How to Stay Consistent in the Gym: 5 Tips

1. Get educated and inspired. When you are starting your fitness journey you may or may not have any background. Find fitness influencers that you enjoy watching, or read a fitness article. By finding ways to influence your fitness journey you are able to educate yourself on what you are doing in the gym, this leads to building confidence in yourself.

2. Go to the gym at a time you like to go. If you are not a big crowd person or hating seeing everyone in your small town….it is probably not the best idea to go to the gym at 5pm during the busiest time. Finding a consistent time to go to the gym will make it easier for you to go because it will become apart of your daily routine. For myself, I tend to gravitate towards the gym when there is not many people there and I know that I hate going to the gym after the gym. So I tend to go to go to the gym at 5am. Now I am not saying that you need to start there and that is definitely not where I started but if I want to be happy with my workouts thats the time I have to go. Find that hole in your schedule that you feel like you can go to the gym everyday and getting a good workout.

3. Plan out your workouts. Having a calendar in your phone or planner on what you plan to do each day also helps being consistent. I.E. Monday is leg day, Tuesdays you do a 6pm yoga class, Wednesday is a push day, Thursday is a rest day, and Friday is another leg day. Having your activities that you are doing through out the week can also create some excitement towards going to the gym especially if you enjoy completing that activity.

4. Track your progress. This can look like keeping a journal to log all of your exercises, sets, reps, and weight. I find it easy to add the weights I hit next to my exercises in my notes app for every workout. This allows me to keep track of my progress weekly, seeing where I can improve, and challenge myself to go harder.  Another way to track your progress is by taking pictures or videos of you doing exercises or just your physique on the daily. Doing this will allow you to look back over time to see the changes in your physical appearance and see your form and weight improvements over time. Side note: you also can create some cool transformation videos if you wanted to.

5. Stay flexible. Sometimes you are going to be tired and your body maybe sore so allow yourself to take rest days or modify workouts if you are feeling pain. Allow yourself rest days, for some people working out less days actually is more beneficial for their goals then pushing themselves to the brink every week. Also be flexible in changing up your workouts and workout types. For example if you are feeling sore from your leg day on Tuesday and Friday comes around when you are supposed to hit legs, maybe try some sort of recovery like a yoga class or do a H.I.T.T. workout.