Lacking the Motivation to Exercise?

Okay, so you’ve signed up with your personal trainer and have a clear plan of attack.  You’ve been training for a few weeks consistently and you’re beginning to see results.  In the past week, you haven’t been quite as motivated to get out of bed because it’s so cold.  Then, today, being as miserable as it was, you fought and internal battle with yourself as to whether or not to exercise.  I mean, it is so tempting just to skip that gym workout and stay rugged up and comfortable, isn’t it?

Yes, the temptation to skip a workout is certainly a strong one, particularly on days like these (in Sydney today it’s been cold, wet and miserable!).  But, as I have blogged about previously in “Avoiding Excuses not to Exercise“, you need to identify that the temptation NOT to exercise is an emotional response to your current situation.  This is what can bring about an “excuse”, which is ultimately an emotional reaction that is rationalised through some form of unjustifiable logic.  This is a perfectly natural human response because we are emotional by nature.

The trick to overcoming lack of motivation to exercise is to look at cause and effect in the short- and long-term.  This separates us from the emotional component of the “excuse”, and looks at the objective consequence of either doing the workout, or not doing the workout.  For example:

NOT doing the workout is going to make you much happier in the next hour, but might make you feel really guilty in a couple of hours time.  Plus, it’s not going to do any good for your health and fitness goals.

DOING the workout may not be the most desirable choice for the next hour of your life.  But once that hour is complete, you are going to feel GREAT!  You will feel energised, motivated, excited and happy with yourself!  You’ll ask yourself “What was I thinking wanting to skip that workout!?”.

So ask yourself, which would you rather – short-term gratification or long-term gratification?  The former will provide instant comfort, whilst the latter will provide long-lasting happiness and self-satisfaction.

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Exercising When You Are Sick

I’m sure that at some point in your life, you have said that you were feeling ill and someone suggested to “sweat it out”.  I’m not just talking a sniffle, I’m talking about the flu, a sinus infection, tonsillitis, a gastro bug or something relatively severe.  Is it really a good idea to continue exercising when you are sick?

The answer is no, it isn’t a good idea to continue exercising when you are sick.  If you go and see your doctor, probably the first thing they will say to you is to stop exercising.  Quite frankly, you cannot “sweat out” an infection.

Let’s consider exactly why it is not wise to exercise when you are sick.  In order to understand why it is not wise to continue your training, you need to first understand exactly what exercise is.  Exercise:

• Requires physical exertion
• Makes you feel tired, lethargic and sore
• Runs your body down

Exercise, in itself, is actually a form of stress that you are placing on your body.  It is not actually doing your body any favours whether you are completely healthy or violently ill!  Exercise is however a stimulus for recovery.  Recovery, after your bout of exercise, is the process in which we become fitter, stronger and healthier.

Consider that you are ill.  Your body is already devoting most of it’s resources to fighting off infection.  But then, you go ahead and exercise which places all this additional physical stress upon your systems!  Following the exercise session, you now have to recover from infection AND recover from exercise!  Since you only have finite resources to recover, you have now reduced your body’s capability to fight off infection.  In all actuality, you may actually be encouraging further infection!

So the key is to listen to your body.  If you are sick, tired and run-down, rest up.  Don’t overdo it, otherwise those nasties may just get a really good hold of you.

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Muscle Strength and Muscle Size Aren’t the Same

It makes sense that the more muscle you carry, the stronger you are, right?  Well actually, muscle size and muscle strength are two separate components.  Let’s look into this a little further.

Consider a bodybuilder and an olympic weight lifter.  A bodybuilder is quite large in size with extremely well developed muscles.  An olympic weight lifter is generally much smaller than a bodybuilder.  Bodybuilders train for size, whilst weight lifters train for strength.

There are two primary reasons why muscle size and muscle strength are not directly proportional to each other:

1. Muscle fibre composition

Within a muscle, there are many different types of fibres present.  You may be aware of “fast-twitch” and “slow-twitch”, or type I, type IIa, IIb and IIc.  Slow twitch muscle fibres, or type I muscle fibres are not very strong at all and are able to produce a similar force output over a sustained period of time.  Type II muscle fibres can produce substantially more force in a short period of time.

So, someone with well developed type I muscle fibres may have an amazing endurance capacity, yet will be relatively weak compared to someone with well developed type II muscle fibres.

