The moment of lack of motivation comes in different phases of training and bodybuilding. Beginners find it very difficult to stay motivated, especially if no success is visible. Advanced athletes sometimes experience stagnation in their training success or come after some success in conflicts of interest, for example with a relationship or profession. Professionals experience these conflicts even more and may ask questions about the future.
Staying motivated is not easy and everyone knows certain motivational holes. I have summarized my favorite tricks here to stay on the ball or at least to find the drive to continue fitness after a break.
If you don’t want to go to training, I recommend you,
Make Plans And Plan Your Week So That You Have To Stick To It
A training plan is essential for good training. It is important for the motivation that the training dates always take place at the same time and are an integral part of your processes. Do you work all day and find it difficult to get up from the couch again in the evening? Take the sports bag with you into the car/train and go to work in the studio on the comfortable couch without detour. You will see that even after a stressful day at work, you still have energy if the gym is a fixed date.
Always Keep Your Sports Equipment Within Reach
Always be ready for training at home. Place the packed sports bag in the living room or at your apartment door. So she always reminds you of your training.
Do not switch on the TV or PC and ensure 0 distraction before you have exercised
After a working day, but also on a day off, you are inclined to get a little lazy. Make sure that you don’t distract yourself and “waste time”. Take television or other hobbies as a reward for completing your training.
Look Forward To Your Training And Look At Yourself In The Mirror Beforehand
Motivate yourself with your successes or your non-successes in the mirror! If you don’t want to work out, stand in front of the mirror, and ask yourself: “Really not?” Usually, you give yourself one of the two answers: Either you have come so far that you actually get everything out of it now you should or you can find places on your body that you still want to train and therefore consider whether it would not be better not to miss the training.
Don’t Compromise – Not Even With Yourself
You go to training no matter what. You have your goal and your task and you enforce it. Be selfish and reject the after-work beer, let the cozy brunch with friends whiz if you haven’t been training in the morning. Fitness is now part of you and therefore very important. Do not build training sessions around your everyday life, but plan your free time after your studio visits.
In General, Make Fitness Your “Thing”
A good way to overcome sluggishness is to recognize the studio as your second home and training as part of yourself. We automatically develop a greater passion for the things we identify with.
Keep A To-Do List
If daily training is on your to-do list, you will automatically not feel satisfied until you have worked through the last point. The more your training is integrated into everyday life, the more you will be missing if you missed it and therefore you do not.
Watch Videos Of Exercisers
You can find a number of training videos on fitness blogs, YouTube channels, etc. These serve to motivate or demonstrate new training methods. Watch these videos, usually you will feel like going to the iron yourself or at least get a guilty conscience that you have not been there for a long time.
For Fun In The Studio
Use Music or Deliberately Don’t Use It
Motivating music in the ears is an absolute incentive for many and it doesn’t work without it. Whether Death Metal or HipHop: Everyone has their own workout music. Driving but not too fast beats are recommended, at the clock of which you can raise the iron if in doubt.
I am a music fan myself, but I always train completely without headphones. It helps me to focus and doesn’t distract me. Experiment with it and go to the gym for a few weeks without music and see if you don’t train much more concentrated and thus more effectively.
Chat With People In The Gym
Talk to people. Help others or get help with difficult sentences and be communicative. In most gyms, people will recognize you at some point if you show up regularly. Exchange ideas with the people about the training and make small “appointments” under the motto: “Tomorrow evening again and then you can really get started.”
Under Certain Circumstances, Change The Gym
If the studio is too anonymous, do not be afraid of a change. Many do not like large studio chains because there are no relationships with the trainers and other customers and everything is more business-like. If so, switch to a smaller gym. Although they are more expensive, they have the advantage of a committed community in which you know each other and help each other.
Set Yourself Specific Targets
“I would like to have an athletic figure” is a very abstract goal. “I would like to have more defined abdominal muscles in so-and-so many weeks” is better. Set these small targets and work towards them. Keep a log of developments.
Celebrate Small Successes
It is clear that you have to be patient. But motivate yourself with small successes, such as when you can push 5kg more than at the beginning. Enjoy these little victories too. Many athletes only have the big overall goal in mind and therefore do not notice what they have already achieved.
Advanced Tips
See The Dumbbells As Your Opponents
If all positive persuasion does not help, go the other way: see the weights as a task that has to be mastered at all costs. Weight is your enemy, which you can only defeat when you are stronger.
