Mundane workouts dont workout

So you finally decided its time to get back into shape. Time to start working out. Time to say goodbye to the jiggly part preventing you from seeing your toes. You might have already tried and given up. You might have started last month and are about to give up. You might have struck your first plateau (a place where you don’t see any physical growth). Your lazy fries eating mind cant take the sudden shock you have put it in.

You want to quit without knowing that the fault is not in you? Knowing that only if you act a little smarter you would see more results from your workout. Knowing that if you just read one little article, your way of looking at your workout would change forever. If so then you are free to go back to your reckless corpulent life. Or you can give yourself a chance and alter your perspective of looking at your workout by reading further.

Most people have the will to start improving their physical condition, the money to enroll at an expensive gym, the time to invest in themselves but where they miss out is the astuteness to recognize what is the right way of going about remedying themselves from the doughnut they turn themselves into.

The lies you like to believe

A palatial gym with customized cooling, a buffed up trainer, expensive supplements, crazy workout routines, a mind bending diet chart, these might help you as a placebo by nourishing your ego, but in the long run these would not help you get and stay fit.

Everyone wants to believe in the lies being sold by the marketing divisions of fitness centers and nutrition companies. You want to tread the easy way, which seldom leads you to where you want to be. If there was a magic potion which could replace hard work at the gym, then no one would be obese. Your timid minds are fooled by the stories marketing agencies concoct in order to sell their product or service. You end up losing a lot of money, and gaining nothing, if not some more bad health.

The magic potion

Let me tell you first and foremost, there is no easy way, no magic potion, no short cut method to fitness. You have to be dedicated, sacrifice your taste buds, and be patient. Putting in the hard hours at the gym is the only way to actualize your dream physique.

Still there are some tools and tips which will help you out in your pursuit of the ideal physique:

1. Start small and be regular- Its impossible to seen years results in a week. Usually people tend to over burden themselves at the gym and give up as a result. They fail to understand the importance of easing into your workout. Rather than over training yourself for a small time and expecting colossal results, you are better off starting small and just being regular.

2. Laziness follows you to the gym- Dont expect someone else to help you out all the time. Pick and rack your weights yourself. Try to take as little help from the trainers as possible. Your laziness chases you to the gym, its your duty to not let it enter, so that you can exit without it. Fast food is as lazy as it gets, spend some time to understand the value of good nutrition.

3. Know the basics before going advance- Fitness centers, these days, are full of smart phones with even smarter workouts. The lack of patience triggers you to dive into the most vague workout routine. Exercises that sound weird and are even wierder to perform. Its very difficult to do justice to these routines because your body needs to ease itself into any workout. Start with basic training. Jog, do some body weight training( 30 pushups, 30 situps, 30 pullups) everyday for the first few weeks. Gradually increasing the repetitions each day. Its better to dip your legs into the river before diving into it, you find out

4. Delay supplementation as much as you can- If you think that a few protein shakes and a dose of creatine will get you desirable results, you are lazy and wrong. There is no substitute for hard work and perseverance. Supplementation can only augment growth and not be solely responsible for it.

5. Spice up your workout- Once you are through the basics it is not mandatory to follow the work out your trainer tells you. You have to design your own workout. Make it as exciting as possible. All exercises are modifications of the same movement, its how you mix and match them that makes your workout interesting or mundane. I usually mix 3 different exercises in one super set. This enables me to expend the maximum energy and keeping things entertaining for my mind, which wants to give up ASAP. Mixing high intensity cardio and cardio with regular weight training always assists in making your workouts a pleasurable experience.

6. Keep learning- The secret about any good endeavor is that you can always learn something more about it. Keep an eye out for nutrition and exercise advises. Filter marketing scams and research on what makes your body better. Every one will come with their own way and their own answers.

The declaration

I prefer empowering people face to face hence it is going against my nature to put workouts online. Still I want to force myself to post some good beginner and intermediate workouts which will assist everyone in getting better results.So I am making a declaration that I will be doing the same over the course of the next few articles. These will focus on making you workout smartly, so that you look forward to the next day of training rather than run away from it. These will be the perfect mix for someone who is joining the gym, facing difficulty in getting results and facing a plateau. These would also help people who are at a dirth of time for themselves because they are too busy being slaves to others, or to the ones who want to workout at home.

You are enveloped by urges all the time. These ubiquitous urges make most of our decisions. They compel you to sleep a little extra in the mornings, to check your smartphone before embracing the day, to eat for your taste buds, to become a puffing chimney, to give up on your workout, to resist change because of evanescent comforts and to give up prematurely.

These urges often have a butterfly effect like impact on your lives. It might appear to be a petty urge but the implications of sliding with the urge, echo across eternity. Succumbing to these ‘tests of faiths’, deforms mentalities and limits progress. The ones who overcome or control these petty urges might not become billionaires overnight but find a billionaire and he’ll tell you the importance of sustained mindfulness.

Gym workouts aren’t limited to muscle building, they teach you a lot about resisting urges.Anyone who has ever gone to a gym would understand the significance of resisting the urge. Resistance is the basis of all workouts, you can only progress if you resist the urge wanting you to give up too soon.

Most people overlook the subliminal benefits of going to a gym. It is not all about bazooka biceps, greek god abs and thunder thighs. On the contrary, these are the consequences of the hard work that goes into your workout, most of which is mental.

The urge to give up is amplified when you are starting off but you learn to control it if you don’t give up prematurely. And once you do, you reinvent your disposition and approach towards training your mind and consequently your body. So along with the well toned body what you carry out of the gym is a well toned mind.

Disco of Distractions

The wild eruption of technology has augmented distractions. The platter of diversions come as obstacles to our innately receptive brains. As a result, working efficiency have plummeted worldwide. The digital delirium has taken us into its grips and as we gradually succumb to the enumerable urges around us, the importance of a well toned mind cannot be overlooked. The well toned mind will help you uncover urges in your quotidian experiences. It will help you realize the consequences of sliding with these urges. It will be conditioned to consciously attempt to avoid these urges.After a while it will empower you to learn to smile at these urges when they shows up.

In a very interesting article Leo Babauta compares our urges to itches dictating us to scratch when we know we can do without scratching. Do have a look at Don’t Scratch the Itch and you will learn some more about the hoodwinking urges.

Cure before all you would do is endure

Dont forget to work these urges out before they work you out. If you enjoy your workouts initially and sustain your efforts, you will soon you realize the intangible benefits of the hard work you put in. Once this enlightenment is reached, you wouldn’t have to care about the urge restricting you from going to the gym on a daily basis. Regular subliminal workouts will not only help you at becoming more aware of your urges but also equip you well so as to control them.