Greetings, I just wanted to let you know how easy it can be to let things get stale and dare I say it, BORING, in the gym.
Truth is, it happens to us all and it will happen to you, when it does you must be ready to recognise it, acknowledge it and do something about it quickly. In my experience the best thing to do is to do something completely different, the important thing is to keep your feet moving throughout and mix it up immediately before boredom takes hold and you make a bad call.
It hit me this morning like a big old ugly freight train.
There I was minding my own business, on my way to doing my latest lower body workout routine, when inexplicably I lost all enthusiasm for it, like a puff of smoke it was gone! I’ve hit that point many times over the years.
I mulled around for a bit feeling sorry for myself, pondering the usual – should I switch to cardio? upper body maybe? or just go home? I just couldn’t make up my mind, so instead I decided to think it all through whilst stretching in my regular corner.
Whatever you do don’t under estimate the positive power of stretching on the human mind, I’m a really big fan of stretching – the longer the better – warm up, warm down, progressive – I like it all. I enjoy the additional flexibility it brings and there is just no denying the fact that if you stretch properly with complete conviction, it doesn’t take long to forget about everything outside of zoning in on your own body parts and your current overall fitness levels.
Endorphins are quickly produced by your pituitary gland giving you a general sense of overall well being and your work out blues start to subside very quickly.
So there I was on the matt stretching out my hamstrings when I decided to replace my usual lower body workout with cross training focusing on core and legs – starting with 3 x 3 minute rounds on old faithful, the skipping rope. By the end of round 2 I came alive! That lead me into walking dumbbell lunges, barbell squats, standing calf raises, ab crunches, leg raises and hamstring curls – in fact I felt so good that I finished it all off with 30 (2 sets of 10, 2 sets of 5) wide grip pull up’s! and anyone out there who’s a regular knows you’ve got to be feeling pretty good to even attempt wide grip pull ups.
There it is, next time the workout blues hit you hard – stop, recognise it, keep your feet moving, forget whatever you had planned and do something completely different! After all, it has probably been a very long time since you last did 3 sets of dumbbell squats on the BOSU? Get to it….