Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Steps to Take Your Fitness to the Next Level

  So you've spent the first couple weeks at the gym on the treadmill to get acclimated and then moved on to some machines and bodyweight exercise and started to see a change in your body.  You feel good and are pretty happy about the way things are going and then boom!!, you stop experiencing that changes that once came easy to you.  You're not losing anymore weight, you're not getting any stronger, and you don't even break a sweat from your workout anymore. 

You may be due for a workout routine change, but really there is something else you need to change to really step up your game.

In one word, it's ATTITUDE.

 You've now reached the point where simply just doing something isn't cutting it anymore.  You need to start working harder, and that takes a serious attitude change.  You need a different approach, and here is some helpful tips on how to change, adapt, and develop your new workout attitude.

     1.  Goal setting

  Now that you've made working out part of your routine, you need to set an attainable goal in a fixed time period.  It's easy to loaf around the gym when your have no clear cut reason to be there.  Working out to lose weight and be healthy is too broad of a goal to actually work hard towards.  However, there is a sense of urgency when you know you're trying to lose 10lbs of body fat in 8 weeks.  This goal is most certainly attainable, if you make yourself accountable and remind yourself of this goal before every workout, and every meal. 

 To make yourself even more accountable, tell your friends and love ones of the goal you've set for yourself.  Even if you forget to remind yourself, the constant reminders from the ones close to you should motivate you even further.

      2.  Buy-in completely

  If you are baking a cake, and you add maybe a half cup more of sugar or flour than you were supposed to; does the cake still end up tasting good?  Most likely not because baking is a science.  All the ingredients serve a specific purpose, and if you try and eyeball measurements, or skip ingredients, you end up with expensive dog food.

  If you are lucky enough to be following a program that was made for you by a trainer, or if your following a routine from a fitness magazine, follow it to a T!  Chances are you sought out this information because you did not know how to do it yourself, so why change it?  Also, do not flip flop through different routines.  Stick to the same routine for about 6-8 weeks unless noted otherwise.  Otherwise your just wasting the potential of every routine that you do.

  3. Change Your Environment!

  This is a big one.  Since your going to have to work harder to obtain your goals, you have to get focused the second you get into the gym; actually probably before you even get their.  Nothing else can matter for that hour or so that your working out.  If your doing heavy squats, you have no time to worry about what's on TV, how many emails you received, or what's for dinner (you should already know that anyway).  Find out how to get focused and stay there.

  For me, getting focused has a lot to do with who I'm working out with and the overall gym environment .  If my workout partner is more interested in the babes on the treadmills, or singing along to the RENT soundtrack playing on his/her Ipod, then we are not going to get to far. 

Find someone that will push you to perform better each time you workout with one another.  You will hold each other accountable and push each other beyond your limits in the process.

  If your gym is more interested in monthly pizza parties and doesn't give you the tools or resources to improve, then it's time to take your money elsewhere. 

A good gym gives individual assessments, gives you attainable goals, and helps you work towards that goal with workout information and different options like group exercise classes to keep you motivated.

  So my question to you all is what keeps you motivated?  How do you get focused and push through plateaus in your training?  Drop your comments in the box below. 

No comments:

Post a Comment