combination.
We can choose suitable exercises for a balanced workout that doesn’t focus too much on using one muscle. We can also incorporate different exercise influences to this experience, such as Pilates, Yogalates, martial arts and boxing drills – to name a few. Again, totally based on our preference.
We can also play around with different training systems.
I’ll say it right here:
Core work doesn’t have to be high intensity to get results.
Again, there has to be high self awareness of whether another body part, such as arms, are compensating for the move or if the core itself is not fully engaged. In both scenarios, the core is worked less. Quality of the move should be the focus at all times.
So, as you can see with this one example of the core, there’s a lot that we can do.
No two core workout days need to be the same…and we certainly don’t need to focus on reps and sets for a certain duration or exhaust ourselves completely.
In fact, training to near exhaustion is only one type of training aim. It’s not necessarily suitable for everyone, depending on their goals.
Take the opportunity to explore how you can get creative with your fitness journey. It’s very much like being a painter (with a vision) in front of a blank canvas (their workout), holding a tray of paint (the potential exercises that can be selected). Trust me, it’s much more exciting than doing the same thing all the time. Have fun with it.
