Lose the Excuse!

by Molly Rausch Certified Personal Trainer and Certified Athletic Trainer

Hello everyone! This week’s “Fitness Tip of the Week” is about how to get past some of the most common excuses for not exercising. We all join the gym or sign up for an online workout program for different reasons. We come with goals ranging from weight loss to race training. We know the health benefits of exercise. We know why we should exercise. We have plans and tools to help us succeed in reaching our goals.

Unfortunately, knowing is not doing. The hardest part of accomplishing our goals is actually starting our workouts. We come up with tons of reasons why we “can’t” workout on a given day, even when we know the benefits outway any excuse. When we do overcome our excuse and get a workout in, one of the most common responses I hear is “I feel better than when I started.”

How do we get past our excuses and become more successful with our fitness plans? 

Tips on beating exercise excuses:

Excuse: “I hate working out.” “I hate cardio.”

Solution: Find an activity you do love and incorporate it in. Find ways to merge things you do enjoy with exercise. It may still be a love/hate relationship, but that’s better than a pure hate relationship.

Excuse: “I don’t have time.”

Solution: Everyone has 24 hours every single day. You have important items you prioritize and ones you tend to put off for another day. Make exercise a priority! A workout doesn’t need to take hours and hours out of your busy day. Split up your time and use it wisely. Do you have a spare half hour two days in a row, but not a full hour? Then split a workout between two days. Week packed, but the weekend pretty relaxed? Do a fun workout to fill your weekend up. 

Excuse: “I’m too tired.”

Solution: I know it sounds like a contradiction, but exercise helps increase your energy levels. Our bodies adapt to our environment. If you have a very stationary job, you will feel tired because your body has adapted to that. If you exercise regularly, your body also adapts to that and increase energy levels to accommodate. 

Excuse: “I’m too out of shape.” “I am hurt.” “Exercise is too hard.”

Solution: The great thing about exercise is that there are a ton of options. Everyone can find something that helps them and progress from there. You are never too much of anything to not exercise and very few issues rule out exercise completely. If you feel too out of shape for something, know there is a progression for you. If you have an injury and are in a boot, there are a ton of upper body exercises you can do to keep your fitness routine going.

Just remember, no excuse can outweigh the benefits of exercise. It doesn’t mean you need to work out every single day in a week, but you should work out at least once every week.

If you have any questions on this topic, please feel free to contact me at mrausch@healthworksfitness.com or comment below!