Imagine A Rival
The comparison with others helps many athletes. “I would like to have a shoulder like this” or “I want to get your KFA”. If you don’t want to look too much left and right, it also helps to imagine a rival with whom you have to measure yourself against your training goal.
Talk To Yourself In Your Head
Motivate yourself by talking yourself well. I know that sounds stupid, but it helps. “You can do it”, “Go on, one more” nobody has to say out loud to you as long as you can force yourself. The next time you have to cope with a heavy weight, look after or in the mirror and focus on your gaze and the part you are working on. Tell yourself, better not really out loud what you would like to hear from others in your imagination. Call yourself “sexy” or “a muscular bull” or whatever helps you. Yes, it sounds totally stupid, but it’s just you and your thoughts and it really helps.
Do Not Be Afraid Of Mirrors
A bit of narcissism does not harm the fitness athlete in terms of motivation. Whether selfies or the reflection in the gym – celebrate yourself and your successes and be proud of your successes, no matter how big they are.
Reward Yourself
Think of a little reward for a complete training cycle. Complete a tough training plan for 6 weeks and look forward to your reward. This can be your favorite food, a cheat day with TV and video games and fast food or a new supplement. Just like animals, we humans are geared towards maintaining motivation through reward.
Change Your Training Plan More Often
Stay on the ball by not going through the same split plan for 12 months straight. Change your training plan several times a year. This not only gives your muscles new stimuli and can influence your success, but also gives you more motivation. A plan can quickly make you tired. Motivate yourself with new tasks and research new training plans. After a long split plan with isolation exercises, go back to the basics and do basic and own weight exercises.
If You Think: “Why The Whole Drudgery?”
Set A Big Goal
In addition to the many small goals, you should of course also have a big one in mind. Experience has shown that “just getting fit” is simply not enough to stay on the ball without interruption. Look at yourself in the mirror, look at pictures of people who you think have a better figure and think about how you want to look. “Simply fit and look good” is again too abstract and leaves you and your imagination too much scope. Really think about what kind of person you want to be on the outside and then do everything possible to do it. You weigh 110 kg, but would like to have the slim figure of a runner or soccer player? Come on. You are rather narrow, but you want to look like the mountain from Game Of Thrones? Come on. Believe me, with the right fire in your heart you will be able to do it someday. Because,
Believe In You
No matter how “unrealistic” your goal may seem to you. No matter who tells you: “You can not do it”. No matter who believes in you. It is important that you do it. Life is always about fighting for what you want and want to achieve. If you want to be a professional bodybuilder even though you are lean and weak, there is no way too far to achieve what you really want. We humans are able to do much more than we think.
Be Clear About Your Goal And Your Motivation
However, it is important, again, that you define why you do sports. Take me for example. I was always unsporting at school. I hardly had any muscles on my body so it seemed to me. But that was never the point. I was lazy, I didn’t believe in myself, I always preferred alcohol and cigarettes to my health and my looks. Because of this attitude, I didn’t do enough at school. With the will to change my body, build muscle and get an aesthetic body for me, the motivation came to change my entire life. Fitness does not necessarily mean to train a beach figure to impress the opposite sex or to attract attention from friends. Fitness leads to self-confidence and a healthy body leads to a healthy mind.
As a professional, at some point you have to see bodybuilding as something bigger than you are. If you earn money with your body, it becomes your job and feeds you and possibly your family. From this point on, you no longer need to motivate yourself to go to the training session, but instead create your own motivation for what you can achieve professionally with your body when it comes to “going one step further”.
Supplements As Motivators
There are a number of training boosters that can get you out of your mood hole. Caffeine and taurine as a stimulant and various herbal extracts as stimulators and help to focus are common ingredients in boosters. Amino acids such as arginine, which are used for blood circulation and are contained in so-called pump boosters, are also good motivators for training. They ensure a proper muscle pump that only pushes you even more during training because your muscles swell and sometimes look much larger. The tingling of alanine in boosters and the feeling of being lightly stimulated are becoming more and more common for giving motivation in the studio.
Incidentally, post-workout supplements also work as motivation. Delicious protein shakes serve as a reward and even the feeling of having to use up the cans and bags with the valuable powder is known as motivation because you don’t want to have wasted money.
Also Read: Health Benefits Of Practicing HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training)