January 24th Chat
Happy Monday Everyone.
Stumbled on this great article from the New York Times that highlighted about not being motivated to exercise sometimes. When he are not motivated to get out and get in some exercise, there are some great tips to help you get out and feel that little bit of motivation to take on some exercise and get going.
Full Article Here: When the Last Thing You Want to Do Is Exercise - The New York Times (nytimes.com)Today we will look at some tips from Christie Aschwanden Through the scope to find motivation and work through moments you feel unmotivated. We have all had those days where we are avoiding and pressing out time to go do our workout. sometimes it can feel like just a simple strength session is nearly impossible to get to and it become a barrier to the day and feels like an impossible hill to climb. There is a way we can hack and get over that slump to keep going.
Overcoming the lack of motivation....
Christie Ashwanden interviewed a couple of professional runners, each with multiple national championship titles in distance running under their belt. Physician Megan Roche and her husband David. They encouraged her to think of your workout as recess after a long day of work, rather than another item on my to-do list. Something that you Get to do and an opportunity to get away from the work day and have a bit of fun for yourself.
“I struggle with motivation all the time,” Mr. Roche said. What gets him over the hump is finding joy in the activity itself.
So without Further ado, let's get into some time to get our motivation back!
1. Be Silly
Sometimes it helps to get a little silly, he said.
“It sounds ridiculous, but if you’re running down a slight hill or even just tired, put your arms out like you’re an airplane and suddenly everything become less serious.”
It did sound silly, but when she tried the airplane arms trick, her dark, cold run became surprisingly joyful. it can even be adding a minute of jump rope between my 2 sets of a strength workout you have been avoiding, or doing some dance moves to a song in between sets.
Example: Jump rope - adding a bit of spice to the workout. Here is a great article on what jump roping can add to your routine and how it can benefit your workout.
2. Don’t think of it as exercise.
When exercise isn’t appealing, making it feel like something else can help. Crystal Steltenpohl, a psychologist at University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, who studies exercise motivation, recalls a conversation she had with a participant in one of her studies who said,
“I go play basketball, but that’s just hanging out with friends.”
In other words, although the activity qualified as exercise, that was just a fringe benefit, rather than the motivating factor. I find our Monday morning Canyon Ranch ride the easiest solid workout of the week for me. Because I am enjoying hanging with my friends here and the interesting conversation , I often forget I am working out. sometimes I even look at the time left on the ride and cant belive that time has flown by so fast. that community aspect of doing it together and enjoying the company of each other helps motivation run high and the enjoyment flow. it can even be a hard workout or a route group workout that can keep you going
If you want to sign up for route based workouts led by Me (Charlotte) every friday (Friday Smash Sessions) at 7/7:30 am mdt Sign up Below ⬇️
“If you ask, most people will say they want to exercise for their health, and that’s a great goal,”
said Katie Heinrich, an exercise scientist at Kansas State University.
“But what gets people actually moving is doing something they enjoy.” There’s no perfect activity for everyone. “How do you like to move?” Dr. Heinrich said.
Maybe it’s dancing, or it could be a walk in the park. For some people, it might be CrossFit or Peloton.” or Zwift. This world holds so many ways we can find enjoyment. think of it as all the wonderful opportunities out there for you to discover as a part of your life journey.
3. Bundle your incentives.
Last month, researchers published a megastudy testing the effectiveness of 54 different approaches to motivating people to exercise more. The experiment, which enlisted more than 60,000 members of the 24 Hour Fitness chain as test subjects, found that offering a free audiobook was one of the most effective ways to get people to the gym. The idea was to give participants something to look forward to while exercising, said one of the study’s organizers, Katy Milkman, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book “How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.”
What can you find for each workout to look forward to? sometimes it can be just the feeling of finishing and pushing through, or the feeling of getting stronger in the end. It can be simple even like a nice meal after the workout, or even some time to get to watch your favorite TV show.
4. Make exercise a priority.
“The number-one reason people give for not exercising is time,” Dr. Heinrich said, and the only reliable way to find the time is to prioritize it. “You have to make a decision to put exercise into your day, it’s not just magically going to happen.”
Ms. Johnston used to try and squeeze exercise into her life by doing things like taking the stairs instead of the elevator,
“But that never really stuck or gave me any validation that I was doing anything meaningful,” she said. “Giving exercise a distinct place in my life was motivating.”
If you think of exercise as optional, you give yourself permission to skip it. Instead, try thinking of it as an essential part of your job, said Brad Stulberg, author of “The Practice of Groundedness” and a frequent writer about human performance.
