How To Cure Gym Boredom
It’s the same old story. Somehow, you have motivated yourself to get to that recycled air arena of inflatable balls and whitewashed walls, reliably populated by a mass of lycra clad, juicy couture donned “gladiators.” You fill up your water bottle at the fountain and trundle with no apparent enthusiasm to a machine with more flashing lights and buttons than uses. A few months ago, one of the gym cleaning staff wrote you a programme. Now, ancient and collapsing at the creases, you unfold it carefully. But it is just out of habit. You know all too well what reads inside.
I wonder where that instructor is now? It goes through your mind that you haven’t seen him for months just as you begin the monotonous motions of the machine. Up and down, up and down. To be honest, you don’t recognise any of the staff, why bother changing the programme now? After all, you’re getting a bit better at it, aren’t you? And you can always press that big red stop button when you’ve had enough and go sweat out some fat in the sauna when you’re done… You’re sure you’ve heard that somewhere.
You don’t know how you’re going to motivate yourself to do this again tomorrow but getting fit, well, it’s supposed to be like this, isn’t it? It’s the same old story. It’s a story that we all know. Like a folk tale, we don’t always know where from but if we haven’t experienced gym boredom ourselves then someone we know has. And if you haven’t, it’s probably because you’ve only been there three times since you started up that expensive membership over a year ago.
The problem lies with the expectation that becoming a gym member is a solution to weight management and fitness goals. A facility alone is not a solution, but we pretend that it is enough. We will wander around and find what we enjoy doing the most, what we find most comfortable and then we stick to it in the pretence that we are ‘training’. And either through fear of machinations that we have no understanding over, lack of fitness education or just being too damn comfortable doing what we are doing, we stick to it like wallpaper and paste.
Luckily, there is hope. Fitness isn’t about sticking to the same old routine, day in day out in faint belief that this will get you to your goals. When you stick to that same old routine, not only are you demotivating yourself and therefore less likely to engage in an active lifestyle, but your body is also finding the most efficient way of dealing with that level of workout. If you do 30 minutes on the cross trainer, 5 days a week at the same level of intensity, not only will your brain cells be topping themselves out of boredom, but your body will adapt to use as little energy as possible to complete the session. Less calories burned, lower cardiac output.
Fitness can be fun and when it is, it is often because it is varied, therefore more progressive and therefore more satisfying. It is one of the great things about becoming involved in a sports club, a dancing studio, martial arts, fitness classes and in my case, British Military Fitness. These things become part of an active lifestyle, which is made easy because they are great markets for meeting new people, of a like mind who are all in it together. They are engaging activities that not only get you active in a fun way, but give you more of an incentive to train. And they form the bedrock of a sustainable active you!
Not only that, but often they are outdoors in a green and natural environment and run by professionals who know how to get the best from you and work hard on keeping the training fun, varied and therefore progressive. No more motivating yourself on several different layers just to leave the house, let alone go in the gym and do something worthwhile for a period of time at a respectable intensity. No more big red stop buttons. Instead, it is with these kind of activities that you can just turn up and once you are there, the rest is taken care of for you!
It is a sustainable activity that YOU want to develop, whether that is cycling to work or a fast walk to the local shops, these things will provide a base layer from which to develop. If this extra development is in the gym, so be it, but regularly seek professional advice and expect nothing less than to be pushed every session doing something different and interesting upon each visit.
Find something that works for you and give yourself targets that you can smash and adapt every time. The gym environment is limiting but progressive training is only limited by the imagination. So Monday might be a game of 5-a-side, Tuesday might be a British Military Fitness class and Saturday might be a visit to the climbing walls or a walk in the lakes. There is a large world outside of those whitewashed gym walls, a prison of pulleys, levers, motors and chains that bind you from inspiration and trap you from progress. Open your mind and step out into that world. You might find yourself having fun!
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