There’s a bit of a myth out there when it comes to incorporating exercise into your daily routine. A lot people will say that making something part of your daily routine means that when you add in something new it needs to be easy and convenient so that you are more likely to be able to do it and there is less resistance and less chance that you will fall off the habit. In theory, this is true. If you don’t train at all currently and feel like you’re already busy and struggle to find time to train then the best option would be to find something that fits into your current routine the best. This could be going to a gym that is on your way home from work or training at home in your garage for example.
This thinking often leads us to making the choices that make the most logical sense for our current routine. Signing up to the gym closest to our house, going to the 24 hour gym instead of a coaching gym because the class times are hard to get to or training at home by ourselves. All of these are great choices and are ways to make fitting training into your daily routine much more likely to be something that you stick with.
But that’s the important part. Will you stick with it. In my experience of coaching, owning gyms and even in my own training, the most convenient option isn’t always the one that you will actually stick to. Sometimes the less convenient and easy something is, the more likely we are to actually make it happen and to stick to it.
I have seen this be true in many different ways. I have seen shift workers who instead of signing up to the gym that is closest to where they live, they sign up to one that is on their travel path to work so they can train before they go to work. It seem like it would make more sense to be a member of a gym closer to where you live rather than 40+ minutes away but if this person wasn’t actually going to that gym then it simply wasn’t working. But when they signed up to the gym closer to work and they now have to get up an hour earlier to train before work, they now are able to be consistent.
I have had countless amount of new members walk in our doors who tell me that they have a 24 hour gym membership but they just don’t actually use it. Many of these people even get these memberships severely discounted or for free through their work. So you would think that it make sense to just use this membership right? But we humans are funny animals and that path of most convenience and least resistance sometimes means that there is no reason to hold ourselves accountable and actually use the membership and train consistently.
But what if instead that membership is something that isn’t for a 24 hour gym but instead for a coaching facility that only has set session times? Now that less convenient and I have less freedom and I can’t just go whenever I want, but maybe I’m a bit more likely to go now because the times are already set. I don’t even have to make that decision I just book in and go at the set time.
And what about the money side? That 24 hour gym option was great because work paid for it so I basically paid nothing for it. But because I paid nothing for it, it kind of meant nothing to me. It had no value. I didn’t really care if I wasn’t going because it either wasn’t my money that I was wasting or it cost that little that it wasn’t significant enough for me to care. But what if now instead I’m paying for this coaching facility myself? And it cost more than the access gym does? Then maybe now I’m starting to care a bit more because now I don’t want to waste my own money. I’ve paid for the thing so I’m going to use it. Now I’ve got more skin in the game.
If you are someone who is very self motivated and disciplined and consistent with your own training then you can probably go with the most convenient option and this will be the best for you. I know lots of people who train at 24 hour gyms at obscene times or some who prefer to do most of their training by running or bike riding and we have even had a few of members leave our gym to just train at home because it works better for them and they can stick to it.
But if you struggle to stay consistent and be disciplined and self motivated then maybe find something that is a little less convenient that you actually have to make the effort to fit in and make it happen. I’m not saying intentionally go out of your way to do something hard or that makes no logical sense and negatively impacts your day but what I am saying is that looking beyond the cheapest, easiest or most convenient option could be where you find the one thing that you actually stick to.
And that’s all that matters. That you actually stick to it.
