JUST DO IT!
Thank you Marcia, for taking to time to guest blog about wellness psychology. Marcia will be writing a series of blogs for Momentum Fitness. We hope you enjoy her thoughts and advice about how to reach your fitness goals…..
JUST DO IT!
People like to say that psychology is just common sense, but in fact the field draws from a great deal of sophisticated science. There is an enormous body of research into how people form beliefs and attitudes, and how to promote the behaviors that lead to health and wellness. Rhode Island is in fact a hotbed for this sort of research. In this column, I hope to describe some exercises that can be helpful to clients at the gym in order to reach their fitness goals.
As a health psychologist, I observe many aspects of personal training that serve to promote fitness goals but the most important is the relationship with the trainer, or coach. The simple fact that there is another person involved makes it more likely that clients will stick with regular exercise, make more effort during exercises, and continue to make progress. Last year I broke my foot and I never thought I’d walk evenly again, but now I can. I’ve also seen that there’s a tremendous amount of technical skill involved in designing fitness programs. I’ve gone through a graded series of exercises to strengthen the foot along with the rest of the body, but it is the support of the gym that has made it possible.
Just Show Up
One thing that’s known about motivation and desire for change is that it isn’t a steady state. If you’ve ever tried meditation, just watching your thoughts, you will know that there’s an endless stream in the mind. Its known that the vast majority of the thoughts in the stream aren’t new and we keep going over the same ground. All kinds of thoughts can keep you out of the gym. Thinking about all the things that need to get done after the workout, for example. Personally, I go through the entire routine I am working on like this: treadmill, boring, boring, boring….plank, I hate the plank…sixty seconds worth too…bridges, those are no fun and wobbly too, etc. I think through my entire workout item by item. Sometimes I probably spend as much time thinking about not going to the gym as I would have actually going there.
The strategy for this problem is just like those ads, “just do it”. When you notice you are into the 101 reasons not to go to the gym tape, the idea is to try to change the channel. I’ll say this now, but it goes for everything I’m going to write about: all of this is easier said than done. If it were easy, then people really would just do it. The good news is that the coaching relationship can really help with this.
Say it Out Loud
As I’ve already said, much is known about how attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are developed and changed. It is also known that simply speaking with another person can improve success rates in behavior change. Now this one probably does seem like common sense, because most of us have experienced it in our lives. But the science tells us while just talking is good; speaking about certain topics can more effectively promote behavior change. So here’s the first exercise. The next time you have a big struggle getting to your workout, tell your trainer about it. What were the barriers to working out? What did you think about that kept you from doing your workout? It sounds simple, but it may well increase your motivation.
Thanks for reading.
Marcia Smith, Ph.D.
Dr. Smith is a client at Momentum Fitness and a health psychologist.
