The hardest part, to me, is just getting out the door. Whatever I’m doing, be it swimming, running, lifting weights, or something else, if I can get all the way out my front door, I’m usually good to go.
It was not this hard growing up. Even when I had to get up at four-thirty in the morning to be on the pool deck by five, working out didn’t typically feel like a struggle, exactly. It was more like a gut-check.
Do you want it?
Yes.
Okay, then. You have to work harder than the other guys.
Alas, being forty-four is not like that. No one save my wife really cares if I’m getting stronger or faster, and even Sally doesn’t general go to my races. I can skip workouts, and there’s not some coach who’s going to yell at me about it. Hell, I can skip entire seasons, and no one’s really gonna get upset. Sure, Sally wants me to look good and feel good, and I know in the abstract that I need to work out to make that happen, but honestly, the abstract can be a little hard to keep in focus after a long day at the office. I want to sit down, crack open a beer, and flop back on my couch. The only thing preventing this from happening is some abstract idea that I need to work out.
Really? Says who?
It helps to have a schedule. And honestly, biking to work helps quite a lot, too.
Monday
|
Bike-commute
|
Tuesday
|
Bike-commute / Weights
|
Wednesday
|
Bike-commute / Lunchtime Run
|
Thursday
|
Bike-commute
|
Friday
|
Bike-commute
|
Saturday
|
Swim
|
Sunday
|
Weights / Long(ish) Run
|
See what I mean? I will occasionally add another lunchtime run on a Thursday or Friday, but really, I’m leaning pretty heavily on my commute for baseload aerobic fitness, and that’s okay. It’s not cheating. It’s making an otherwise tough schedule into a virtue. And while the schedule itself isn’t a coach, it does at least give me a basic framework for holding myself accountable. If I skip a workout, I now have to consider how and when I’m going to make that workout up. That by itself can be a Hell of a motivator.
The other thing I do—a lot—is that I lie to myself.
It may sound weird, but it works. I tell myself, “Just go. You don’t have to work hard. You just have to get in there and warm up. Even if the whole workout sucks, at least you’ll have maintained your flexibility. That counts for a lot.”
The key, I’ve found, is to treat your warm-up like it’s a legitimately important part of your workout. Because it is. So don’t rush it.
And that really helps.
I’ll spend as much as a third of my workout, or more, just warming up. If I’m in the pool, I just swim easy. I might go a whole mile easy, even in simple a two-mile workout. The same is true on the road when I’m running. And when I’m at Crunch, I’ll grab one of their black padded mats, head over to an empty piece of floor, and start running through Sunrise Salutes and other low-intensity active warm-ups for as long as it takes. Eventually, I’ll add in some short push-up sets and some bodyweight squats, and by the time I’ve been at it for a quarter-hour or so, I’m usually ready to lean-in and get it on. And if not, I just keep lifting easy until I am. Regardless, once I’m sweaty and moving, finding more motivation is usually pretty straightforward.
If you don’t know how to design your own warm-up routine, or even your own basic workout schedule, Crunch has people who can help. My own wife teaches classes there, and there are personal trainers, too.
Get help, take it slow, and just… get out the door. That’s what’s working for me.
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