Hi, Kris Stokes from Custom Fitness, your personal trainer in Amarillo. Every single day, someone in the world makes the decision to start getting healthy, getting in shape, begin to make the all important changes to finally finish their quest of enhanced health and vitality. Every single day someone in the world decides to stop exercising because the results are too much work. Are you ready to choose head in the direction of your goals and not give up? Do you need a little support in doing so? Give us a call at 806-322-3188. Our trainers are ready and happy to help.
I am curious to know, do YOU know what the #1 Reason people STOP exercising is??
It is boredom!! Plain and simple.
Interestingly overuse injuries, as a result of doing the same boring workout, is number two.
Humans by nature have a terrible habit of LOVING THEIR HABITS. So much so we create boundaries for ourselves aka “the comfort zone”. We fear most change and are uncomfortable with the ones we don’t fear. Change is not something that most people have learned to embrace well. As a personal trainer in Amarillo for almost two decades, this is something I have encountered often with clients. On the other hand, the client who is afraid of change is also bored to death with what they have been doing during their workouts over the past weeks, months, even years. Ironic, huh?
Quick story here: When I was much younger and beginning as a personal trainer, I met a man who had been working out at a private studio in town. (At that age, that sounded like an amazing opportunity compared to the “big box” gyms I was used to.) This man was in his late 60’s and working with the owner of the studio. He had been going to that specific studio with that same trainer for seven years when I met him. The problem was that while he felt he was doing the “right” thing, he could not tell me one success he had had outside of showing up every session for seven years. Not one success! So I dug a bit deeper and found out that one day number one of his training relationship, the trainer created a program for him and walked him through it, showed him how to perform each exercise correctly, etc., etc. This man went to the studio for training session 3-4 times weekly (again for 7 years!) and as it turns out, that was the ONLY program he EVER got!!! As a fitness and wellness professional, this still astounds me to this day!
So, why did he not see results, and why am I telling you about this in an article about people who stop working out?
First, he didn’t see results because he stopped shocking his body with new stimuli. Put simply, the truth is that your body needs various stimuli in order to change and improve. This is why you see results right off the bat when you begin a new workout regime. However, continuation of the same stimulus without enough change to cause a “shock factor” will result in loss of progression and / or physical reaction. The body needs to be stimulated in new ways to cause the changes you desire. Physiologically the body will begin to plateau at 4-6 weeks of similar stimulus, therefore you must change the stimulus enough within that 4-6 week time frame to cause a NEW stimulus reaction within the body. That is why the personal trainers in Amarillo’s Custom Fitness studio change your program every 4-6 weeks so your body continues tracking towards your goals.
Some people think that just changing the amount of resistance or type of machine will be enough but it actually requires more than that. The body craves variety in movement, speed, duration, repetition, resistance and more. To truly give the body enough of a “shock factor” when changing routines, you must put some researched backed thought into it. Knowing when the plateau is not enough to fix the issue here.
Mentally your brain begins to plateau into boredom generally between 3-5 weeks with your general fitness routine. Have you ever been to a gym the first week of January and again in the middle of February? All the Resolution goers have decided the routine wasn’t worth the effort. This means that if you have been doing a routine long enough to hit this threshold, you will begin to put less effort into what you are doing and therefore you will see less results even though you may not have hit the physiological plateau yet.
This can happen workout to workout as well. For instance, when doing a cardio session you will begin to “go through the motions” after just 10 minutes of a specific machine. Continue doing this day after day and you’re sure to stop exercising for good.
It seems to be a popular belief of people wanting to “get fit” that if they find something that has worked for someone else or even for them in the beginning or the past, that they should continue to do the same thing over and over to continue to get results.
Most people do not look at the full picture when considering copying their friends’ “magic workout”. You see, first, your body is unique and it is highly unlikely that it works exactly the same way as another person’s. Yes, there are MANY substantial similarities in the human body but each of us is made a little different than the others. Second, if you have “done it before”, you were probably at a different stage of life or transformation than you are right now at this moment. Your body is much smarter than you give it credit for most of the time and this would be one of those instances. The body craves the change you fear most.
Albert Einstein defined INSANITY as doing the same thing over and over but expecting to get a different result from it. We’ve all been there. Thinking if we just persist a little longer surely our efforts will pay off. That’s not far off, but we need to persist and evolve in order to reach our goals.
Going back to the seven year client, why did I mention him? I am hopeful that first, this has not happened to you. And second, I hope that you will learn from his mistake. Sometimes there comes a time to Break Up With Your Gym and find a better solution. Chances are that you didn’t wake up one morning with a garage full of money and think, “I wish I could spend this one something useless while wasting my time and energy”. If you did, I have a few investment opportunities for you. 😉 That is essentially what happened to the seven year client (minus the garage of cash). The client was robbed. He was robbed of his time, his money and the results he deserved.
If you are at a “sticking point” today and want to push through, take a moment to assess your current workout routine. Have you perhaps been performing it too long? Have your exercises changed order but not truly changed themselves? Is there some way you could provide a new stimuli that would help you get the results you not only deserve but you desperately want?
It is time to eliminate boredom and boredom related injuries by adding variety into your exercise routine. Believe it or not, this CAN be accomplished without big fancy equipment, big fancy gym memberships amongst other things. This requires a change of thought and an open mind to embrace the changes (and soreness) that is to come.
This just one of the areas that the team at Custom Fitness excels in and we would love to talk with you about your goals and needs. Our team will be happy to take the responsibility of change from you and provide you with effective and efficient workouts that WORK! All you have to do is call 806-322-3188 or e-mail us at info@customfitness.biz. We’ll handle the rest. At Custom Fitness, we are YOUR personal trainers in Amarillo. Have a great day!