2. Neurological Development

When you perform a new movement, you are extremely weak at it.  This is particularly true with complex movements, such as a “clean and jerk”.  As you practice the new movement, you become more efficient at lifting more weight.  This is not necessarily because your muscles are getting stronger, but rather your brain is learning how to perform the motion in the most effective way.  Every time you perform this motion, it is able to recruit muscles in a more efficient manner so less effort is wasted.

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I remember back in my early days of training giving a friend an arm wrestle.  I could lift far more weight on various gym based exercises relative to my friend.  My friend was a labourer and lifted things all day long.  My muscles were far better developed (size wise) than his.

Guess what – I lost at the arm wrestle miserably!

Why?  Well, my friend had a very good ability to generate short bouts of force due to lifting heavy objects at work.  He also didn’t perform strict movements, but rather more functional, everyday movements. I on the other hand was very effective at performing strict gym based exercises, but when it came to an arm wrestle (something very foreign to my brain), I was highly inefficient at generating force.  I also did not train so much for strength, but rather muscle size.

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Do I Need to Drink Protein Powder?

“Do I need to drink protein powder” is a common question that plagues many newcomers to the gym.  The answer to this question depends very much upon your goals, experience, body and lifestyle.

If you read my blog regularly, you’ll be well aware that I am a strong believer in getting the basics down pat first.  This means establishing a sound exercise and nutritional regime based on whole foods.  Once these area’s have been established and are implemented consistently into your lifestyle, supplements can be considered to enhance your results.

Protein powders can be wonderful things.  By drinking them, they allow your body to absorb high quality proteins much quicker than from whole food.  They also provide a convenient and easy to consume source of protein.

So, let’s discuss a few common types of protein powders and when they would be suitable for consumption.

Immediately Prior to a Workout

This is of particular use if you are performing a high intensity workout and require readily available amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) upon the conclusion of your workout.  The fastest and best quality proteins from supplements are called whey protein isolates and generally take 60-90 minutes to absorb.

If your goal is to build muscle, enhance your fitness or lose weight, a protein shake prior to a workout could be highly beneficial for you.  The greatest benefits will be obtained if your workout is of a high intensity nature.  If you are performing a low intensity workout, your body will not require an abundant supply of amino acids and you will expel most of these unused molecules.

Immediately After a Workout

In order to “top-up” your supply, a fast acting and high quality protein powder is highly recommended immediately following a high intensity workout.  Whey protein isolate is again the best option.  This is an ideal compliment to drinking a pre-workout protein powder.  The post-workout protein shake will be absorbed within 60-90 minutes and thus provide more amino acids to assist in recovery.

During the Remainder of the Day

If you’re looking to increase your protein intake, then drinking a protein shake during the day could be a great way to accomplish this.  Don’t spend excess money on whey protein isolates; you could get away with whey protein concentrate or even a high quality protein blend.

You may want to drink a protein powder during the day for various reasons:

• You want a low calorie meal as a snack for weight loss
• You want to boost your protein intake in order to continue building muscle
• You are training heavily and need proteins to facilitate recovery
• Your daily dietary intake is deficient in protein and you require a quick and easy way to boost your intake

It is imperative that you do not rely on a protein powder during the day as a primary source of protein.  A protein powder should only compliment a well-rounded food intake from whole foods.

Finally, if you feel that you are ready to try out a protein supplement, please be sure to check out our protein powders.

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I Feel Pain When Exercising!

If you’re serious about your health and fitness goals, you’ll know how frustrating an injury can be when you are trying to follow a consistent and strict exercise regime!

Injuries can occur in all shapes and sizes.  You may feel some minor discomfort within a muscle or joint.  At the other end of the spectrum, you may be unable to walk from a slipped disc.

As far as I’m concerned, there is a very important rule to abide to whenever you feel pain when exercising that you have been previously unaware of:

STOP what you are doing!

I cannot articulate it any more frankly than that.  Pain is a signal that your body sends to you in order to stop you from performing a certain action.  It is an evolutionary trait that enables us to identify when something is wrong and therefore we can avoid aggravating that injury any further.

I once read in a sports journal that elite athletes obtain frequent injuries due to the highly intensive nature of their physical training.  The majority of these injuries are minor and easily remedied with the induction of some appropriate recovery mechanisms (rest, massage, stretching etc.).  Most major injuries occur as a result of aggravating these minor injuries to the point where the athlete is significantly hindered by the injury.

