Exercise is a habit worth having!

Habit is often created by routine and, like most routines, exercise sometimes gets disrupted. If that happens don’t beat yourself up, just accept that it is par for the course and get into it again.

"I am the servant of all great people and, alas, of all failures as well. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures. I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a human. You may run me for profit or run me for ruin - it makes no difference to me. Take me, train me, be firm with me and I will place the world at your feet. Who am I? I am habit." Anon.

If you would like to know more about creating an exercise habit, please talk to one of our fitness instructors.

Creating a routine
• Making exercise a habit requires a little discipline at first but it’s well worth it
• Habit is created by routine – try to develop a weekly workout routine
• If you break that routine, it’s not the end of the world – happens to us all. Just accept it and get back into the gym again

Think of exercise as ‘Me time’!

"It's been about two months since I've worked out, I just don't have the time. Which is odd, because I have the time to go out to dinner… and watch TV … and get a bone density test … and try to figure out what my phone number spells in words." Ellen Degeneres.

Time, or the lack of it, is always the biggest excuse for not exercising but we all know that it’s just a smoke screen. That’s not to say that you we are sitting around doing nothing all day long, but it is remarkable how we find time for things that we enjoy or that are important to us.

Here’s the deal with exercise: It may never be something that you enjoy (many people who exercise regularly don’t necessarily enjoy it) but it’s tough to think of too many things that are more important or that leave you feeling so good afterwards. So find a time of the day that suits you, chose the days of the week you are going to work out and diarise them as ‘me time’. Nothing, but nothing gets in the way of ‘me time’. It’s amazing how fast you can create a habit.

You may like to talk to our fitness instructors about time management strategies around exercise.

Finding Time
• Exercise is one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself.
• Find a regular time to come to the gym, diarise it and treat it as an appointment.
• Don’t let anything get in the way of that appointment. "I don’t have time" is just a smokescreen.

No more excuses!

It doesn’t matter if you only eat food from other people’s plates or if you have all your meals standing up. Walking to the car is nice but it won’t do it and, no, you don’t burn calories eating celery. Perspiration won’t give you an allergic reaction and the cat will be just fine until you get home. Yes you should be jumping up and down at your age and no your friend didn’t get pregnant by sitting on an exercise bike.

No, drinking Diet Coke isn’t just as effective as working out, fishing isn’t an endurance event, darts doesn’t firm up your triceps and snooker isn’t a great low back exercise. If you can add to the list feel free but in the meantime do yourself a favour and get down to the gym. No, it’s not shut every evening.

Our fitness instructors know pretty much every excuse in the book so please talk to them if you are wavering. Every now and again a new excuse emerges that we haven’t heard before - but it’s pretty rare, so unless you’ve been abducted by aliens, do yourself a favour and get yourself down to the gym.

No pain, no gain makes sense.

At this point, let’s bury the ‘no pain, no gain’ mantra once and for all; there is no merit in flogging yourself to death week after week on pieces of equipment you don’t enjoy in the belief that if it hurts it must be doing some good. Who knows, it may be doing some good – the problem is that most people don’t stay around long enough for us to find out.

So, if you are in the boredom zone, find out what it is that you like doing, ask one of our fitness instructors to build you a programme around those activities and make sure you mix things up regularly.

Make it fun
• Doing the same routine time after time is often a precursor to quitting
• Doing a routine that you find painful or boring doesn’t make any sense at all
• Choose the exercises you enjoy mix them up and make it fun

You’ve got to have goals.

Goal setting or, to be more accurate, the failure to do so, is one of the primary reasons why people quit exercise programmes. The logic is obvious: If you don’t have anything to aim for then when the going gets tough – and the going gets tough for all of us at times – there is no foundation to refer back to.

There’s a whole bunch of stuff been written about goal setting but the most important thing is to have one. BHAGs (big, hairy, audacious goals) are good, but small manageable milestones are the way to get started. By the way, remember to celebrate success when you achieve your goals.

If you haven’t got an exercise goal, please ask one of our fitness instructors for advice.

Great goal setting
• Almost everyone finds it much easier to workout regularly if they have a target to aim at
• By all means set yourself some big, hairy, audacious goals (BHAGs)
• But make sure you break them down into bite-sized chunks

Pat on the back.

Reward yourself regularly. Set yourself a manageable target for month-one and, if you hit it, go out to dinner. Hell, if you don’t hit it go out to dinner and figure out how you’re going to get there next month. Write a simple contract with yourself – put some whys, whens and wherefores in it - sign it, and tape it to the fridge.

Watch negative self-talk, it will kill you. Replace the "I can’t do this" voice with the "I can do pretty much anything I make my mind up to do," voice. Stay focused on why it is that you are exercising in the first place. If you don’t have a reason, find one. Tell your family and friends, it makes it harder to quit. Be kind to yourself: Recognise the fact that it’s okay to screw up from time to time as long as you get back to it quickly.

If you would like more information on exercise adherence and motivation, please talk to one of our fitness instructors.

Sticking with it
• Set yourself manageable goals and reward yourself regularly
• Write a simple contract with yourself and tape it to fridge – ask our instructors for some help on the content of the contract
• Stay focused on the reasons that you started exercising in the first place