Why you must workout regularly
Working out regularly is one of the key stone habits that can literally transform your life. Various studies have shown that regular workout, boosts your self esteem, makes you look younger, helps you feel happy, alleviates depression. It also helps you in your journey to quit alcohol and drugs, forever.
If these reasons aren’t strong enough for you, to get off the couch and workout, here is the biggest catch of them all. Working out regularly, drastically reduces your mortality risks. When you are regular in you workouts, then you have considerably lesser chances of arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus type 2, dyslipidemia, coronary heart disease, stroke, and cancer. In a review article, the authors found that the individuals who lived physically active lifestyles, reduced their chances of all-cause mortality by about 30% to 35%.
Therefore, if you love life then you must workout regularly. And in case you are currently going through some hard times in life, then you should definitely start working out regularly, so that you can start feeling good again.
What stops us from working out regularly
Duryodhan, the antagonist in the Indian epic, Mahabharat tells Shri Krishna, “I know what I should do and what I should not yet I cannot put it into practice. There is a strong tendency in me which I know is wrong but I am helpless.”
We face the same problem as Duryodhan did. Most of us know that we should exercise regularly. But we get so caught up in the day to day battles, that we just start delaying one of the most beneficial habits for us.i.e : working out.
The problem with working out is, that we don’t see results instantly. In order to see any substantial changes in our body, we have to sweat it out for 5-6 months, . So work out is basically making a daily investment in our health and well-being. We may not be seeing the results at the moment. But if we keep dropping daily investments in our piggy bank of health, we will be surprised by the gains, 6 months from now.
However there are days when we feel too tired. Other times, we feel short of time. While many a times we may just feel miserable and do not feel like getting off the couch, to workout.
Tools to help you workout regularly
1) Realize that it’s the mind that is playing tricks :
Sometimes you may feel that you don’t have enough time to fit a workout in your busy schedule. Other times you may not feel strong enough to pick up the weights, or may be you think that you can’t workout due to the inaccessibility of gyms, due to the pandemic.
For any such excuses, realize that the ‘inner bitch’ in your mind is playing tricks against you. It’s wants to stop you from fulfilling your potential.
Once you have dis-identified yourself from the inner bitch, it’s half the battle one.
Read more about it here: The Best Habit If You Want to Transform Your Life.
If your mind is telling you that you don’t have enough time or don’t have access to a gym, do this full-body workout. You will be done in less than 30 minutes :
2) Action Precedes Motivation :
There will be days when you won’t ‘feel’ motivated enough to go and workout.
On such days realize that action precedes motivation. I have been working out regularly for the past 5 years. On my fitness journey, I have won a weight lifting competition, completed an ultra-marathon and several smaller distance runs.
During these 5 years, there have been many many days where I didn’t feel motivated enough to work out. On such days I just put on my sports shoes nonetheless,
During your fitness journey, many a times you just won’t feel like doing it. However once you put on your shoes and start moving, motivation will follow and you would feel psyched up, once again.
3) Mentally visualize your workout routine :
In a highly sighted study, the authors found that if you want to build a habit and stay consistent with it, making use of your procedural memory, helps you overcome inner resistance. Which means that before performing a task, you need to visualize the sequence of actions which you need to perform, in order for a particular outcome to occur.
Therefore, if you feel inner resistance towards workout, then mentally visualize, the group of exercises that you have to perform, as part of your workout. If you desire to go for a run, but are facing mental resistance, then start visualizing the course you want to run on.
4) It’s okay to lower your intensity :
Realize that some runs are all about putting one step ahead of the other. On some days it’s okay if you only lift, 50 percent of your P.R. In the long run, all that matters is being consistent with your training. On a large time frame, your intensity is bound to fluctuate. However in the long run, your results will depend on your persistence during the days in which you didn’t feel like doing it, but still did it anyway.
Bonus Material :
If you don’t have access to the gym, try this workout routine at home. You will be astounded by the results :
Hey there ! 🙂
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