The Importance of Keeping Your Training Momentum
Keep Your Training Momentum…
An object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by an external force.
(objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Objects at rest tend to stay at rest)
This week, I felt like I lost quite a lot of momentum. I was still doing my personal training, but work on a couple of other projects ground to a halt. I think it’s because I was out of the habit after a weekend without admin work.
I work best with momentum. When I’m busy, I feel like I’m productive. Coming back to work after a break is often a struggle for me until I build up some momentum again.
It seems I’m not alone.
Twice this week I’ve had conversations with personal training clients about training momentum and how they have struggled to get to the gym after work. I think it’s because at this time of year it starts to get dark earlier and subconsciously we feel the need to get in and out of the dark.
The strategy we’ve come up with is for them to go straight to the gym after work, before they go home. I know from experience that nowadays, the second my arse hits the sofa at the end of the day it would take a bulldozer to shift me. By getting to the gym and training before going home, they’ve kept their training momentum.
Before I was self employed I would often go home after work (just to get out of the gym environment for a couple of hours) and then go back to train later on. This was fine most of the time, but maybe 20% of the time I’d decide I couldn’t be bothered going back to the gym – I’d have lost my training momentum by going home. Given I train 5 days per week, it’d mean over the course of a year I’d miss 52 workouts.
That’s a lot.
If this is a behaviour pattern you recognise in yourself, look at ways you can fit training in around your day so you can maintain your training momentum….
- Train in the morning before you go to work. If you struggle to wake up, try these tips.
- Take advantage of your lunch break. You don’t need long to train – try this workout.
- Get straight to the gym after work. Take kit with you so you don’t need to go home.
- Train with a personal trainer or training partner – make it an appointment
. - Book on a class. All you have to do is turn up and follow instruction!
You don’t have to be perfect all of the time, but you do have to be consistent. It’s consistency of actions that create behaviours. Repeated behaviours create changes.
If you feel your mind gets often gets the better of you, this book comes really highly recommended. Dr Steve Peters has worked with British Cycling for years and more recently, professional football teams. If his methods can help athletes win gold medals, I’m sure they can help us mere mortals to get ourselves to the gym!
Don’t keep starting and stopping, build training momentum then maintain it.
P.S. I’m giving away a FREE eBook ‘101 Health and Fitness Tips’ to everyone who subscribes to my VIP email list. By joining the list you’ll have access to exclusive content, discounts, offers and products from both me and selected partners. Click here to download!
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