It is extremely tempting to just “push through” injury pain, particularly when you are chasing after some challenging goals.  Keep in mind though, a minor injury that can be remedied within a matter of days can very quickly manifest itself into an injury that can plague you for years to come.  This is most easily accomplished by ignoring the warning signs of feeling pain when exercising.

Here are some common examples of injuries that people have identified to me in the past:

• Shoulder pain from bench press
• Achilles pain from running
• Shin splints from running
• Knee pain from deep squats
• Back pain often from poor lifting technique

Rather than pushing through the pain and inevitably making things worse, have it checked out by a physical therapist.  You will then be prescribed a specific rehabilitory program that your personal trainer can implement into your training regime.

Train hard, but more importantly, train smart!

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Exercising to Insanity

I’ve quoted Einstein numerous times in many of my articles before.  This blog post is no different.  Einstein once famously said:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”

Consider this in relation to exercise.  It’s interesting that many people will continue to exercise, performing exactly the same thing for long periods of time without experiencing any progress toward their health and fitness goal.

I want you to analyse what you’ve been doing recently and whether or not you are seeing any considerable progress.  If you are, then that’s great and you’re obviously doing a good job.  If not, you need to have a close look at what you’re doing and find out what needs to be changed…because something does!

Probably the biggest trap that I see many people fall into is to perform exactly the same workout for many weeks, months or years.  Some examples may include:

1. Walking on the treadmill at 6km/h for an hour
2. Performing 10kg dumbbell bicep curls, then 40kg bench press, then 45kg lat pulldown a few times a week
3. Performing a circuit class regularly at the same intensity

Can you see the problem here?  What these three examples have in common is that there is no reason for the body to adapt.  Exactly the same workout is being performed, so the body will become comfortable with the workout.  You won’t become any fitter on the treadmill, you won’t become stronger lifting the same weights and you won’t be burning any additional calories by keeping the circuit workout at the same intensity.  This approach is going to maintain your current fitness levels and is a highly ineffective way to enhance your body and mind.

Nearly three years ago, I wrote an article for Amino Z and also Australian IronMan Magazine which deals with this topic in much more detail, entitled “The Art of Adaptation“.  If you have been doing exactly the same thing and yet seeing minimal results, I would highly recommend that you read this article in order to change your mindset on exercise.

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Avoiding Excuses to Not Exercise

If you are pursuing a health and fitness goal, making an excuse to avoid exercise is a sure-fire way to break your consistent streak and diminish your hopes for success.

You may have read my blog post, “The Most Effective Workouts” where I suggested that the most effective workouts are the ones you don’t want to do.  Well, this post on avoiding excuse making is an elaboration upon this concept.

An excuse will initially emerge purely as an emotional reaction to a given circumstance.  For example, you may feel tired, stressed, annoyed or frustrated. A perfect “excuse” to avoid exercising! Yet this emotional reaction is quickly justified by a seemingly logical explanation.  For example, “I’d better exercise tomorrow because I’m tired so I won’t give my workout 100%” or “I’m really annoyed by that guy at work so I just don’t want to be around people at the gym tonight!”.  In the moment, an excuse will make perfect sense once it is rationalised.  However, once an objective dissection of the excuse is performed, it is quickly realised that there was no acceptable justification to the excuse.  Considering the above two excuses as examples:

“I’d better exercise tomorrow because I’m tired so I won’t give my workout 100%”
Once you initiate exercise, you will become energised.  Try it for yourself and see how great you feel once the endorphins kick in!  Exercise is going to fix your tiredness.  Avoiding exercise now is just being lazy!

“I’m really annoyed by that guy at work so I just don’t want to be around people at the gym tonight!”
Going to the gym would probably take your mind off the problem and put you in a much better mood for the remainder of the evening.  Take your frustrations out by putting in that little additional intensity.  Plus, those trusty endorphins will lift your mood considerably!

Not long ago, I was englightened to a strategy that aided in overcoming excuses.  The key is to consider excuse when you’re not “in the moment” when emotions will inevitably take precedence over logic.  So here’s something to try out:

1. Draw up a table with three columns.
2. Compile a list of all the excuses you have made in the past, or that you can see yourself making in the future to avoid exercising.  Be honest with yourself!
3. Next to each excuse in the second column, write down the implications of following through with that excuse.
4. In the third column, write down the implications of ignoring that excuse and continuing on with your plan anyway.

This way, you’ve pre-identified each possible excuse that you’re likely to make.  When the time comes that you feel like making that excuse, you review your peice of paper.  This paper allows you to bring some objectivity to your decision making in order to avoid the highly subjective and persuasive nature of excuse making.

