Don't Quit

Don’t quit. Whether you’ve been working out for 20 years or 2 months, just keep going. It’s easier to keep up than to catch up. What happens when we give up is we feel bad about giving up and losing the progress we’ve made, and we feel like we’re starting all over, like all that progress we made was for not. While that’s not entirely true it can feel like that, so we want to avoid the stopping and restarting pattern. People stop for all sorts of reasons: they get busy, they get burned out, they get an injury, they get bored of a program, they lose motivation. Whatever the reason, we need to have a way to respond in a way that keeps us consistently making exercise a part of our regular life rhythm. So if you find yourself in one of these situations and don’t want to lose your progress, here’s what I recommend to do for your workouts. 

1. Have a handful of workouts that don’t take very long. 
2. These should be workouts that aren’t particularly challenging for you. 
3. These should also be workouts that you don’t mind doing, you like them. 
4. Ideally your able to do them with minimum equipment
5. Don’t feel bad about not doing very much, your focus for these is on maintaining the habit, and good things are still happening. 

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Like I said, keep these workouts 20 to 30 minutes and these are your go to’s if for whatever reason your ideal workout isn’t going to happen. I have experienced all of the above situations in my life at various times, but I have been able to stay consistent just by having a small handful of go to workouts that I know I can complete with limited equipment and limited time, even limited energy. This keeps me in the game, if it’s a week or month before I get back to normal I don't stop so I’m not starting over. 

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If long term health is the goal, take a long term approach, I hope you do hit that bench press PR in 6 weeks, but I would rather you have been exercising consistently for 6 years. 

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