Yes, I need motivation to exercise, motivation to go to the gym and do the workouts, and to everything related to fitness. With that being said, I already know that exercising is good and carries so many benefits for your health. I know all this theory. The problem is, how to put it into practice and do some exercise. I need some fitness motivation!
Let's see if reviewing the basic physical and psychological benefits of exercising may increase our exercise motivation a little bit.
Click Here To Learn More On How To Boost Your Motivation To Exercise
Physical Benefits of Exercise
Everyone benefits of becoming more physically active, at all ages. Exercise is all about physical benefits - increase in strength, speed, power and fitness. It has enormous benefits on the cardiovascular system, reducing significantly the risk of a heart attack. But keep in mind that the cardio-vascular benefits of exercising depend basically on the frequency, intensity, and duration of the exercise itself. Not only your heart and blood vessels will benefit from exercising. Your risk of chronic diseases, including cancer, diabetes, and arthritis, will also be reduced. Not to mention your health care bill. Yes, doing exercise will reduce your health care costs too.
The good news is that, against previously believed concepts, we do not need to do a lot of exercise in order to obtain its health benefits. In the last number of Current Opinion in Cardiology (Curr Opin Cardiol. 2017 Sep;32(5):541-556. doi: 10.1097/HCO.0000000000000437), it is stated that
Marked health benefits are observed with relatively minor volumes of physical activity
So, if your excuse was that you needed to do so much hours of exercise per week, this is not an excuse anymore!
Psychological Benefits of Exercise
The psychological benefits of exercising are consistently reported and highlighted by researchers. What is interesting, is that unlike the physical benefits of working out, mental benefits of exercise do not depend on the intensity or duration of the physical activity.
The Two of Them Combined
It turns out that exercising may play an important role in the management of mild or moderate mental health problems, especially in the case of depression and anxiety. We know that persons with depression tend to be less physically active than non-depressed individuals, they simply do not have the energy or the motivation to exercise. However, increased aerobic exercise or strength training reduces symptoms of depression significantly. On the other hand, anxiety symptoms and panic attacks also improve with regular exercise, and its beneficial effects are similar to relaxation or meditation. "Mens sana in corpore sano".
How People Get Motivated to Exercise?
I've heard first hand, and listen carefully to them, friends and colleagues opinions about motivation and exercise, including some exercise motivation tips. Here are some of them.
I seem to enjoy exercise. I find it easier to exercise when I haven't eaten much or even anything.
Some music for me is also triggering for me to exercise too.
Exercise helps get rid of my hunger and makes me make sensible food choices.
I enjoy the euphoric feeling and sense of awesomeness I get following a good workout.
Just looking at the mirror is motivation for me. Looking at myself at the mirror wearing a bikini is enough to get me to exercise!
I have trouble motivating myself to work out most of the times as well. However, when I'm working out I feel great.
I just can't seem to get myself to do any exercise... it is terrible! I just get so bored! I keep trying, but I have so much stress at work that when I finish I just want to collapse in bed.
It's even more of a pain when one day I'll wake up and feel all motivated and ready to exercise and the next day i go back to feeling lazy and not wanting to do anything. Exercising is easy and there's so many hours in the day to do it yet my laziness takes over.
I just make it a part of my routine. Thirty minutes every morning. It wakes me up and it gets it out of the way so I can enjoy the rest of my day.
Taking classes at my gym helps. It makes me work harder and it's less boring.
It's part of my daily routine, it's like essential part that I can't live without and just feeling I get from that is enough to keep me motivated.
I work out at home as well as at the gym and I have two or three apps on my phone which keep reminding me to log my food and exercise. After a few days of slacking off I start feeling guilty.
I really feel sluggish and unenergetic without it. When I want to avoid doing something, I tie it in with something else. So get a mindset that you can't play a game or eat lunch or whatever you like to do until you've done 30 minutes of aerobic activity or strength training.
The thing that motivates me, I noticed lately, is going out and seeing skinny people around my age or when I'm around my family I just feel like I want to change. The only problem is I tend to lose that feeling when I get back home.
If some of these sound familiar to you, click here to boost your exercise motivation-now!