Why do you hate exercise? Is it all in your mind?

Why do you exercise? Is it to feel healthy,  get fitter and be strong? Or is it to lose weight.  If you are doing the same thing over and over again and not making any progress, why do you continue to repeat the same processes, time and time again?  If you saw a person banging their head against a wall all the time, wouldn't you stop them? 

What words do you think of when you hear "exercise", what emotions do you have attached with that word? Does it fill you with dread, anxiety or does it make you smile and feel good?  How you think about exercise will reflect on how you exercise.  

I have been noticing peoples reaction when I mention the E word, I would say in my rough calcuations that 90% of people roll their eyes or moan something about "not doing enough"!  Do you feel the same?  Why is that do you think?  Have we trained our minds to think that it is a negative thing, or is that just for some of us?  Do we feel we HAVE to exercise? 

Exercise - Activity requiring physical effort, carried out esp. to sustain or improve health and fitness.

You know you will feel better once you have trained, you know that your body appreciates you giving it a little physical training - so time to train your mind to think the same.   Your body has so much adrenalin to dispense every day, you just need to learn how to tap into it....  work out what do you LIKE doing? No point dragging your sorry ass to the gym to do spin three times a week if you hate it.  I guarantee you are doing it out of GUILT. Well stop it.  

Feeling guilty is something we all need to STOP doing.   Yes you will have your health & fitness goals but make them measurable, so you WILL achieve your goals.  Set your goals too big, you will fail. Simple.   Small goals to link into bigger goals will give you the confidence and courage to strive further, you will notice how far you have come and it won't be so daunting. 

There are so many ways you can move your body that will still be classed as exercise without having to kill yourself or your exercise mojo.    Try something different like finding walking tracks/bike tracks, swimming, dance classes, martial arts, indoor climing, fencing, team sports.  That will keep things interesting, nothing like variety.  Don't be afraid, ask for help or someone to show you, we don't all know everything do we?  But we can learn, I always like to be a sponge, absorbing NEW things, daily. I love it. It inspires me.

I love training outside!  In the warmer months I will be more outside than in the gym and you don't need a fancy membership to be able to mix up your training.  Having run bootcamps for the last 3 years I have noticed ONE thing, everyone loves that feeling of achievement, getting out of bed to attend bootcamp can be hard for most people.

So mix things up with your sessions - here are some of my favourite sessions that I can do indoors and can also take to the park with my ipod on for a good solid 45min workout.  You have lots of other stuff to do, do not make exercise longer than it needs to be! Quality over quantity.

Tabata training

Is a form of High Intensity Interval Training(HIIT) and involves performing 20 second intervals of all-out intensity, followed by 10 seconds of rest. This cycle is repeated 8 times, making the entire interval workout last only 4 minutes.   Choosing between 4 - 10 exercises (average 6-8).  You can download apps on the iphone which will count for you!  I highly recommend it, still works with your music... NO distractions.

My fav Tabata session I created

Rower or treadmill warm up (sprints)

Turkish getups or squats

Pushups

Squats with medicine ball press (heavy med ball)

Tricep dips

Clean & press (with bar/weights) if outside sprints, hills or stair runs

Plank with side tap

Pull ups

V sit ups

HIIT

Is an enhanced form of interval training, an exercise strategy alternating periods of short intense anaerobic exercise with less-intense recovery periods - good pumped up cardio.

A HIIT session consists of a warm up period of exercise, followed by six to ten repetitions of high intensity exercise, separated by medium intensity exercise, and ending with a period of cool down exercise. The high intensity exercise should be done at near maximum intensity. The medium exercise should be about 50% intensity. The number of repetitions and length of each depends on the exercise. The goal is to do at least six cycles, and to have the entire HIIT session last at least fifteen minutes and not more than twenty.

HIIT training - want to increase your running distance, try incorporating jogging with walking at different intensities. Adjust it to suit your goals.

 

Circuit

Moving between a certain amount of exercise stations after 30 seconds, limited breaks in-between for a set time.   You can mix exercises between cardio and resistance training.When one circuit is complete, one begins the first exercise again for another circuit. Traditionally, the time between exercises in circuit training is short, often with rapid movement to the next exercise.

A good circuit training course works the different sections in the body individually. An example of a circuit may be^.

Upper-body

• Squat ups
• Bench dips
• Back extensions
• Pull ups
• Medicine ball chest pass
• Bench lift
• Inclined press up

Lower-body

• Squat jumps
• Compass jumps
• Step ups
• Shuttle runs
• Bench squat

Total-body

• Burpees
• Treadmills
• Squat thrusts
• Skipping
• Sit ups (lower abdominals)
• Stomach crunch (upper abdominals)
• Back extension chest raise