Hey Everybody,
It is Justin here with Custom Fitness your personal trainer in Amarillo, TX. Today I want to give you 10 tips that are going to help you actually get psyched to work out. I know a lot of people have problems even getting the motivation to get up and go to the gym, so I thought this would be a good topic needed to be discussed. If you have any questions about this topic or would like some help getting pumped to come to the gym, give us a call at (806) 322-3188.
TIP 1: Stop Doing So Much Steady State Cardio
Ellipticals, treadmills, running, etc. should not be your only workout. Why? It is bad on your joints, it is not as effective as other exercises, and it isn’t very much fun. A lot of people don’t really enjoy being on the treadmill for an hour and a half, so why put yourself through that? You have lots of options when it comes to increasing your heart rate, and you get a lot more benefit when that cardio is intermittent throughout your routine.
TIP 2: Step Off the Scale
The scale can be very detrimental to your psyche. A lot of people don’t realize that weight loss and muscle gain can kind of contradict each other if you’re only looking at the numbers. When you’re gaining muscle, you are changing your metabolism, you are changing the way your body looks. Muscle is heavier than fat, as you’ve heard, so don’t worry about the scale so much when you are going through this physical evolution. The scale is not the main indicator of your health.
TIP 3: Be Harder on Your Body but Easier on Your Self Image
When you know that you can push harder during your exercises and your workout, go ahead and do it. Push yourself to that limit. However, when you are in the mirror and you’re criticizing your body constantly that’s not going to make you want to go work out. You have to recognize that you are trying to get back to a state that took years to create. When we are agonizing over every pudge or jiggle, we are damaging our self-esteem. Mental fitness is the foundation for physical fitness. Be easy on how you talk to yourself, you’ll get there, but you gotta make sure you are pushing as hard as you safely can.
TIP 4: Do Anything Just Start Something
Getting up off the couch and going to do anything at all Fitness related or health-related is going to help your your mental state and get you ready and motivated to accomplish your goals. Each time you choose to park a little further from the store, go for a walk instead of binging Netflix, or choose a burger without the bun, you are making strides toward your goals. Every time you get yourself up and going you are beginning to make a habit. Those daily choices then become habits, and habits are the lifestyle changes that we really want to see because they are going to give us long-lasting health.
TIP 5: Fall in Love with an Exercise
This exercise needs to be one that changes the way that you feel and changes your mood not just your body. For example, I like to bike and I like to hike. Those might not be your way to relieve stress, but those are my favorites. When I ride my mountain bike or I go hiking in the canyon I notice I come out feeling a lot better about life and I feel more motivated up to go to the gym next time so I can push myself even harder on the trails when I return. Can you think of any hobbies that will get you physically and mentally moving?
TIP 6: Switch Up Your Exercise Every Now and Then for Motivation
Doing the same thing over and over again is asking just asking yourself to be bored and eventually quit. Motivation can’t grow in that environment. As a personal trainer in Amarillo, I can’t tell you how many times I have seen clients give up at those big name gyms because their routine had become too mundane. As humans, we are drawn to things that are new and exciting. Switching up your exercises will keep you engaged and determined to accomplish your goals. If you are a client with Custom Fitness, ask the trainers, “hey can we try something else?”, “ I’d like to pursue a different style of working out” or if that’s not your thing show up to one of our yoga classes. Changing up the routine you do can make things fun again and get you excited to get back in the gym.
TIP 7: Get Massages Regularly
It may seem like you are kind of pampering yourself with this tip, but think of the toll we put on our bodies when we exercise. For our exercises we need our muscles to be limber and ready to perform. We can’t meet those requirements if we are stiff. This tip is important to massage all those knots and tightness out of the muscles. The tighter your muscles are, the more strain it’s putting on tendons and ligaments. It is crucial to relax those muscles so we don’t do damage to our bodies. You can also ask one of the trainers about our myofascial release sticks which can really help you get relaxed and get you motivated to workout.
TIP 8: Make Sure Your Workouts Actually Work.
If you are going to the gym everyday and 6 weeks down the line you don’t see some sort of change, then your workouts are not correct. Maybe you’re not doing the right amount of weight, you’re not keeping your your heart rate in the Target Zone, or you are just going through the motions and not really pushing your body. We have to step that up. Making sure your workouts actually work seems pretty simple, but checking in with a trainer or noticing small results will help you get motivated to go back in the gym and stay there.
TIP 9: Set Smaller Attainable Goals
You need to set goals that you can reach along the way to your big change. For example, if your ultimate goal is to lose 100 pounds. Week-to-week you can’t really see that you are making headway if you’re only losing 1 to 2 pounds a week (which is a very healthy range); it’s hard to keep psyched up about that. But, if you set small attainable goals like, “hey this week I’m going to do 20 push-ups in a row instead of my regular 10 pushups, take a break and do another 10”. You now have a goal to focus on while your waistline shrinks. You can feel as though you are multi-tasking while you build motivation and get ready to return to the studio. Then you are able to keep setting yourself up for Success. You keep on allowing yourself to be impressed with your progress off the scale and and push forward.
TIP 10: Have One Goal That Kind of Terrifies You.
Continuing with our example from the previous tip, our goal of losing 100 pounds might sound terrifying to a lot of people. Like that’s never going to happen; that’s a whole other person’s worth of weight to lose. But fear is a great motivation if you don’t let yourself be overwhelmed by it. I don’t know any one person who prefers to never be challenged. Getting out of your comfort zone is tough, but every time I have done it I was glad to see how much I grew from it. If you’re not a little bit scared of your goal then you’re not going to reach for it.
Those are those are my fitness tips for garnering your own motivation today. I hope you enjoyed them. I’ll be back here later this week with some new ideas, new talks, and new motivation. If you have any questions or feel pumped to work out, go ahead and get in contact with us here at the Custom Fitness studio 806.322.3188 or info@customfitness.biz. We are YOUR personal trainer in Amarillo, Texas. Thanks for joining me. Bye!