Lately I’ve been suffering from a lack of motivation to train hard in the gym. I don’t have much of an issue going to Yoga, but weight training has been very tough. I haven’t been making steady progress which is part of the reason why I am lacking motivation.
I can get to the gym without issue, but once there, my workout becomes more of a chore. In a conversation with a friend yesterday, he mentioned that too often we do things as a “transition” “from” something else and “towards” something else. In other words, what we are doing doesn’t have any purpose, it is just a gap-filler for some cooler, more fun and more exciting thing that might be happening in the future. That future never arrives, or at least if it did, I wouldn’t know it.
So what to do? I (this week) have been combating my lack of motivation in the gym, by going back to my roots, running! I’ve been starting my weight training with 10-20 minutes on the treadmill. I used to pride myself on never using a dread-mill, but at this point I’ve thrown all my pre-conceptions out the window.
There is something about running that gets me out of my head and lets me just be. I also work up a sweat (it takes about 10 minutes running at 8 minute mile pace indoors to do that for me). As a result, my weight workouts are much more intense. They are not very long, but at least they are more intense. This is progress.
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As a personal trainer I know A LOT of people struggle with a lack of motivation. Congrats on dragging yourself in and getting it done anyway.
I definitely resonate with the advice of your friend. At the risk of being incredibly too cliche, the journey IS the destination, not simply a means to an end.
if you’ve got any workout questions, I’d be glad to help out any way I can.
Hey Jeff; sounds good! I’ll let you know how my training is going.
sounds good to me. glad to help.
Maybe you just don’t like weight training?
Hey Tom, actually I LOVE weight training. I just got in a funk lately that it has taken a few months to get out of. I am going to post about some of the things I did to pull myself out of this funk today. Do you lift?