Finding motivation to exercise on bad weather days

A lot has been studied on the topic of weather and productivity. Interestingly, the results vary. But this shouldn't come as a surprise since human beings are different and react to various conditions differently.

For example, I find myself much more productive when the weather is rainy. When the weather is nice, all I want to do is play outside. If you are the same, a primary reason for the bad weather-productive connection is that you are less distracted, more focused and work more efficiently when the weather is bad. The idea of being outdoors is not very attractive so you may as well get stuff done inside. 

However, for some people, a gloomy day can lead to a dreary mind. It's hard to get stuff done when you are feeling down.

Although most people would agree that weather that looks and feels good puts you into a good mood, and you are more likely to be productive when you are feeling good, you can't get much done in life if you plan your productivity around the weather.

Because bad weather can affect workout motivation, here are a few tips to help you get out of your warm cozy bed when it's dark and cold outside:

• Quite the negative self-talk - All or nothing thinking, jumping to conclusions emotional reasoning and magnifying a situation can keep a negative voice in your head, making it difficult to get a workout started. Learning to catch your brain in the early parts of a distorted thought process can help you realize that your negative talk is unnatural, exaggerated and overdramatic.

• Dress appropriately - There's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing, right? To make your workout more safe and enjoyable, invest in good quality rain and/or cold weather gear. This makes outdoor training much more comfortable. Even a new outfit can help with motivation when it comes to working out indoors.

• Find an accountability partner - Meeting a friend for a workout gives you an incentive (and accountability) to show up. It's more difficult to cancel on a friend than it is to cancel on yourself. Plus, having a friend (or a group) keeps working out social and a little more enjoyable.
  
  
• Do it for the energy boost - Always remind yourself of how good you feel when a workout is complete. Even a 20-minute walk is better than nothing. Exercise almost always makes your body feel good because of endorphins. Plus, exercise can help minimize stress. And nothing beats the winter blues like a rush of energy.
  
  
• Set mini goals - Give yourself a monthly challenge to help you think in the short-term. Keep your mini goals realistic and achievable. It's easy to give up when your goals are too ambitious. Every month, evaluate where you are and what you have achieved and then add new challenges as you go. Celebrate each small goal met as each bit of progress adds up to something great.
  
  
• Keep it fun - If you don't enjoy what you are doing, it'll be difficult to stay consistent. Consider a group exercise class or a ballroom or hip-hop dancing class. Maybe a softball league or a master swim group? If you don't like running, don't run.  If you enjoy nature, discover the closest nature parks. Discover your talents and interests. Remember, exercise doesn't have to be boring and it should never be painful. You are more likely to stick with something if you are having fun.
  
  
• Make it part of your daily routine - When you are tired, busy or stressed, it's easy to make excuses for why you can't workout. You don't have to physically go to the gym to move your body. Take the stairs, park far away from the grocery store, walk around the park on your lunch break or do yoga while watching TV at night. Even taking breaks during your work day to move or standing during a phone call can be a great mood booster 

Get motivated

You’ve likely heard the saying “you won’t regret a workout when it’s over.”

Getting the workout started, however, is often the hard part.

It may seem like motivation is something that you have to find and either you have it or you don't.
When you have motivation - you crush your workouts.
When you don't have motivation - it's a struggle to get started and to stay committed to your workout.

Sometimes, the body has the energy to train but the mind has a dozen excuses to skip (or not finish) the workout.
And sometimes the mind is eager to accept the upcoming workout challenge but the body struggles to find energy with each movement.

If you agree with one or both of the statements above, you are normal.
Every athlete, from age grouper to professional, will fight for motivation at least a handful of times throughout the season.

To help you out, here are three simple ways to get yourself motivated when mind says “let’s go” but the body screams “heck no!”

A proper warm-up

Give yourself a chance to wake-up your body before you convince yourself that you are too exhausted to train.
To rev your cardio system as you transition from being sedentary to moving your body, allow 5-15 minutes of mobility and dynamic exercises to target the key muscle groups being used in your upcoming workout. Hip hikes, light foam rolling, walking lunges and leg or arm swings are a few examples of simple exercises that you can perform before your workout to slowly increase the heart rate and to improve range of motion.
This is extremely valuable for early morning sessions as well as when you workout after a long, stressful day of life.
Also, during peak season, you'll find that you need a bit more of a warm-up before you start feeling energized before a main set. Don't count yourself out of a good workout based on how you feel in the first 15 minutes of your warm-up. Give yourself 10-15 minutes more to get the endorphins flowing and you may surprise yourself.

Music
For an instant pick-me-up, there’s research to support that music can positively affect motivation and mood.  Don’t believe me?
Turn on your favorite jam before a workout and then envision yourself fist-pumping your way down your next race finish line.
Just like that - you have motivation.
Regardless if you prefer an enlightening or funny podcast to distract your brain during a workout or need the strong beats of techno, hip hop or alternative to get your heart pumping, the stimulating effects of music can help with many emotions, including minimizing low-spirited thoughts that often decrease the motivation to train.

