We all use them – “I’m tired.” “I’m sore.” “I don’t have time.” – and the worst of all, “I deserve a break.” We all use excuses to not go to the gym, to not workout, and to not be healthy. But why? One reason may be that workouts can be boring, tedious, and down right dreadful. Well, from personal experience, workouts can be all of those things, but they don’t have to be.
When you start feeling the gym blues, it may be time to shake things up. Changing your workout routine has a few benefits.
- First, a new routine will keep you entertained for a little while, and hopefully make your gym time a tad more exciting.
- And secondly, but more importantly, when you change your routine, you keep you body guessing. You start hitting muscles from a different angle and force them to adapt and grow.
- Changing your workout regimen from its normal daily grind can also help bust through the dreaded weight loss plateaus.
If changing your routine isn’t your thing, try listening to some music, or different music when you workout. My entire gym experience is based off of playlists on my MP3 player. And I seriously mean everything. Driving to the gym, warm-up runs, lifting, cool-down runs, long jogs, short runs, driving home, they all have a different set of songs. Try to find tunes that really get you going and into a workout. Studies have shown that listening to your own music preference while exercising increases productivity. So listening to something you enjoy will get you moving faster, burning more calories, and hopefully enjoying your exercise experience more.
If you hate music and change, try getting a workout buddy. Having someone to exercise with can help tremendously. Having someone to exercise with, to push you, to get you going, even when those excuses come creeping up, is a great, great, help.
So in a nutshell, when the workout woes start to set in, and you really just don’t want to exercise, try one of these three things. Change your workout, change your music, and find some friends.
If you have any other questions, tips, or areas you want covered, leave me a comment and I’ll do my best to get back to you.
Until next time, DIRnation.
– Mike Morelli