Beauty Matters

Pro athletes exercise in beautiful places, for good reason. They are focused, relaxed, and energized after walking into their training centers. Beauty has that effect on people.

I remember the first time I stepped onto the track at my Olympic Development Center. It had sprinting lanes on the oval as well as the infield. There were more jumping pits and throwing areas than I had seen in one place. The entire space was completely dedicated to track and field events and nothing else. Even when I didn’t want to workout, stepping onto that track gave me energy to run. It was beautiful.

Pick a gym that is more than a box filled with equipment. Workout in a space that looks, sounds, feels, and smells good. Do your exercise in a place that helps you feel like exercising.

Being an exerciser is hard. A beautiful place will ease the burden.

Do The Best With What You Have

Photo from GeekPhilospher.com

Your workouts will be different because you will be different. There will be days when you feel rested, energetic, and upbeat. There will be days when every act feels harder than it should feel.

A workout will be really good when you feel really good. When you’re not feeling so good, you may not perform as well. Effort is what makes a workout good, not performance. Your best effort for that day — not some other day when you felt really great — is what matters most. If today you ran 10-minute miles, even though you are normally a 9.5-minute performer, then you had a good workout, if the best you had was 10-minute mile speed.

I’ve seen members look dejected after workouts; disappointed that the workout wasn’t as good as some other workout. That’s like an athlete feeling disappointing because he doesn’t equal his own record, each race!

There will only be sometimes when you have your absolute best stuff. But you will always be able to put out a good effort.

The Momentum of Good Decisions

There’s a very funny guy that I’ve known for about two years. He’s a foot shorter and is 20+ pounds heavier than me. His distinguishing physical attribute is a beer belly.

He joined The Training Station and immediately started working out with me. I focus on his aerobic and strength training, not his diet. But his diet has changed for the better.

He is riding the momentum of good decisions. His first good decision was to exercise regularly. That decision gave him the incentive to eat right — because he didn’t want a poor diet to undo all of his hard work in the gym.

Good decisions create momentum that leads to other good decisions. Bad decisions are like an inertia that is difficult to overcome. Riding the momentum of good decisions is better than overcoming the inertia of bad ones.

You Can’t Finish Until You Start

Eventually, it happens to all exercisers. There will be days when you don’t want to do the workout. Because, sometimes, doing a workout is the last thing you want to do. Sometimes exercise sucks — whether you’re an Olympic athlete or a beginning exerciser.

It’s a difficult type of inertia to overcome. There is no one trick, no one inspirational saying, no one ritual that will always work for anybody in this situation. However, if you can get yourself going, you’ll probably have a much better workout than expected.

Just start. The sooner you start, the sooner you finish.