Diet

It seems obvious that what you eat (or don’t eat) can affect your energy levels, digestive system and mood but with so much on your daily plate, nutrient timing, snacking and real-food meal planning can often be an afterthought for athletes.

To initiate a positive dietary change, always prioritize what you will eat before and after your workouts. By giving your workouts the spotlight, the effort is made to focus on food as fuel, which will help you train well and recover better. To ensure that you never train on empty, be sure to stock your workout bag with extra sport nutrition so you are always prepared. 
As for when you aren’t training, plan and prep a variety of wholesome real food options for easy meal prep so you can keep your body energized and in good health.  

Find and KEEP your training motivation

It’s normal to experience waves of high and low motivation throughout the year and the early months of training (in the cold, dark winter months) can often be a rough time for many athletes to stay focused with training and to remain present for workouts.

 Although there is no need to be hard-core with your training right now, it is extremely important that you do the work when it needs to get done because in a few months, you can't go back in time.

You don't want to look back, wishing that you would have built a better base/foundation, wishing you got yourself stronger so you could adapt better to more intense training or wishing you would have taken the time to focus on weaknesses like skills, form, diet and/or sleep/stress management so you could stay as balanced as possible with training. 

We all know that being a triathlete (especially long distance) really doesn't allow for 100% balance in life as some sacrifices have to be made in order to properly mentally, physically and nutritionally prepare for an upcoming event.

BUT, as an athlete, only once per season do you have the unique opportunity to actually create a solid foundation and to get your body into exceptional health. 

Every day, remind yourself that dreams don’t work unless you do. 

If a workout doesn’t go as planned or doesn’t get accomplished, ask yourself if this was because of something within your control (diet, hydration, lifestyle habit) or a very good reason (ex. exhausting day at work, pool closed, traffic, family obligations, etc.). 

There's no need to be hard on yourself when you miss a workout (it happens to us all!) but it is a responsibility to your body to put in the work to train AND to develop/maintain great lifestyle habits that will make it easier for your body to stay motivated to train.

Here are a few of my tips to help you find motivation to build your foundation: 

•   Don’t aim for perfect as you may set yourself up for failure. Focus on giving your best effort for the best possible outcome, every day and be sure to be practical with your available time and use it wisely for training. Always manage your time wisely.
  
•   You don't have to be an athlete to be "healthy" but you can actually damage your health by not training properly for an upcoming event. Give yourself the time you need to get in a quality workout, including a proper warm-up, pre-set, main set and short cool down (this is also your "ME" time, which every person needs). Also, be patient with your fitness. It takes a long time to get the body into "race" day shape as there are many necessary physiological adaptions that need to take place to ensure that you can peak appropriately for race day. This advice is especially true if you are injured. Do you find yourself constantly jumping from race day race, feeling like you are spending more time in rehab than training? Sometimes the best strategy is to pass on your next race when you are recovering from an injury so you can properly rehab yourself to 100% great health so you can then train properly for your next upcoming event. 

• Remember when you sleep and eat well, your body trains better. Review your week of training before it starts so that you can make the necessary investments with your lifestyle habits to set yourself up for great workouts.
  
  Always plan your meals and snacks in advice. You'll find healthy eating much easier this way.
• Change-up your training environment or simplify your training environment when you feel stale or need a mood booster. Training should be fun (even when you are suffering through a workout) and many times, we just need a new scenery or training partner to give us a different perspective. When you find yourself seeing your working out time as a hassle, something needs to change.
   
• Use social media and your friends/family for accountability. Tell others what workout you will do tomorrow so they can hold you to it. Of course, if something serious comes up, you must make the smart call to pass on a workout so that health is not compromised.

• Stay processed driven, not outcome focused. This is the time in your season at you should stay more focused on the process than on the end goal.  You shouldn't be working out just to burn fat, get leaner/reach race weight or to be fast right now. Be patient with your fitness as you build your foundation. Appreciate the journey and train with a beginner's mind. 
  
  
• Remind yourself why you wanted to register and train for your event. Never lose sight of the hard work that you were once willing to put forth to prepare your body and mind for your upcoming event. Yes, training is not always easy or exciting but in order to see what you are truly capable of achieving with your body, you can't skip steps, rush the process or follow another athlete's training plan.
  Don't overlook your progress because you are constantly comparing your journey to another athlete's journey or successes. 

Workout motivation - when the mind says go but the body says no

We all know that it's hard to regret working out after the workout is over.

The hard part is always getting started. 

Many times, we are told by others that we just need a little motivation to get started. But what if motivation isn't the issue? Is it possible to be highly motivated to workout but your body is not interested in the activity at the same time? 

 I can assure you that there were many times in the past when I would see a PM run on my schedule, and my mind was "all in" but my body was not interested.

Consequently, this would result in two situations; either me skipping the workout all together or me trying to execute with a body that was not energized (which often left me with frustration during my workout followed by uncomfortable niggles post workout). 

For me, running in the evening (as a second workout for the day) was always tough on my body. The stress on my body from sitting all day combined with the weight-bearing activity of running was not welcomed by my hips, glutes, lower back and legs. I have no trouble working out twice a day and love an evening bike ride or swim but for the longest time, I couldn't develop the same energy for running in the evening like I feel when I run in the morning. 