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Setting New Goals and Why to NEVER Maintain

We are highly intelligent creatures where we can set a goal, develop a plan and accomplish that goal, given that it was of reasonable nature.  But what happens when you achieve that goal?

The latest audio book that I am listening to is by Earl Nightingale, entitled “Lead the Field”.  Earl discusses goal setting and defines success as “success is the progressive realisation of a worthy goal or in some cases, the pursuit of a worthy ideal”.  This means that anyone who is on track to achieve a worthy goal is successful.  This definition really got me thinking and you know what, I believe that it is absolutely true.

In a health and fitness context, we set goals and are motivated to achieve these goals.  The joy of success occurs as we pursue our goal and once the goal is attained and realised.  However, the excitement is never maintained once we have achieved a particular goal.  You may feel content and proud of yourself, yet you will no longer have that inner-drive and exhilaration that you experienced on the journey toward your goal.

This is an all too often unforeseen trap of many fitness endeavours.  Whether you want to build muscle, lose fat or improve your fitness you may get to your initial goal.  But here’s the catch.  Once you reach that initial goal, if you decide to maintain that goal, you may very well be setting yourself up for failure.  After all, how motivating is it to “maintain” your current bodyweight?

The key is to congratulate yourself on achieving that particular goal and then set another goal.  The new goal may not even closely resemble the goal that you have just obtained.  Here are a few examples:

Goal Achieved: You lost 20kg.
New Goal: Increase muscle by 2kg.

Goal Achieved: You lost 45kg.
New Goal: Lose another 5kg.

Goal Achieved: You gained 5kg of muscle tissue.
New Goal: Be able to run a marathon.

Goal Achieved: You are able to perform 20 push-ups on your toes.
New Goal: Reduce your waist size by 5cm.

Of course, these should be “S.M.A.R.T.” goals, of which I discussed in a previous goal setting blog post.

Speaking personally, if I didn’t continually set, assess and then reset goals, I would have become bored of the health and fitness scene many years ago.  What keeps me going in each workout is the pursuit of a brand new goal.  It’s what keeps my training exciting.  If your training isn’t exciting, then you should re-consider your approach.

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Phases in Developing an Exercise Routine

If you want to obtain significant results with regards to any health and fitness goal, the key is consistency.  Consistency is established by developing a routine.

There are three primary phases in developing an exercise routine that you will go through once you have decided to be proactive in achieving a particular long-term goal:

Phase 1: Initiation of a routine

This is often the most exciting part to your exercise.  You’ve made the conscious decision start exercising and eating well.  Your motivation levels are sky high and nothing, absolutely NOTHING is going to stop you!  You look forward to kicking your old lazy and unhealthy eating habits once and for all!

This initial period typically lasts for a few weeks.  Just watch out that you don’t have unrealistic expectations of yourself.  Even though you may be really motivated at this point, you need to ask yourself whether or not you can adhere to the promises you are making yourself and what you are communicating to your personal trainer.  For example, can you really exercise six days per week?  Will you be able to get up at 5am every morning, even in the cold Winter months? Can you really avoid junk food 24/7?

It is typical of this phase to want everything as quickly as possible.  Big results are desired immediately.  Be very careful that you are not setting yourself up for failure by asking for too much, too quickly, without considering a long-term approach.

This is the ideal time to obtain a personal trainer to set you up in the right direction.  Without the assistance of a professional, if you are unaware of what you are doing, you could very easily lose control during phase 2.

Phase 2: Implementation of the Routine

You’ve been exercising for a month and you’re not quite seeing the dramatic changes that you initially expected.  You wanted to lose twice as much weight and build three times as much muscle!  Is all this hard effort really paying off?  Are you ever going to achieve your desired results?  How much longer are you going to wait!? Alternatively, you may be seeing results, BIG results, but you are having trouble adhering to the routine and can’t wait to revert back to “normal” eating practices!

You lose that “spark” that you had a month ago and it now becomes acceptable to miss a workout here and there.  You’ve also stopped watching what you eat.

Sound familiar?  Well, it’s a reality for most people who begin a new exercise and dietary routine.  Whether it’s a month or three months, eventually you will come to a point where you may question whether or not your investment into this newly formed routine is really worth all the effort.  Motivation levels drop.

During phase 2, this is where it is critical that you find a way to overcome these doubts and struggles that you may have.  The intervention of a fitness professional is often invaluable so he/she can advise you, objectively, what you need to do and give you a clear and informed  sense of direction to re-ignite that motivation and inner-drive.

