02.09.2020
ENJOYMENT = CONSISTENCY = TRANSFORMATION
If you are not enjoying your training, or the type of exercise you are doing, my advice would be to stop and find an exercise or sport that you do enjoy. Life is too short and time is too precious to spend the spare hour of your day doing something that you resent. For me personally, training is pretty much always the best part of my day. That might sound sad, but that’s the truth – and whilst I don’t expect everyone to feel the same, I think all of us could find some way of moving our bodies that we really enjoy.
From a scientific perspective, if you are trying to improve your fitness or strength and you are on a structured training programme, it is likely that there are going to be elements of sessions that (in the moment) you do not enjoy. That is the science of sport – to improve you must adhere to progressive overload. In other words, you have to experience some feelings of discomfort (!) to improve. There is a catch 22 in all of this too; the fitter we get the chances are that we enjoy pushing ourselves more.
However, from a psychological perspective, our baseline and reason for exercise and training should be that of enjoyment. The best training programme in the world is useless for an individual who does one session, hates it, and doesn’t come back. There is no one size fits all with programming nor with exercise. Some people like weight training, others don’t. Some love running, some hate it. Some (like me) find enjoyment from hours on a bike. In addition, not everyone wants to become some super human machine and instead might just want to integrate moderate exercise into their daily life so that they feel healthier and happier.
There are so many sports out there to try, and so many types of training to have a go at. Exercise and movement is something to be celebrated. I want people to fall in love with what they are doing. When they do that, consistency will be established and incredible transformations will happen.
– Katherine