I'm a firm believer that we should love what we do when it comes to physical activity. If I didn't like running, I wouldn't be a triathlete. But just because I don't love running in the evening, this doesn't mean that I am setting myself up for failure as a triathlete - I can simply plan my training accordingly and put all my energy into running in the mornings. 

But over this past year, I have welcomed the opportunity to run in the evening....well, I kinda had to because almost every week this entire summer, from Tues-Thurs, and then once on the weekend, I had two workouts on my schedule (AM and PM).

Although I can certainly choose when I do my workouts, I would often have a planned evening run workout on my training plan. 

All of my evening runs are designed to be very low stress and intentionally very slow. Sometimes an evening run would come on the same day as a morning run or brick and some days I would swim or bike in the morning and run EZ in the afternoon. I typically do no more than 2 evening runs per week (and not every week) but I have learned to set myself up for a quality evening run. Even if a workout is designed to be slow, there is still a purpose and it is imperative that the body performs with good form throughout the workout. 

Maybe you struggle with evening workouts or you have trouble getting started in the morning. Maybe you are simply trying to make exercising part of your lifestyle. 

Whatever the case may be, I promise (from my own experience) that with a little effort, you can set yourself up for a great workout - no matter what time of the day. 

A proper warm-up

I will always spend up to 15 minutes warming up my body with dynamic exercises before a run. A proper warm-up includes mobility exercises as well as movements that increase the HR and blood flow. Many times, I will perform a 15-20 minute strength session of core, glute and hip exercises before any run workout just to help wake-up my body.

This is one area that time-crunched athletes often neglect  - warming up before the warm-up. Not only will a proper warm-up help reduce risk for injury, but it also helps to loosen up the body when you feel stiff and can make for an easier transition from your "real" cardio warm-up before your main set. 

I suggest to dedicate 5-10 min of mobility work and dynamic exercises before all workouts to help your body warm-up. It's amazing how much better you will feel after the warm-up is finished. And the more tired you feel before a workout, consider adding a little more time to warming up the body.  

Music

Whether you can tune-out thoughts with a podcast or pump yourself up with the beats of techno, hip hop or alternative, there is research to support that music can affect motivation and mood. Next time you are feeling tired, consider turning up the radio or spending a little time before your workout to pump yourself up with music.

The simulating effects of music also help with controlling anger, minimizing depressive thoughts and helping to fight fatigue. 

Although I never listen to music when I bike or swim, I prefer podcasts for my evening runs and techno music for my morning runs. And I always have my music jamming on the way to the pool.

A good state of mind

Many times we can bring too high of expectations to a workout which can cause us to loose joy for the simple act of working out. Although it's normal to have anticipations about a workout, especially if it's with a group, in an unfamiliar environment or if the main set looks challenging on paper, but don't allow yourself to get overwhelmed by the perceived paces, watts or speeds that you are told to focus on (or think you should be able to hit), especially when you are feeling a little tired, fatigued or just off. 

Remember that performance gains come through consistency and even the most fit and accomplished athletes have to modify a workout every now and then. I've modified many workouts this summer based on how I felt and it's only helped me train harder.

If we get too focused on the outcome, we can often lose the ability to adjust to allow for a smooth fitness progression. Without this ability, not only can you find yourself lacking self-esteem before a workout even starts but you may find yourself pushing too hard for one epic workout yet, unable to recover or repeat that effort.

I suggest to look at your workout and then ask yourself "what is the best way for me to execute this workout on this day" and consider things like your mood, sleep, stress, diet, fatigue, weather, terrain, training environment, hormones and anything else that may positively or negatively affect your workout. 

Diet

It seems quite obvious but you have the ability to set yourself up for a great workout simply by focusing on the food that will help fuel your upcoming workout. Whereas on one hand you want to be mindful of foods, like fiber and fat (and any other chemically-made products with artificial ingredients - that shouldn't be consumed regularly in the diet anyways) as well as large portions that may disrupt normal digestion in the 2-4 hours before your workout but it's not just about what you eat but also what you don't eat.

Not eating enough or timing your snacks and meals appropriately with a morning or evening workout can also put your body at a physical disadvantage with energy levels remaining low alongside dropping blood sugar and possible dehydration to combat as you try to push your body.

To help you out, don't start your day without thinking about your planned workouts and what you will eat in the hours before the workout, what sport nutrition you will consume during the workout and what you will recover with post workout. If you do this often, you will likely find yourself boosting fitness and who doesn't want this?

Of course, there are also things like working out with a buddy, changing up your workout environment and making sure that you understand the purpose of the workout (instead of just chasing miles/time) to help set you up for a better workout experience. 

So next time you struggle with motivation because your body is not excited to workout (but your mind is ready), start with a warm-up, pump-yourself up with music, keep a positive mindset and make sure your diet is helping you maximize your fitness. 

Soon enough, you will find yourself with a body that is ready for whatever workout you throw at it.

And like usual, when the endorphin's start rushing, you will feel amazing and you likely won't regret the workout when it's over.