Losing motivation for working out? Feeling bored with it? Haven’t been for a while? We all go through it at one point or another, so it’s nothing to worry about. You find yourself starting to skip on workouts. Making excuses not to go, and in general, just don’t feel motivated to workout or diet. Fear not as we have a few tips that will get you back into the workout spirit and get you loving working out again. So let’s kick off and get straight into our first tip and get you back on the workout train, shall we?
Tip 1: Try a New Location
Going to the same gym can feel comforting, feels like a home away from home, you know where everything is, you know who everyone is. This can be a good thing and also a bad thing. If you find yourself low on motivation for working out, try going to another location or gym. It could be as simple as doing your home workouts in another room, even taking them outside, or just going to another gym. You will find that at most gyms you can get a day pass for fairly cheap.
I have about 3-4 gyms that I visit, don’t have a membership but just pay a day pass. I find that changing location, using different equipment or even as simple as being around a different group of people will spice up my workout and skyrocket my motivation. If you are working out from home, step one makes sure you are using our app, and step 2 try using a different room in the house, or even, as said above, take your workouts outside. This change of scenery will make your workout feel completely new and completely fresh. Giving you that boost in motivation that you need. As a change of location can do wonders for your motivation.
Tip 2: Try New Workouts
We are all guilty of getting stuck in the same workouts. Week after week we do the same program, same routine and same exercises. Which as we all know will start to get a bit stale. Try spicing up your workouts and swapping out exercises or even do what I did a few weeks ago, try something completely new. If you haven’t had a chance, check out what happened when I gave CrossFit a go here. Changing my workouts to incorporate CrossFit workout helped keep the gym fresh and exciting. The main thing it gave me was all new and fresh goal to work towards.
Go online or onto YouTube and find some workouts from different people. We might even put together a list of workouts that you can try. Find a workout and give it a go. If you have been doing an Upper/Lower workout routine maybe for a week or two try a Push/Pull/Legs routine. Combined with tip number 1, a new Workout and a new location will do wonders for your gym motivation. Maybe even throw some cardio into your workouts? I tend to find myself really enjoying some cardio, Sledge pushes, Battle Ropes or even sprints can spice up a stale workout.
Tip 3: Set a New Goal or Target
As we have already previously mentioned, Setting new goals is a great way to help you gain some new motivation. Everyone loves having something to work towards. Setting yourself some new goals, maybe even to go along with your new workouts, will help increase your motivation and determination.
You don’t even have to dramatically change your goals An example of this might be to not try to hit a certain weight on Bench Press, but instead try to hit certain reps, or even to just work out a set number of times a week. Anything can be a goal. Just find a new one set it up and see if you can hit it. If you need an idea to help get you started below is a small list of ideas you can use (Choose your weight):
- Max Reps on Bench
- How long to hold a plank
- Speed you can run a mile,
- How many pull ups,
- Set number of reps per week at a chosen exercise (250 Pull Ups a week)
You can see the pattern, Find a goal that is different than the standard goals. You can still keep your original goals, but just add these in with it. Something else to work towards.
Tip 4: Get yourself a workout Partner
Tip number 4 is a big one. One that I think a lot of people need to do but don’t. Get a workout partner. Having a workout partner is good for many reasons, the main one being it can make working out more enjoyable and in turn, makes you want to go more. They make sure that you do that extra Rep or Set. They also make you accountable for showing up, meaning you don’t skip workouts as often.
Now we aren’t going to lie, finding a workout partner can sometimes be a challenge. Some friends don’t work out, some friends go to different gyms or workout at different times, but as a rule of thumb, try to find someone that has similar goals to yourself. If you are training for a marathon, you don’t want to be trainman with a powerlifter. Apart from that, anyone will be a good workout partner.
They also have other benefits, for example, it is always good to have someone around to help push you and make you take that extra step. If you are doing a lot of weights is good to have a partner there to help spot and help you reach the goals you have set in the previous tip.
Tip 5: Have a Workout Break
If you find yourself struggling to get motivation back for working out, The thing we would suggest is to take a workout break, even take a workout and diet break. Taking a workout break can be beneficial because you won’t have the “Stress” of remember to workout or eat correctly hanging over you.
Now the break doesn’t have to be that long, start with 7 days, have a nice break away from home workouts or gym’s, you don’t have to worry about goals or targets. In this time you will start to miss and begin to crave a workout. Having this break will fire your motivation back up for working out. It is also a great opportunity to write a new program for yourself, Full of new workouts and exercises, and as we have stated above, new workouts also help towards motivation.
Having a workout break also has another benefit as it will also give your body time to recover, lets your body fully rest and recover, lets and “niggles” or “injuries” recover and reset. Meaning that when you do go back to full workouts, your body is ready and behind you 100%. Most people think that having a break from working out is a bad thing, when, if used correctly, can be very helpful and useful. Your body will thank you for the break!
Conclusion
It is natural for everyone to fall out of love with working out, when you are doing several times a week it can start to feel like a chore over a hobby, but as we have shown there are a few things that you can do to bring that motivation back to the surface and get you back on track with your workouts and your diets. So if you do find yourself finding excuses to not workout give these tips a follow and you will be back to your normal flow very quickly! Remember if you are looking for a change-up in your workouts, check out our free workout application here.
Written by Kieran Blacker
Kieran is the CEO and Founder of Sets & Reps. He decided to make an application that helped people get a gym workout when not at the gym. He designed, Coded and built the application himself.