How To Fall In Love With Training

Joel Younkins

Physical Preparation Coach

​I'm not going to lie, this is a tough question for someone like myself to answer...

You see, since Junior High, training has been a part of my life. I don't have some kind of epiphany moment, or some deep emotional story to explain why I got into the fitness industry. I was an athlete, I had goals, I wanted to win, so I fell in love with training because of something deep inside myself that I can't truly explain. I just knew that training was a gateway to make things happen for what I wanted to achieve. And when it came time to decide what I'd do for a living, I was just hooked and wanted to share this world with other motivated people! 

So when people ask me questions like this, it's tough for me to really give a straight answer. Because I believe you have to have some sort of internal motivation that can't be created from someone else. If it is created from someone else, it will be short lived.  I truly believe you have to have that willingness for self improvement. 

I'm not in the business of motivating people, I'm in the business of coaching motivated people!

But I will share a few cool things that I think can really help you if you find the motivation in yourself if you're in this situation. And these ideas are real world practical things. Not some abstract motivational quotes that will help motivate your for the next 5 minutes of your life. These are things to take action on, that will get the ball rolling for you! 

So check these out. These same things are used to help even the motivated people when even they're not feeling it or find themselves out a groove. I truly believe they will help you if you're lacking in the motivation department.

1.) Just Show Up and Complete the Warm Up
I got this idea from my good buddy, Brian Scott who is a competitive powerlifter. He says that if he's not motivated for his workout, "to just have a plan to complete the warm up and nothing else. And afterwards, you'll realize it's not that bad and while you're already there, you might as a well just get your training session in." Sometimes it's daunting thinking about everything you need to do at the gym that day and that can kill motivation for wanting to start. But if you can just start off with just focusing on the warm up, it will help take the pressure off of the rest of the workout.

2.) Light a Fire
I don't mean a real fire, but when you're working out, your goal should be to do just enough every time, to see or feel improvements. You don't want to just work for the sake of working. Walk out of the gym feeling accomplished, not destroyed. If you're feeling accomplished, then you will be motivated for more! If you're feeling destroyed, than it probably means you've pushed too far and that's not good for results, but it will leave you dreading the next workout. By stimulating progress, this will not only help your fitness result skyrocket, but it will drastically help build momentum!

3.) Do Things You Enjoy or You're Good At
This is not an excuse to skimp out on the things that you need to be doing. But, this always means that if you prefer Back Squats over Front Squats and feel like you can get more out of them, then just stick with Back Squats if that's what is working best. You see, my goal is to obviously work and push my clients. But, we also take notice of which exercises they do well and seem to thrive within the best. Because if you're thriving in these exercises, you will get a lot more out of your workout and it will leave you wanting to feel that success even more!
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Conclusion
So these 3 things will help get you motivated and staying motivated. If you're on that fence right now, of "I want to fall in love with training but it's just a been a challenge for me to get to that place," then try implementing these same 3 things and I think you'll see that training can be this positive and rewarding experience gift that you can give yourself!