My whole life I've been pretty active, but over the past year I've realized my true fitness passion is hitting the gym, specifically lifting weights. I'm not an expert by any means, and I still have a long way to go on my path to reaching all my fitness goals, but I believe that I'm pretty comfortable and confident when it comes to the gym. But even though I feel very capable and in my element when working out, I have and continue to hit plateaus and face discouragement.
The hardest part about losing your drive when it comes to fitness is getting back on track. I think for most of us, our time at the gym gets cut down tremendously when we have important school work to do or when we start feeling sick. However, there are times when we just get bored of our workout, or we compare ourselves too often to others working out around us, or we aren't seeing the results we want right away and feel like it's all just pointless. Whatever the reason for your lack of motivation, I have some ways you can get back on track and feel more inspired when it comes to how you handle your health and fitness.
1) Switch Up Your Workouts
Recently, I was losing my love for leg days. It's one of my favorite days at the gym, but I was feeling bored and let down with my progress. I usually stay at the gym for an hour, sometimes and hour and a half, and after every leg day I felt like I didn't accomplish much. So I started incorporating new exercises, trying out new machines, and I played around with less weight and more reps/ more weight and less reps. Not only did I get out of my slump and regained my love for leg day, but I started to feel more engagement in the muscles I was training! That encouraged me to keep it up.
2) Don't be Strict With Rest Days
The biggest lesson I learned when I became more serious about working out was that I couldn't be so hard on myself about rest days. I used to write in my planner and on my calendars "workout 5 to 6 days a week", which seemed fine at the time, but actually sticking to only two rest days is really hard. Some weeks it's easy if my workouts weren't too intense, other times I went hard and heavy and my body needed more days to recuperate. I would dread going to the gym during the week because I knew I was only allowing myself the weekend off. I would be so hard on myself if I had to take more rest days than I allowed because I felt like I wasn't being committed enough to my goals. Here's the deal: your body needs time to rest after strenuous activity, sometimes you'll be too busy to head to the gym, and sometimes it's just one of those days that you feel like being lazy. A few rest days during the week isn't going to kill you and won't ruin all the progress you've made. Distance makes the heart grow fonder- sometimes a little gym break will get you pumped for better workouts ahead.
3) Pay Attention to the Little Things
I'm sure all of us have that one big goal that we're in the gym for, but it can be really hard to see how far you've come when all you're focusing on is how much further you have to go. A lack of appreciation for the little things you've accomplished is the number one way, in my book, to lose your motivation at the gym. Whenever you're feeling down about how you don't look how you want to quite yet or you haven't managed to lift your goal weight yet, think about all your little victories. I think about how I've increased my pulldowns by 15 pounds, I think about how this week I've upped the weight on the leg press by five pounds. Let yourself be excited about the small things and you'll be moved to hit the gym and make more tiny victories.
4) Get Some New Gear
Nothing makes me feel like getting back to the gym like a new gym outfit. It's a huge boost to my confidence when I feel like I look good and ready to kick some ass! I think one reason a lot of us get scared off from the gym is when we see others that look like they really live in the gym; big and strong, the crazy gym 'fits, all the crazy accessories that you don't know exactly what they do but they look cool as hell. It can be really intimidating! I find wearing an outfit that makes me feel good puts me in a better mindset at the gym, and I'm not so worried about feeling out of place among all the bodybuilders.
Comments