How to Train Consistently Without Losing Motivation
I lift. Lot. I usually go to the gym six days a week and find an excuse to compete every couple of months. While it is normal (and maybe even for health) when exercise is common, exercising hard often requires some adjustment in your life to be able to exercise effectively every day, every week, throughout the year. Here are some of my secrets.
Make a schedule
My training schedule is completely on autopilot. At various times in my life I have taken lunch break, morning exercise and evening exercise, but I have to choose one and make a decision. I’m on the morning team right now, waking up at 5 to wake up at 6 every weekday.
When you stick to your schedule, something magical happens. You are no longer afraid of some workouts more than others; just get up and go and do them. I don’t think “ugh, I’d better finish this in 30 minutes to get back to that deadline,” because I completely blocked the time. If I finish early, I won’t get any prizes, and in fact I’m a little at a loss as to what to do. The ascent time is the ascent time. There is no doubt if this will happen or when it will happen.
When my schedule became automatic, it became easier to take care of myself. If I found myself scared of training, I knew there must be some problem with training or with my level of fatigue; I didn’t blame myself for my lack of willpower.
Have a uniform
Like my schedule, my daily workout preparation is fully automated. I don’t have a closet full of interesting and varied sportswear. I have a form that I can get out of a drawer in the dark at 5am.
This changes with the seasons and things sometimes go into and out of rotation, but now it looks like this:
- 3 matching sports bras
- 3 matching pairs of spandex shorts ( Senita Rio 7 inches with pockets )
- a stack of black mens ribbed shirts that I buy in packs of 4.
- a bunch of socks i can mix and match
- in winter a sweatshirt and sweatpants to pull everything off
The wash cycle goes with this too. After the gym, I throw my bra and shorts in the shower because they are made of synthetic fabric and need to be rinsed immediately or they will stink . The warm-ups remain on the hook. Everything else goes to the wash.
I rinse the synthetics and hang them to dry on a second rod in the shower . They usually dry out after 24 hours, so to be honest, alternating between two outfits will do, and the third is a bonus. About once a week, I collect everything for a full wash with a sports detergent.
Link every action to a larger purpose.
I have never been a person who can exercise “for health” or “for fun.” After all, entertainment comes in many forms, and health … well, I wouldn’t die if I skipped a workout.
But I get motivated when I understand how a daily workout fits into my larger plan for my life. When I was preparing for a marathon, the only thing that made me get out of bed to run 12 miles with my training group was the realization that if I didn’t, I could never run 15 miles next week. Now that weightlifting is my main focus, I like to include competitions in my schedule and make sure that I participate in a program that prepares me for them. I need to do today’s workout in order to be able to develop it correctly next week, as well as the week after it and the next week.
Create opportunities for relaxation
When you are serious about spending a lot of time in the gym (or on the road, in the studio, or whatever your sport requires), you also need to give your body a chance to recover . Sleep and nutrition are important, so make sure you don’t ask yourself to do more than you are willing to do.
Sometimes, if you stick to your schedule too adamantly, you may end up feeling guilty about skipping a workout. The goal is not to work as hard as possible, it should be according to the schedule that is sustainable.
Several ways to deal with this:
- I always have one full day off every week (usually Sunday).
- I do my most important workouts at the beginning of the week.
- I make one workout optional. If I start to feel exhausted in the middle of the week, I remove this workout from the schedule and change others as needed so that I have an extra day of rest.
I also try not to vary my workload much from week to week. If I want to speed up, I add one workout. I am thinking of adding another next week. Last year there was a period of several months when I did two workouts a day, but I was slowly moving towards that.
Periodize and prioritize
Almost no one does the same workouts at the same intensity throughout the year. It’s great to have a competitive season and off-season or have different goals for different times of the year. I know I will burn out if I focus on just one thing.
Sometimes I race. If this is the Pittsburgh Marathon in early May, I know I will be running from January to April, with strength training as a supplement rather than a main course. After that, I will choose a new goal – maybe related to running, maybe not.
When it comes to lifting, it is common to divide your workout into periods when you prepare for a competition and other periods when you are aiming to simply build as much muscle as possible (called hypertrophy blocks ).
It’s important to note that there is a difference between willy-nilly doing a million things and neatly dividing your workout into periods with different goals. I pursue many goals, but I never achieve all at the same time. Right now I am doing Olympic weightlifting, for example. Soon I am competing in strength, but this is just for fun; I still stick to my weightlifting program before and after. These roles may be reversed at some point in the future, but I know I can only have one top priority at a time.
You don’t need appointments on your calendar to be able to periodize your workouts, but I find they give me clear goals and make me prioritize. You can also set goals that are important to you for a variety of reasons, such as getting in shape to climb a mountain while on vacation, or meeting the benchmarks your doctor recommends for health reasons.