Time to spring forward on fitness trail
Can't remember the last time you exercised?
Maybe you stopped because of an injury, but by the time it healed, you'd lost interest. Maybe once you ran that half-marathon, you never wanted to see a shoelace again. Maybe you're just flat-out bored with exercise.
“For most people, you get to a point where you go through the motions and don't have the fire on a daily basis like when you first started,” said Jeremy Allen, a personal trainer at Baylor Tom Landry Fitness Center. “There are those who are the exception, but for the most part you go through periods when you get burned out in general.”
Maybe now you're ready to get back into it. Or you're not, but you know you should.
When returning to the fitness groove, keep a few things in mind like lack of balance leads to burnout.
“Anytime you get stressed, something's missing,” says Nadia Christian, a personal trainer who has a master's degree in professional counseling. “Maybe you don't have enough rest. When you get to the point where you think, 'Oh, I don't want to go work out,' that's feedback (that) you're probably overtraining.
“You need something else to complete balance in your life.”
Putting your workout on pause can be good. “The body has limits,” said Dan Krawczyk, associate professor at the Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas at Dallas. “You'll risk injury if you don't take breaks. Mentally it is good to take a break. It's like taking a vacation from work.”
That said, the longer you go without exercising, the harder it will be to start back up.The good news is your brain won't make you relearn the skills.“The belief is that if you've established a habit, you'll know the movements again,” says Krawczyk. “Habits do basically get imprinted in the brain. When you fall out of the habit, your brain still has that as part of its makeup. It's like a memory savings. If you can re-create those conditions that made you faithful to exercise all along, it's one way to tap into that mind-set.”Think about riding a bike. Even if you haven't done so in decades, you still know how. That type of memory is called implicit; you learned how at one time and your brain hasn't forgotten.Memory abilities aside, though, often just finding that passion to reignite can be daunting. This may be one of those times to take up the fake-it-till-you-make-it mantra. Better yet, since your old routine or workout caused you to lose the exercise spark, switch it up.“Don't just stay in the gym and do weight workouts and get on the treadmill,” Allen said. “Force yourself to get outside, to get on the bike, to go to yoga classes. Go to Zumba. Do anything where you're still getting the workout in, but it's different.”A new routine makes you focus in a way you haven't before, thus engaging the brain in a new way. That's good in many ways, Krawczyk said.There's a catch, though. “You have a process where it's awkward,” he says. “You're doing poorly.”Here, one of two outcomes can occur: You get frustrated and ditch the exercise because you just can't seem to grasp it. Or you feel slight satisfaction, so you push through till that sliver becomes a slab.As a trainer, Allen says, he walks a fine line: “You want to push them (clients) but not to a point where they're going to quit. I get things they can tolerate, then, as they get better, it's not a chore.”Here are some more tips to getting back your workout mojo.Set goals. Sign up for a race, Allen says. “Do something that reignites the body and mind to get going and start training again. Sometimes people have nothing to shoot for. They're doing something just to do it.”When Christian began signing up for triathlons, the time she put in on the treadmill began to have a purpose, she says. “That made it fun for me. I look forward to it because I have a goal.”Surround yourself with active people. Don't know any? Sign up for a group fitness class, Christian says. “Whether it's resistance training or core or kickboxing, you end up making friends there who have the same goal.”
