I Didn’t Want to Work Out on Tuesday Night
I had a workout scheduled at 7:30 p.m. with Edwin at our Northeast Minneapolis location this week. I didn’t want to do it. I look forward to 97% of my strength training workouts. I was not looking forward to this one.
I have my excuses: I had an early flight to Houston on Tuesday morning and flew back on Tuesday afternoon. I landed at about 6:00 p.m., and the idea of going home sounded better than going to a workout. I needed to get on my computer and get to work yet that night. My Wednesday morning was going to be an early morning and a full-on day. In general, I had a lot on my mind. I’m fully aware that the key to a productive strength training workout is intensity, and I just didn’t feel like I wanted to be intense (and thus, the workout would be unproductive).
I DID go to the workout and had one of my best workouts in many weeks. This is why it was a great workout (and my thought process):
I had the workout scheduled with Edwin, and thus, I really couldn’t cancel. This kept me accountable. This is simple and obvious but still important. I had an appointment with someone other than myself.
For a few hours, I continually mentally connected with the ground-breaking research of the University of Michigan’s Dr. Michelle Segar (author of No Sweat), who states that we are generally not motivated to exercise because of long-term results (exercise and you’ll lose weight, reduce cardiovascular disease risk, ward of chronic disease, and age better may all be true… but doesn’t actually motivate any of us to exercise). Instead, the acute benefit of exercise does motivate us. In almost all cases, we feel like a million bucks after we perform a workout (both mentally and physically). Applying this, I kept replaying to myself, “I don’t want to do this, but I know I will feel great the second the workout is done, the rest of the evening, and even tomorrow morning.”
Perhaps most importantly, I adopted a "one-rep-one-set" at a time mentality. I told myself, “I’m not sure if I can be intense and focused for a full workout, but I can walk in the door and start my first exercise (MedX Lateral Raise) and do one perfect rep (10 seconds up, 10-second hold, 10 seconds down). When that rep is done, I’ll focus on the next perfect rep. One rep at a time. I knew Edwin (the Exercise Physiologist who was training me) was going to do his part. I just needed to focus on one rep.
Doing the workout was a great decision. I walked out of the studio at 8:00 p.m. and felt like a million bucks.
Apply this to the next workout you don’t want to do:
Connect to the immediate, positive outcome from the workout. “However I feel now, I’ll feel at least 20% better after this workout.”
Just focus on one perfect rep.
Caveat: This applies to when you are unmotivated and not excited about your workout, not if you are sick or chronically over-trained (in which case, it IS wise to skip the workout).