How to Establish a Powerful Routine and Start Craving Your Workouts

Summary

This article provides tips for establishing a powerful workout routine and enjoying it.

Abstract

The article emphasizes the importance of making it easy to go to the gym by buying nice workout clothes and having a workout program. It also highlights the importance of seeing oneself as the person who goes to the gym and enjoys it, finding intrinsic motivation, taking care of the body outside of the gym, and leaving judgments behind. The author suggests that the gym is only a place to do muscle damage and that rest and recovery are done outside of the gym.

Opinions

The author believes that making it easy to go to the gym is essential for establishing a workout routine.
The author suggests that finding intrinsic motivation is important for building a lifestyle around working out.
The author emphasizes the importance of taking care of the body outside of the gym by nourishing it with the right foods, enough sleep, and reduced stress.
The author suggests that judging oneself is more harmful than being judged by others and that it is important to leave judgments behind when working out.
The author believes that building a habit with easy exercises is the secret to staying motivated and consistent with working out.

A satisfying workout routine requires a few proven steps.

As everybody knows, getting a fair amount of training throughout a week can be hard. We have things that come up, get caught up with stuff, get low on time — and sometimes when we have time we think about everything else rather than our workout. This is even true when we are working out; the things that we do in our workouts get clouded by the things we should have been doing outside.

Now I want to tell you that there is hope. As a famous saying goes, nothing in life worth having comes easy. We can all benefit from working out, and the more consistent we can be with our workouts the better. The things that have worked for me are:

Making it easy

Make it easy to go to the gym. Buy some nice workout clothes and be sure to feel well when you’re starting to go. Later you will keep on going no matter how you feel, but it’s the starting point of making going to the gym a regular thing that should be in your focus from the start. Making it easy can be putting gym clothes ready the day before, removing friction points from going to the gym like making sure you have an easy way to get there, etc. once you’re at the gym, have a workout program and just follow it from start to finish, then leave. Any workout program will do to start with, just choose one from the many beginner programs that you can find with a quick Google search. If you can’t choose, I used Starting Strength. This helped me to get the ball rolling. Look up the exercises squat, bench press, deadlift. I wouldn’t recommend starting with power cleans before you have nailed those exercises. Choose low weights to start with and work your way up. The progress will be rewarding, I promise!

Be the person who goes to the gym

Without starting to see yourself as the person who goes to the gym, you’re promoting conflicting identities. You have to be able to inhabit the identity of someone who goes to the gym and enjoys it. Find intrinsic motivation that keeps you going even though you some days feel like you don’t want to.

Finding intrinsic motivation

This is so important. You may start to work out because of external factors — looking good to others, shedding a few pounds, or building muscle and getting stuck up in wanting to receive compliments from others. But the real secret for training is longevity — it’s not something you just do for some months and then quit. You build a lifestyle around it and keep at it even though you somedays don’t want to. This requires you to build intrinsic motivation so you will keep going even though you don’t want to sometimes.

Taking care of your body outside of the gym

The gym is only a place to do muscle damage, and a certain muscle group can only take so much damage before it needs rest and recovery. The rest and recovery are done outside of the gym. While we are waiting for our muscles to get ready for the next workout again, we should nourish them with the right foods, enough sleep, and reduced stress. These are all components that play a big part in your muscle building. It’s easier to stop making stupid choices than to act like a genius; take this as you want.

Leave judgments behind

Judging other people is one thing, but have you ever noticed how you judge yourself? You think other people judge you, while at the core it’s just you judging yourself. The truth is that you judge yourself a lot more than other people do; most likely they don’t judge you at all. If people judge you for working on yourself and your health, it’s a problem they have with themselves and it’s not a problem with you. You are in the gym because you want to better yourself, so leave judgment behind.

Takeaway

Those were some simple tips to get going. Remember to take it day by day and don’t compare yourself with others. It’s a journey that starts with small steps for everyone. Start building a habit with easy exercises, and you will soon branch out to try new things. The secret is to keep it consistent until it becomes such a big part of you that you can’t put it away. That’s when you really start being motivated about the changes you’ve made.