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Starting out an exercise program is a hard feat, to say the least. Like many others, you may have made consistent exercise one of your new year’s resolutions. However, a few weeks have already passed, and so did the new years feeling along with it.
Well, it’s not too late! In fact, it’s never too late to start out practising a consistent exercise routine. At Kooibeds, we’re experts in being active and staying active. Therefore, we’ve compiled a list of 5 tips to keep you in check with your exercise program this year.
- Evaluate your schedule
- Set some exercise goals
- Make going to the gym an easy task
- Be ready for plan B
- High-quality rest is essential
1. Evaluate your schedule to create your exercise program
First things first – your schedule. Have a good and in-depth look at your day to day schedule. Break down each day to determine what time of day will be the best for you to work out.
Exercise some introspection and evaluate whether you’re a morning or night person. Once you also work out at the right time of the day, you’ll be well on your way to successfully sticking to your schedule.
When starting out, don’t be too eager by saying, “From now on, I’m going to train hard for every day of the week!”. This mentality is great to keep you going at first, but may quickly become a setback if you can’t uphold those standards.
Therefore, start out slow, and determine what days are your “quiet” days in the week. Then, work from there to make sure that you exercise at least 2-3 times a week with one rest day in between each active day. Once you’ve established a routine, and kept to it, you can start adding more workout days to your week to build your stamina.
2. Set some exercise goals
Once you’ve decided when you’ll be exercising, figure out your why. If you’re thinking about a consistent workout schedule, then you most probably could have some form of a reason in mind right now.
Goals are the best tool to keep you motivated through the tough times. However, for this to work, your exercise goals need to be specific, realistic and adaptable. This may sound like a 5th grade Life Skills class, but, in order for you to reach your goals, you’ll need to properly formulate them first.
Specific:
“I want to lose some weight,” or “I just want to tone my muscles,” are both perfect examples of vague, undefined goals. Losing “some weight” is very relative and can quickly be seen as an out since losing 2kg’s can be considered as “some weight”
That is why you need to make sure that you clearly define your goals by involving numbers and time in your goals. This way, it’s easy to keep track of and celebrate milestones in your active journey.
Instead of saying, “I just want to become fit.” try, “In 3 months, I want to be able to run a 5km in 35 minutes.”.
Realistic:
Another extremely important attribute of a well-formulated goal lies in it being realistic. If you set your expectations too high for yourself, you’ll ultimately fail and place yourself at risk of losing motivation.
Therefore, take some time to thoroughly have a look at your competencies, and start from there. Start small and work your way up to the top of the exercise program.
Adaptable:
Make sure you’re mindset for goal-setting is solid, yet adaptable. Life happens, and you’ll sometimes have to compromise on reaching your goal when crisis strikes.
Keeping score:
Lastly, make sure you have some sort of recordkeeping in place to keep track of your progress. This part is crucial to keep you motivated in the long run.
There are a few different ways to approach this:
- Frequently weigh yourself and write down your weight in an exercise journal.
- Measure body part circumference with measuring tape. Measure your hip, arm and leg circumference. This is how you’ll track your arms bulking up or slimming down (depending on your goal and exercise program),
- Write down your abilities. After you’ve worked out an exercise program, do the whole thing and write down what you did that day. Do this in weekly intervals to accurately keep track of your progress
- Take pictures of your body throughout the process. This way, you’ll have motivation boosters to look back at when the laziness hits
3. Make going to the gym an easy task
Let’s face it. At first, nobody wants to go to the gym/ do some exercise at home. It takes way too much effort to put on your clothes, get in the car/ get out your gear, and get going. What’s more, after a long day of work, the last thing you want to do is tire yourself out even more with heavy training. In fact, you’d rather just sit at home relaxing with your feet up while watching your favourite TV show…right?
The actual act of getting ready for a workout is much more challenging than the task itself. The hour before your workout appointment is where the most traps, that lead you into the temptation of not of opting out, lie.
Therefore, in the process of keeping to your exercise program, you’ll need to be as alert as ever in avoiding this Achilles heel. Luckily, you can do a lot of preparation to keep you motivated in actually going to the gym.
- Get everything ready beforehand. If you aim to exercise in the morning, lay out your activewear the night before. The same goes for exercising after work; pack your bag with all your exercise necessities in the car so that you can hit the gym straight after work.
- Eat well and balanced during the day. If you don’t eat enough/ on time, you might find this becoming a reason to avoid exercise.
- Keep yourself accountable. Find a friend to exercise with that’ll motivate you to consistently be active. However, make sure that neither of you becomes dependent on one another. Otherwise, you’ll fall into a cycle of skipping out on a workout if your friend can’t/ won’t go.
- Reward yourself for working hard. Other than seeing good progress, make an effort to find a reward for yourself. It can be as simple as rewarding yourself with a healthy smoothie after consistently exercising for a week. This will keep you motivated and on track to keep to your exercise program.
4. Be ready for plan B
We’ve lightly touched on this point a bit earlier on, and it’s super important that you’re prepared with a Plan B. Life happens, and, consequently, things might happen that hinder you from practising daily exercise.
Therefore, keep your mindset in check by having a clear head when things go south. You may get sick or injured, or your work suddenly takes up a lot more of your time. If you absolutely can’t work in some active time, don’t bust your head about it. Tomorrow is another day.
However, make sure to keep yourself accountable and on track should you have to divert from your normal routine for a short while. Be vigilant with yourself, since a quick setback can completely throw you off course when you’re still creating a habit of exercise.
5. High-quality rest is essential for a successful exercise program
Lastly, to stick to your exercise routine, it’s super important to get enough high-quality rest. Quality sleep will ultimately support your mind and body through the process of routine adjustment.
If your bed keeps you up at night, all your efforts in establishing a fitness routine may become useless, since your body can’t rest and recover properly. Consequently, your performance will decrease and, next, your motivation. Therefore, get yourself a proper bed that’ll enhance relaxation muscle restoration while you sleep.
At Kooibeds, we understand this concept. That’s exactly why we created a rest and relaxation sanctuary that is a Kooi bed. Crafted from high-quality pure foam and coated in an upper layer of memory foam that promotes pressure relief and muscle restoration. Get yours today to make sure you stick to your routine.
Best of luck!
Starting a new routine is super easy. It’s keeping to it that’s the hard part. Therefore, when you’re feeling less motivated remember the following quote:
“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work gains success. Greatness will come.”
Dwayne Johnson