Not too long ago, my exercise routine and I got back together. It has been a wonderful month. I have been giving %110 for this relationship to work. Although, now that the honeymoon is over, it is getting harder to stay as enthusiastic as I was. But there is nothing new here; we have been through this more than Cher had plastic surgery. (Ok that was bad). So here are my top three tricks to spice up my exercise before it feels like a paper due tomorrow.
Music: As I mentioned earlier in my posts, you have to make sure that you are not listening to the same playlist for months. I’d say update your list every other week. And make sure that you have enough songs to cover your whole routine. Music serves for motivating you for your routine that already has a lot repetition. Why to add one more repetition to the equation?
Variable Routines: If you are not working out professionally, you probably don’t have a workout schedule for the next month with which every single move and repeat is laid out. And when people don’t have a schedule, they tend to do the same things in the same order as they did them the last time. It makes it easier to remember and gives a sense of consistency. But it also makes it boring. Try to alter your routine without changing the core of it. This can be the days of the week you are exercising or the order of the moves.
Change the scene: I am a big fan of running outdoors and the nice track walking distance to my house is ‘the’ place for me. I like it because it is a green spot in the city and I can track my progress based on the blocks I passed. But at the same time, I am starting to feel like I memorized every single root sticking out on the way and I would be able to run even with my eyes closed without falling down. Whereas there have been occasions I failed to do so with my eyes open. As safe as it sounds to stay on the same track, I am now looking for other tracks to make it a bitter interesting.
All in all, exercise is not always fun and requires a lot of determination if you want make it part of your life. We have to find our ways to keep it interesting for ourselves or we have to be pretty darn goal oriented. How is that for a cliché while lecturing about how to deal with boring?
