How to be Consistent in Your Fitness Training

 5 Tips for Becoming Consistent in Your Fitness Training

There are some things in life that you can count on: the sun coming up, or Old Faithful gushing out. They are like clockwork! The consistent rising of the sun keeps half the planet from freezing permanently (yes I know the Earth rotates-just go with me on this).

Consistency is really hard to acheive…if you don’t have a game plan. Life is busy! Between working, traveling for work or pleasure, keeping up with the family and kids activities, it’s no wonder that your fitness and overall health have taken a bit of a back seat. With all the demands pulling you in different directions it’s nigh impossible for consistent fitness training…if you don’t have a plan. I’m going to share with you the secret ingredients to squeezing fitness back into the regular routine without dropping the ball elsewhere becoming the “Old Faithful” of Fitness.

A colleague once said that there are 3 things that you need to reach your fitness goals;

1. Consistency
2. Appropriate Intensity and
3. Good food choices.

This is the truth! Consistency is listed first because it’s the most important. In fact, it is king. If you aren’t consistent, it doesn’t matter that you had an awesome workout this week if you haven’t had one for months and won’t have another one for even more months.

Consistent fitness training is the most overlooked factor when we aren’t reaching our fitness goals. The best fitness program to help you reach your goals is the one that you actually do. So let’s look at some of the best ways to help create some consistency in your training routine.

5 Tips for Consistent Fitness Training

Tip #1: Create AND Adhere to a Set Schedule

We are creatures of habit. If you can create a consistent day, time of day, & location to do your fitness training you will be far more successful at doing it. Think about it, when was the last time you blew off a work meeting? It’s it’s scheduled, it becomes a sacred cow. Most digital calendars allow you have different calendars (for work or personal) that you can track all in one location. And because technology is cool-they usually don’t let you double-book yourself. Use this to your advantage. Schedule your workouts. If you still worry about doing it, Google has an app add-on to your calendar called Google Goals. You can create a goal and it will sync it to your calendar and send you reminders. Thanks Google for helping us not have to remember one more thing.

Tip #2: Find a Way to be Accountable

If no-one is watching or cares, does what we’re doing matter? Do we even do it? If someone else doesn’t care why should you. Too many of us get trapped into this mentality. What you do does matter, even if no-one else notices. However, it’s a heck of a lot easier for us if someone does notice. Accountability is ‘muy importante’! So do you tell your neighbor down the street that you’ve got a goal of losing 10 lbs? Maybe. Maybe not.

How do you create accountability in your fitness training? Here are a couple of ideas:

• Have a workout buddy/partner.
• Hire a personal trainer. It’s a great way to put some skin in the game to commit yourself to doing it and being there.
• Pay up-front/buy punch-passes.
• Journal your progress. More on this later.

Tip #3: Journal Your Successes

Keeping a training journal/log is a great way to be accountable but also to create consistency. If you know that you need to do a specific program every Monday and Thursday and you track the days and everything you did for your training that day it’s easy to see when you need to train and where you’re at. This also helps with motivation as you can see week after week that you are getting better-whether that means lifting more, or recovering quicker, or improved Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE). Not only are you seeing your progress, but you are seeing with crystal-clear focus when you have giant gaps in your training-which will become obvious in your record of your training day. So many benefits from one simple habit.

Tip #4: Find an Enjoyable Mode

We are hard-wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. If you hate running/jogging, why would you force yourself to go running? There are SO many modes of activity and exercise you don’t need to be limited to just one-nor should you. Some clients refer to this as the suck-o-meter way of training. Either way, enjoyment is a critical key for long-term success in reaching your fitness goals, creating a healthy lifestyle and having consistent fitness training.

Modes of exercise mean what activity are you doing. For example some modes of exercise are: running, swimming, biking, weight-lifting, tai-chi, yoga, Pilates, barre classes, step aerobics, Zumba, power lifting, exercise DVDs, and yes even Crossfit.

Find some modes that you like, or are at least more tolerable than others and do those.

Tip #5: Get Your Just Desserts

Set up some rewards for yourself as you reach different milestones of your process goals. Just remember that the reward shouldn’t counteract the progress and achievement you’ve just experienced. It doesn’t have to be a big-ticket item it could be as simple as allowing yourself a few minutes to read a book.

Remember that to create consistency in your fitness training you should set a schedule, be accountable, keep a training journal, make it enjoyable and reward yourself. Keep up the great work and you’ll reach your fitness goals in no time!

Learn how to get more out of your exercise by registering for our free webinar.