CHAPTER 12
Tips to Keep You Focused and Motivated
“Maintain a positive attitude and the long-term goals will take care of themselves.”
– Arnold Schwarzenegger, on how to keep going over the long term.
Chances are you’re fairly new to working out. And unfortunately, if you’re like most North Americans, at least 50 percent of you will quit working out after the first month. By six months the number will have increased to about 75 percent. By the end of the year only about 10 percent of those who first began will still be hitting the gym on a regular basis. While the reasons are varied and mixed, most people who stop training do so because they become bored and unmotivated.
Well let’s see if we can do something about that. Here are 12 tips to help keep you motivated and focused on your workouts. They’re all easy to implement, free, and virtually guaranteed to work!
1 Get a workout buddy. There’s nothing like a workout partner to kick your ass on those less-than-energetic days. Likewise, you can kick his (or hers!) on days he or she feels sluggish. A good training partner knows when to push you a little bit harder and when to give you slack. The two of you can have mini competitions. At the very least you’ll have someone to keep you focused on training, and not worried about work or something distracting in your home life.
2 Fit yourself in. As crazy as it sounds, you may have to add your name to your day planner. If it takes making your workout one of your daily appointments, then so be it. The benefit of this is that it helps you balance your workouts with other daily activities such as family, work or school. You will be more successful and bound to stick with it if you make working out part of your lifestyle.
3 Pace yourself. Don’t think that you’re going to develop the body you want overnight. It probably took you years to get out of shape. A couple of weeks of all-out training will do nothing but make you incredibly stiff and sore, unwilling to work out and hating the sight of a dumbell or barbell. It’s far better to train only two or three days a week year after year than to train seven days a week for one month and then quit because you’re burned out. Remember, consistency is the key.
4 Rise and shine and work out! The last thing you may want to do bright and early in the morning is hit the gym. But if you find yourself going home after work or school and flopping on the couch, give it a try. By working out early in the morning you’ll be sure of getting it done, you’ll feel energized throughout the day, and your morning workout will prevent everything else in life from getting in the way of your all-important health and fitness goals.
Photos of David Rylah by Alex Ardenti
5 The scale – who cares? Unless you have a huge amount of fat to lose, don’t worry about your bodyweight. A ten-pound loss of fat and a ten-pound gain of muscle will make a huge difference in your appearance, clothes size and health, but the scales will show no change. Other than as a general guide for extremely overweight people, the scale is practically useless for measuring fitness success.
6 Pick a role model. There’s nothing like having someone to look up to, to keep you focused on your goals. Literally millions of people look up to Arnold Schwarzenegger for this reason. From a naive 19-year-old who stepped off a plane in 1968 speaking no English to world’s greatest bodybuilder, top Hollywood star and governor of California, Arnold knows a thing or two about motivation and staying focused. We’re sure there are many “mini-Arnolds” in your life. They could be teachers, co-workers or someone in the gym who overcame horrendous odds to get where he is. On those days you don’t feel like working out or doing that extra set, ask yourself what would your role model do? We thought so. Now do that extra set!
7 Keep track of your success. One of the best ways to know where you’re going is to know where you’ve been. For a few dollars you can pick up a training journal and start recording such things as the amount of cardio, the exercises, the reps, sets and weight used on each exercise, and how you feel and why. Were you up late the night before? Did you eat a heavy meal before coming to the gym? Forget to eat altogether? Periodically looking in your journal will give you plenty of insight. You can see how different exercises and routines affect you, and you can see just how far you’ve come. Your present warmup weights were once your workout weights. Those 20-minute cardio sessions two or three times per week have been replaced by four 45-minute high-intensity workouts. So even if sometimes you feel you’re going nowhere, your workout journal is telling you otherwise. Keep at it!
8 Get back on track. Missing a workout is not that big a deal. In fact, if you’ve been working out consistently an extra day off every month or so is recommended. But for many people, one day off becomes two days off, two becomes three, and before long they’re skipping weeks on end. The gym becomes just a memory. This is similar to the dieter who, because she’s eaten a cookie, eats the entire bag of cookies and a quart of chocolate ice cream. Setbacks and missed workouts are perfectly normal. But the quicker you get back on track, the quicker you will reach your fitness goals. Try to remember that health and fitness is not about being perfect. It is a way of life. Don’t view your workouts as being all or none. Just be consistent.
Work hard in the gym, and then get out!
Photos of David Rylah by Alex Ardenti
9 Evaluate your progress on a regular basis. If you don’t check your progress regularly you’ll be less inclined to push yourself and stay focused. For example, you may be lifting the same weight for the same number of reps month after month. If you’re happy with the way you are and just want to maintain a reasonable level of fitness, then that’s fine. But chances are you would like to actually improve – increase your strength, gain muscle mass, look better and have more energy. Unless you evaluate your strength, size and cardio levels on a regular basis, you won’t feel inclined to push yourself.
10 Get to the gym! We all have days when we just don’t want to work out. We’d sooner go home and lie back on the couch with a soda or beer. But don’t. Force yourself to go to the gym. Tell yourself you will just do the first exercise then go home. Odds are that within the first 10 to 15 minutes you’ll start feeling energized and have a great workout. Sometimes the days when you have the least energy to begin with end up being the days you have your best workouts. You’ll feel especially great about it, because you had originally planned to skip the gym, remember?
11 Change it up. Nothing zaps motivation and drive like monotony. Doing the same routine over and over will leave even the most die-hard fitness fanatics bored. That’s why you should change your training routine every month or so. The change doesn’t have to be radical, either. Something as simple as increasing or decreasing the number of reps may boost your enthusiasm. Try changing the exercises on a regular basis as well. If you mainly use machines, then give free weights a try. If you always start your chest training with flat barbell presses, try doing incline dumbell or barbell presses. Or start with back instead of chest. Use the pre-exhaust system for a change. If you’re really stuck in a rut, give your workout a total overhaul and combine the muscles into different groups. Usually do low reps and heavy weights? Try doing high reps with low weights. Do whatever it takes to get you back on track and focused.
12 Take some planned time off. Even though earlier I said to force yourself to the gym, there will be times when taking a few days or even a whole week off is recommended. Often one of the major signs of overtraining is a decrease in training drive and motivation. In simple terms, your body is not getting a chance to fully recover before the next workout. Before long you’re experiencing burnout. This is when the novice weight trainer is most likely to quit altogether. If you’ve been working out regularly for months on end, if you’ve tried all the other tips and nothing is helping, get out your calendar and block out one or two weeks to not train. Make sure to write the dates on a calendar, because randomly taking time off without a plan could turn into a permanent layoff. Unless you’ve really lost interest in training, a week or two off will have you chomping at the bit to get back to the gym, and if overtraining was indeed the cause of your motivation lapse, then you should come back stronger than ever.
Photos of David Rylah by Alex Ardenti