It would come as no surprise that this is where most people drop the exercise and nutritional routine altogether and revert back to old habits.  This is why most people do not last more than eight weeks with a new exercise routine.  Often, these failures are caused by unrealistic expectations, poor direction, inadequate planning and uninformed exercise/nutritional program development in phase 1.

Phase 3: Developing a Lifestyle

Exercise and healthy eating is now part of your everyday life.  You don’t consciously think about going into the gym, nor do you  consciously think about avoiding junk food on a regular basis.  You just do it, automatically.  You have created a lifestyle where healthy eating and exercise fits seamlessly into your life and you don’t give either of them a second thought.

It can take anywhere from twelve weeks to twelve years (or more) to reach this point!  Some people will never reach phase 3, and alternate between phases 1 and 2 for their entire life.

Unfortunately, it’s a reality that the minority of people survive phase 2 and get onto phase 3.  Phase 3 is truly the holy grail of health and fitness.  You have found how to integrate a healthy routine into your lifestyle without it creating friction with other area’s of your life.

This is not to say that during phase 3 you do not have goals.  Far from it.  During phase 3, you continuously assess your progress and set new goals for yourself.  However, you do so knowing that these goals are a long-term project and something that is to be obtained with careful planning and execution for optimal results.

If you can get to this point, you begin to truly appreciate the many levels to self-development.  No longer is it about weight loss or muscle gain; it’s about improving who you are.

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So hopefully this provides you with some insight as to the phases in developing an exercise routine.

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More Exercise is Not Always Better

When starting a new exercise program, it can be really tempting to do as much as possible in order to maximise the benefits of exercise.  Consider these viewpoints that seem to make perfect sense:

• I should run more to burn more calories and therefore burn more fat
• I should lift weights for longer and more often in order to build more muscle
• My fitness will improve faster if I train three times a day, seven days a week!

There is one major flaw in this approach to exercise.  Recovery is not being considered.

Recovery is the time in which your body has an opportunity to repair and rebuild itself.  Without giving your body a chance to recover, you run the risk of overtraining.  Overtraining means many things including:

• Hitting a plateau and not seeing any results
• Reducing your appetite
• Gaining fat, losing muscle and decreasing your level of fitness
• Becoming moody and easily irritated
• Reducing quality of sleep
• Affecting your hormonal levels

Let’s consider muscle gain, fat loss and fitness improvement and see why it is not always better to do more exercise.  Because this can be a highly complex topic, I’m just going to touch on the main points.

Muscle Gain

No muscle growth happens inside the gym. Lifting weights is only stimulating muscles to grow when they can, which is when they are rested.  Exercising muscles too often is, in my experience, the number one reason why people do not see muscle growth.

Lifting weights for too long or too often can also increase the amount of cortisol secretion which encourages muscle breakdown.

Doing too much can inhibit sleep cycles. Quality sleep is imperative for hormonal release to assist in muscle synthesis.

It is imperative that you feed your body to encourage recovery.  A reduced appetite will inhibit your body’s ability to build muscle.

Fat Loss

Exercising too often will run the body down and thus will inhibit the body’s ability to oxidise fat tissue and maintain muscle mass.  Muscle mass is key to fat loss, since muscle is a highly metabolically active tissue, meaning that it expends lots of calories just being there!

The intensity of each workout will lessen due to your body being so run down.  Thus, each workout will expend a lower number of calories.

Cortisol again plays an important role with fat loss.  High cortisol levels, which can result from excessive exercise, can encourage fat disposition.

Sleep cycles will be inhibited.  Good quality sleep is paramount to fat loss as a number of studies have shown. The exact chemical pathways are still up for debate at present.

Hormones are highly responsible for the amount of body fat that you can oxidise.  If these are out of balance, which can be the case from too much exercise, you will not experience optimal results.

Fitness Improvement

Your fitness improves as a result of your body recovering from exercise and thus developing it’s cardiovascular fitness.  By inhibiting the recovery process, you inhibit your body’s ability to enhance it’s fitness level.

Muscles are unable to repair and rebuild themselves due to heightened cortisol levels, reduced sleep quality, imbalanced hormonal levels and reduced calorie intake.

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So, it should be fairly obvious that recovery is imperative to big results. If you’d like to learn more on this topic, I’d suggest signing up to our free weight loss course, Conquering Your Body.

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