Weeks after you commit to be fit, how do you stay motivated to keep trudging and treading?
Going outdoors during the winter is often a treacherous, not to mention chilly, option.
Then there’s that treadmill at the gym or the one gathering dust in the corner of your basement.
Don’t let the doldrums get to you. You can do this.
Erin Burgess, a physical therapist with Spectrum Health Medical Group Orthopedics, offers suggestions for how to keep your treadmill from becoming a massive, middle-of-the-room clothes hanger.
6 tips for a fun workout:
1. Try high-intensity interval training
This provides a variety of benefits. During these routines, short bursts of high-intensity workload challenge the body and activate your body’s fast-twitch muscle fibers. These fibers need more fuel to operate and burn more calories when you’re exercising them. This type of workout is efficient, burns fat and increases metabolism.
2. Workout to your favorite TV program
The time will fly by as you trudge along, binge watching a series to your heart’s content. Increase intensity during commercials.
3. Create a motivating music playlist
What gets you going? “Eye of the Tiger?” “I Will Survive?” Music has been found to improve your endurance and can also make the workout more tolerable and improve your mood.
4. Use the incline feature
Changing the angle of your workouts can keep you engaged and interested. When you do this, intermittently increase the intensity.
5. Lunge walk
Lower your body weight so you are walking in a slightly squatted position. You can perform this move forward, backward or even on an incline. Walking for one-minute intervals in varying positions can make a mundane workout interesting.
6. Try a web-based workout
The internet is crawling with ideas for interval workouts. Surf away. It’s just too bad this kind of surfing doesn’t burn calories, isn’t it?
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