We all know how beneficial exercising is, but creating healthy exercise habits can often be easier said than done!
When you’re beginning your fitness journey, it’s typically easy to start and much more challenging to keep going. A lot of exercise enthusiasts will hit the ground running, but they’ll later slip back into old habits just a few months later.
The true trick to seeing great results and reaching your fitness goals is to make exercising a part of your habitual routine. Below we’ll be discussing why habitual exercise is important, why it’s often challenging for people to create fitness habits, and six strategies to help you turn exercising into a habit of your own!
Why Are Exercise Habits Important?
Physical activity is by far one of the most crucial ingredients for anyone to live a healthy, long life. Exercise is closely linked to managing all sorts of diseases, including mood disorders and even cancer. There are all sorts of benefits associated with working out, and developing exercise habits can undoubtedly be life-changing in terms of strengthening your muscles and bones, managing your weight, and reducing your overall risks of health-related issues.
Exercise is also known for releasing endorphins, which provide a natural energy boost. This essentially means that habitual exercise can alleviate health conditions like anxiety and depression, and it can also be a great coping mechanism for your stress that simultaneously improves your self-esteem.
Why is it Often Difficult for People to Create Fitness Habits?
It’s likely that you already know the many benefits associated with regular exercise, but it’s also no secret how a lot of us tend to struggle with creating fitness habits.
Although everyone is different, there are some common theories that help explain why creating fitness habits can be so challenging. Some of these theories include:
- Finding time to exercise: We all live such busy lives these days, so it’s normal for people to have trouble finding time in their schedules for exercising.
- Unrealistic fitness expectations: A lot of people expect to see quick results and always have fun when they start exercising on a regular basis, but the truth is that fitness habits need to persist regardless of whether or not we’re seeing significant changes or are in the mood for working out. A lot of people become demoralized when they don’t see their expected results, and this is often because they actually hold unrealistic expectations for themselves.
- Falling back on old habits: Habits, both good and bad, are often tough to break. While it’s always great to initiate new, healthy habits, it can sometimes be easy to fall back into your older ones.
- Becoming a victim of perfectionism: Another significant challenge that people often go through is all or nothing thinking. This means that if you set a goal to exercise on a daily basis and miss just one day, you might consider the entire week a failure. Perfectionism can quickly become demoralizing.
6 Strategies to Help You Turn Exercising Into a Habit
It’s important to remain patient as you’re just beginning your new fitness journey, and following the below strategies can go a long way to help you create exercise habits that you can stick with for the long-term future!
1. Discovering Your Why
Everyone needs to be convinced when it comes to maintaining habits, and exercise habits often need powerful reasons to override procrastination and other mental hoops. This is why you should consider thinking about why exactly you want to develop consistent fitness habits.
Once you understand your overarching reason to work out, you can begin developing short and long-term fitness goals. It’s often a good idea to start with your long-term goals, and then work your way from there through SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely) goals that’ll keep you motivated on a daily basis.
After you’ve set SMART long-term goals, you can begin setting your short-term goals. These short-term goals are sort of like a road map that’ll get you to where you want to be later in the future. Your short-term goals should be purposeful and specific, like attending group fitness classes at least once a week.
2. Starting Small & Making Incremental Changes
Habitual exercise is supposed to help you feel great, but making too many significant changes too quickly can sometimes have the opposite effect. This is why it’s best to gradually find your groove by easing into your fitness journey with small wins.
Consider any small changes that you can make to your existing routine, and then stick with these changes. Over time these small changes can compound upon themselves, and that’s when you’ll start to see big differences from where you originally started.
It’s also very important to figure out how you can make exercising consistent and easy. If 1-2 hours at the gym is too much, consider 15-20 minutes per session as a small win.
3. Setting Yourself Up For Fitness Success
It’s critical to remove as much friction as possible while you’re initially setting yourself up for creating lifelong habits. Try committing to the same exercise time every day to more easily make it a part of your routine, and consider placing triggers around your home to remind you to exercise. These triggers can include preparing your workout gear at night so it’s ready to go in the morning, or putting your gym’s calendar on your fridge.
Exercise rituals are a great way to keep you motivated as you’re forming your new fitness habits.
4. Your New Habits Are Your Initial Success Story
You’ll always have a much better likelihood of maintaining your fitness habits if the habits themselves are your initial goals—as opposed to your workout results.
Establishing a new workout routine should be your top priority at the beginning of your fitness journey, because your physical results will eventually come once you’ve gotten over this first hurdle.
5. Choosing Exercises That Make You Feel Accomplished & Confident
During the initial stages of your fitness journey, you should try all sorts of different exercises and physical activities until you find the ones that excite you. When you love a specific exercise, it becomes easier to maintain as a habit.
And just remember that you should feel like you accomplished something after every workout session, even if it’s a small accomplishment. As time goes along, you’ll see how your positive reinforcements help you feel like your exercise is more of an opportunity for fun than a healthy obligation.
6. Find a Fitness Culture & Group That Keeps You Motivated
Social support is another major element for developing new fitness habits, and this is particularly the case for new gym goers. Joining a gym gives you access to group classes and personal training specialists, which provides you with the support system that you need to maintain your new habits.
Joining a gym like Rising Legends will motivate and inspire you to work harder during your workout sessions. Over time, you’ll make social connections that’ll help you remain accountable and consistent. You’ll also have access to group classes, fitness professionals, and top-rated equipment to boost your fitness journey and help you see results faster!
Creating Exercise Habits With The Rising Legends Academy of Fitness!
It’s always great to have professionals by your side when your laying down the foundation of new fitness habits, and the Rising Legends team takes a comprehensive, holistic approach toward helping people develop and maintain lasting exercise habits.
We provide personal training, group training and nutrition programs to help you thoroughly focus on every component of your fitness and wellbeing, and we’re always excited to help people reach their fitness goals through new habits and routines.
We look forward to seeing you at the gym!