7 Things I Do When I’m Not Motivated to Strength Train….
I love strength training. I’ve loved strength training since I was 13 years old. However, I’m human and my motivation going into any given strength workout sometimes wanes. By motivation, I don’t mean my deep-rooted, intrinsic motivation. By motivation, I’m referring to my in-that-moment excitement or fervor for my workouts. Here’s my (mostly unscientific) list of things that drive passion for my next workout. I hope you can borrow a couple of these and, more importantly, do some reflection on your own list. Note: I purposely left off anything that refers to the motivation of long-term health-protective benefits (or any long-term benefits, for that matter); the research is pretty clear that although we are all aware of long-term benefits, knowledge of these benefits doesn’t drive our immediate actions.
Request a “Variety” Workout. Instead of performing my normally scheduled workout, I’ll request that the exercise physiologist I’m working with take me through a totally different workout. Different exercises; different order of exercises; different movement speeds; different rep ranges; the options are nearly endless. The mental shift in what we are doing in the workout will almost always spark some excitement. Another major benefit is that I don’t feel the “pressure” of doing as many reps as I did during the previous workout. Comparison or the pressure to improve is removed, and I can just focus on working hard with great form.
Watch other people strength train. Admittedly, this is a huge unfair advantage that I have. Every time I work with a client and personally train them through a workout, my excitement about my next workout increases. Likewise, every time I put one of the Discover Strength staff through a workout, I can barely contain my enthusiasm for my next workout.
Watch Rocky 4. This is self-explanatory. Nearly ALL of the exercise in every Rocky movie is nonsensical, but I grew up watching Rocky, and watching any training montage ignites a fire. RIP Carl Weathers.
Change the DS location. I love performing my strength training workouts at a variety of locations with a variety of trainers. I look forward to the variation of equipment and coaching styles. Walking into a location in which I haven’t performed a workout in a few months always makes that workout a bit more compelling.
Take seven days off. I religiously strength train twice per week. If I’m losing motivation, I’ll intentionally skip a workout, and the result is that I’m always that much more excited for my next workout. Doing this a few times per year won’t negatively impede my progress and always stokes my anticipation.
Spend all my mental energy focusing on how I will feel immediately after the workout. The acute benefits of a strength training workout are powerful. No matter how my day is going and how I’m feeling, within five minutes of completing the workout, I feel at least 20% better. And this feeling lasts all day long. When I don’t want to strength train, I remind myself that I really DO want to feel great the rest of the day.
I do a bit of reading or learning around strength training. Howard Schultze, the former, long-time CEO of Starbucks, said, and I paraphrase, “We are always taught that if we are passionate about something, we’ll be compelled to learn more about it… At Starbucks, we’ve found that it's actually inverted. It’s not that passion leads to learning; it's that our learning drives our passion.” I can still remember an Amtrak ride from Chicago to Minneapolis in 2004 when I read the brand-new book, “The New High Intensity Training” by Dr. Ellington Darden. I couldn’t wait to get off that train and get to my next workout. I spend every Saturday morning reading scientific journal articles as a foundation of my passion. A few of my favorite strength training authors include Dr. Ellington Darden, Dr. Doug McGuff, Dr. Wayne Westcott, Matt Brzycki, and Pete Cerqua.
