Build Habits Over Chasing Challenges
Fitness is a continuous investment, rather than a short-term fix. This is why I encourage creating sustainable, long-term habits that enhance your physical and mental well-being, not just for a season or a special event, but for life.
Fitness challenges often promise quick results. Whether it be through a 6-week fat loss challenge, or a week-long bootcamp, they provide a sense of structure and offer the allure of immediate gratification.
The issue however, arises when the challenge ends. Since nearly all challenges involve extreme restrictions and no clear plan for continuity, they often leave the consumer feeling burnout, injured, or inadequate because they can’t sustain the workload.
Instead of chasing highs through unsustainable fitness challenges, focus on building habits that last. Here are three steps you can take to get started.
1. Plan around your worst week, NOT your best week
It’s easy to stay motivated when you have a big event to work towards and have very few commitments outside of training, but when you have a family and work is stressful, motivation won’t be high. Build an exercise routine that fits the latter - not the former.
2. Focus on Consistency over Intensity
Building on the first point, small changes that are built consistently over a long period of time will always trump short bursts of extreme effort. Even just two workouts per week repeated for a year will have more impact than a month of daily workouts followed by weeks of inactivity.
3. Train For More Than Fat Loss
Start to train for the development of other goals that can only be developed over the long-term. Some of my recommendations would be to strive to continually lower your resting heart rate and develop more lean muscle mass.
Fitness isn’t about chasing a finish line—it’s about embracing a journey that can change your life for the better.
If you value long-term investment over short-term fixes, and need help to start training for life-long fitness, take the first step now by clicking on the link below.
