8 Motivational Tips to Smash Your Workouts

I see countless people who go to the gym during the first month of the year and never come back on the next. Their reason for wasting precious money on memberships? You’ve guessed that right. It’s a lack of motivation. Most claim that living a life of fitness isn’t that different from their normal routines. Yet, their bodies tell a different story.

While people of different careers don't have an obligation to stay fit for work, this is a non-negotiable option for current and aspiring pro cheerleaders. As a former professional cheerleader for the NFL, I too have learned how to stay motivated for fitness. Here are some of the techniques I use.

1. Set your goals and make them specific

Specificity is key to achieve a fitness goal. If you make it your goal to just lose weight, you’ll never know when working out is too much or not enough. Set a goal weight, physique, or body fat percentage you want to attain.

2. Put emotion aside

There will be times where you will feel unmotivated to exercise and personal issues might be the reason. You must learn how to focus on finishing your workout tasks without question. Forget your personal worries in the meantime, just get the job done and tend to your problems after sweating.

3. Embrace fear and discomfort

Muscle soreness from working out, discomfort from stretching, and the feeling of fatigue are normal when you exercise. Be prepared to experience them in your fitness journey and learn to get used to the feeling as well.

4. Have a bag of gear ready at all times

A lot of people won’t work out without the right clothing and equipment. I too am guilty of this at times. That’s why I always keep clean gym clothes in bags all the time and at any place.

I have three separate workout bags - one at home, one here in my office, and one in the car. This is one good way to prevent me from making excuses to avoid exercising.

5. Use a fitness app

Fitness apps are abundant in the app store or Google Play Store. Some help in reminding you to work out and others are best for monitoring fat burn. Overall, it’s an important tool to be installed in your phone because these apps monitor all your fitness progress.

A bonus on fitness apps - most of them have monitoring functions for different workout types. You can rest easy that every fitness activity is accurately recorded as well.

6. Put your phone away while you exercise

A message from someone, a notification from a distracting app, or unpleasant news will throw you off focus on your fitness activities. Have your phone kept silent in places. If you need to listen to music while you exercise, use an Mp3 player or an iPod.

7. Don’t overtrain

Workouts shouldn’t make you very exhausted or hurt too much. That’s the result of overtraining and these symptoms are motivation-killers. First, make sure the exercises you do are challenging enough to make you sweat.

Once you get used to them, increase the difficulty. But always give your body time to adapt first.

8. Use an activity tracking device

You’ll never know that you’re smashing your workouts without monitoring your heart rate as you do them. A good tool to help you with this is by using a smartwatch. By tracking your activities with a smartwatch, you’ll be able to decide whether to do more or do less by knowing the current heart rate zone you’re in as you exercise.

Be patient with results. Understand that a single workout session does not produce immediate and noticeable effects. But that doesn’t mean that your workouts are inefficient. Wait until there are signs of improvement and performance in your body. It might take days to weeks. Just be diligent and stick to your fitness plans. Eat healthier as well!

Following a proper diet and practicing good pre and post-workout routines help make your fit lifestyle fun. You also need to do a little mindset-shift to fight fitness discouragement. To learn more, here are some of the related blogs:

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