This week’s topic, the importance of enjoying your training, is something we’ve discussed in parts on this blog in various installments but today we’re going to delve into why it’s so important for longevity in your training regime. Too many people don’t enjoy training. It may be down to being embarrassed about their current body, a negative past experience or perhaps they’ve never done it before and are nervous and afraid. Whatever the reason, it has to stop. I’ve seen and spoken to so many people who dread going to the gym and give out about it when they leave. Since day 1, one of my missions has been to never be the coach that causes someone to develop that affiliation with exercise.

Last week I announced that I had returned from Denver, back to Lucan, to continue my career on Irish soil. I wasn’t happy and questioned if that was the way my life would forever be. I questioned if I was in the correct profession. For those of you who read regularly or know me well, I’m sure that will come as a shock hearing me say that. But that’s the reality of it. I wasn’t happy but felt it was something I had to do, very much like the attitude many people have towards training and exercise. I returned home and have completely changed tune. It’s great being home, close to family, back to my girlfriend and with returned desire to coach. I think this goes to show, the right situation can light a fire under your ass, and nothing can stop you… but on the other hand, a poor situation can make you miserable and make you question everything and even put you off that task for life.

Why It’s Important to Enjoy Your Training

The first step to enjoying training is finding the right type for you. Can you really imagine forcing yourself to do something you don’t enjoy week after week, month after month? No. And when it comes to making a decision like going to training or to go out for spur-of-the-moment pints with the work lads as the weather changes, you’re going to choose pints over training. But now imagine that your truly enjoy your training, it’s your get away from work and family, 1 hour every couple of days for you to have to yourself and get better. Personally, there’s days where my motivation is low, but I genuinely love weight training. There’s something about completing a great lift or overcoming a hard set that gives you a great buzz, in my opinion. So, while I’d rather jump into bed and stick on Netflix, I go training because I like it. If I always had to force myself to go training when I didn’t like it, it wouldn’t be long before I started to give in to the temptation of Netflix.

Health Vs. Guilt

So, you’ve found something you enjoy, it might be personal training, running, CrossFit, a sport, hiking or whatever… what matters is you’ve found it. What makes you keep going? There tends to be two different cycles here, training out of guilt and training for health and well-being. Training out of guilt can be a fantastic short-term motivator but can be dangerous long term and won’t be a lasting motivating factor to continue training. It’s a vicious cycle that involves binging and training while also developing an unhealthy relationship with food. This is where you train purely because you feel you ate too much or ate “bad”, it’s not training for health improvement. This usually ends with viewing training as a punishment, putting a negative association with something that should be positive.

On the other hand, being in the growth mindset with training is the complete opposite. Unfortunately, it takes some people a health scare to get to this point. Yet, when there it can lead to the best results you’ve ever achieved. The health training cycle is wonderful because you’re training for a different reason, you’re training for your quality of life and longevity. Naturally, when people get in this mind set, they make much better choices around food. In this case, training is not associated with punishment and shame but with accomplishment and enthusiasm.

The health cycle of training sees people place value on their life and health over other things. They know it’s going to be hard, but they see the value from a medical stand point in persevering. I see it quite a bit with the members in ABC Gym, Lucan, the facility I work at. Some might look at our membership prices and say they’re expensive, however, our members look at our prices as an investment on their life and their health. Truth be told, we’re no more expensive than a night on the town… one night on the booze could pay for a month’s membership, what do you value? Placing value, true value, on your training for health reasons will 100% keep you interested.

Enjoyment for Results

This one boils down to consistency. The more consistent you can be, the better the long-term results. This can be a combination of where you place value and finding the correct mode of exercise, but some people bounce from facility to facility, and mode to mode based on enjoyment (Or lack thereof), correct fit and deals. If your car is broken and you look for the cheapest mechanic instead of the correct mechanic, the job mightn’t be 100% correct and sooner rather than later you’ll be searching for the next cheapest mechanic.

Now, think of it as going from gym to gym. If you’re always bouncing from deal to deal, 4 weeks here or 6 weeks there how can you expect to progress when you’re probably going from one method to the complete opposite? There is zero progression, zero results and zero satisfaction. Can you find something you enjoy, put the value on it and stay consistent for 3, 6, 12 or even 24 months? If you can you’re going to see much better results than you would’ve if you just kept bouncing around. We all know good nutrition comes down to consistency, calories still count at the weekend after all, the same applies for training.

So, there we have it, when people ask me what’s the best form of exercise for x, y or z I say the one you enjoy the most and now you know why. Exercise is not a punishment, it’s not a something to dread. Don’t be afraid to try alternative forms like hiking, indoor rock climbing and swimming instead of the usual gym or running.

Keep an eye out for special mid-week installments of the blog where I’m going to be doing much more athletic development focused pieces instead of the usual, general well-being pieces. Subscribe to be the first to receive them.

If there’s anything you want me to discuss, reach out via the contact me section above.

Until next time,

Rory.