This activity is time you give yourself to workout, get a sweat on and care for your health and wellness. it's a priority to keep you going strong day to day and it's something that you should know that it's a priority worth the extra mile and that extra time you put in. its time for you and yourself.
5. Be flexible.
Making exercise a priority doesn’t mean you need a rigid schedule. A study Dr. Milkman and some colleagues published in 2020 found giving yourself flexibility to meet your goals might boost your chance of success. Researchers studied more than 2,500 Google employees, randomly assigning some of them to get paid for going to the company gym during a window of time one group had identified in advance as the most manageable time, while others could opt to go anytime. The researchers had expected that committing to specific times would help people form stronger habits, said lead author John Beshears, a behavioral economist at Harvard Business School. Instead, the people who’d been given flexibility ended up going more often after the payments ended.
When the group on the rigid program missed their planned workout, they didn’t go at all, whereas the group that had practiced finding the time continued to do so, Dr. Milkman said.
Adapting is just like training, our human bodies are incredible at adapting and going along with the journey, so we can shift our minds to know that this moment is a good change and allowing more flexibility will lead to a healthier you and the feeling of being accomplish finishing that activity you were dreading earlier.
6. Get some support.
“The best fitness motivator is a friend. They hold you accountable to show up and they support you when you don’t,” Mr. Stulberg said.
In one 2017 study, Dr. Heinrich interviewed CrossFit gym owners and coaches and found that feelings of community were a strong motivator for people who continued with the classes.
“It’s not that you have to go, it’s that you want to go and are drawn in by the group,” she said.
Having a cheerleader on the sidelines can also give you a boost, Dr. Steltenpohl said, by affirming that you’re putting in the work and acknowledging the obstacles you’ve faced.
Having a coach or friend ride along, pace, or do a hard route with you will most definitely make you push harder and get stronger. some days I will schedule in Pace sessions with my athletes to keep them motivated to keep riding and getting stronger. I have seen great success in doing this as it boosts enjoyment of being one on one with a coach and having live motivation coming from me to keep them going strong.
If you work out alone, having someone to check in with can be helpful.
7. Create an environment for success.
Look for ways to make your surroundings more inviting for physical activity, Dr. Steltenpohl said. Find or create a place where exercise feels enticing.
That could be a gym, a park, a walking path or even just your bedroom with an exercise mat and a fitness app, she said. The key is that your surroundings are priming you to succeed.
8. Anticipate how exercise will make you feel.
It’s tempting to think you’re too stressed or tired to exercise, but oftentimes exercise is exactly what you need to feel better.
“You don’t need to feel good to get going, you need to get going to feel good,” Mr. Stulberg said.
Exercise can help you manage your moods, Dr. Steltenpohl said, and when you’re feeling lousy, sometimes exercise is a powerful antidote.
Last But not Least...9. If you slip, try to get back on track right away.
TRY TRY AGAIN
The most effective trick identified in the 24 Hour Fitness megastudy was to incentivize people to get back on track when they missed a session. In this scenario, people committed to coming to the gym on certain days and times, and if they missed one of these planned visits, they’d get a reminder and also a chance to earn extra points if they made their next planned visit. (Participants earned points that they could convert to Amazon cash.) It didn’t take much — about nine cents in extra points — to get people back to the gym, and Dr. Milkman theorizes that it’s the signal “don’t miss your workout twice” that nudged people, rather than the trivial bonus. You could imagine making this more potent by joining the gym with friends, she said.
Its OK to have an off day were you just need to say NO. thats ok and it happens to us all. the best way you can come out of a day like that is forward thinking. think of all these tips and tricks to gain motivation and think, tomorrow is a fresh start. Every day is a fresh start so dont fret about the one time you missed. Focus on looking forward to tomorrow and what the day holds for you.
BE POSITIVE. having that positive outlook will keep you from feeling bad and you will most definitely have a higher change feeling ready to get out and work out the next day then punishing yourself because you missed a day.One way you can jump back into it is finding a group ride on a scheduled time, or a group gym workout that's live and on a schedule. you then have a certain time to make it and you know people will be there to go along with you.
With that, we hope these tips help you out of a funk you can encounter some days. we all go through it and it can be difficult to navigate, but knowing ways to get around it and be aware that it can happen will create the power of knowledge to keep on going strong!
As always....
Be Kind, Do FearlessLet us know what you think of today's topic!
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