When it comes to an exercise program, there are a lot of different factors to consider – programming, adherence, exercise choice, effort level, recovery, and many more. But when it comes to success within a given exercise program, many studies have shown that the number one factor that determines the success of any program is consistency. It turns out that just showing up more often than not tends to be the most important factor for success in the long term. In a lot of ways this is great news – showing up is the easiest thing to do, at least in theory. Unfortunately, when it comes to your day-to-day life, sometimes “just” showing up may seem like one of the most difficult things to do with everything that you probably have going on. Since this is something that I am constantly working on improving, here are a handful of tips and tricks that I have found helpful over the years.
- Schedule your workouts
I think this is the most important activity that will increase your hit rate on getting workouts in. While I would suggest that you have your full week of workouts planned (meaning workout type, day, and time) before each week starts, there is a little more to it than that.
- Think about which days/times are more consistent for you and those that are more volatile – its best to be conservative in doing this. If you haven’t worked out on a Saturday morning in 6 months, probably skip on scheduling a workout for Saturday morning!
- Always take the path of least resistance
- If gym is right next to your office, then schedule all of your gym workouts on days that you are in the office
- One example – my longest work days are always on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so I schedule my shortest workouts for those days
- Don’t hesitate to be flexible – switch up your schedule for the week based on how things are going or what plans get thrown on the calendar, this should be something that constantly evolves
- Optional workouts – I am a big fan of having optional workouts built into every week. This enables several benefits
- For your most unpredictable days/times of the weeks – just because some days tend to be unpredictable, you can still schedule something but also not feel bad if you ultimately skip it
- In the event that you find yourself to have “extra” time, you have another workout ready to go – just another form of reducing resistance to getting those sessions in
- It also gives you space to exceed your plan for the week – if you have a hard plan for workouts every week, the best possible case for you is to meet your plan. In this case, more often then not, you will fall short of the plan, which can feel like you’ve “failed”. If you have optional workouts, then you will also have weeks where you exceed your expectations – this banks time for future weeks and also allows you to have exceptional weeks to cancel out weeks where you may miss your goal
- Always pack a bag
This one may seem slightly odd in some cases, but I swear by it – always pack a bag that includes everything you need for a workout and do this at night for the next day. This could include clothes, food, shoes, and any other gear. This is another way to eliminate a couple more barriers to getting that workout in – even the extra 5 minutes it takes to grab clothes or get your things together can be a significant barrier to getting started. The weirder side of this is that I even do this if I am working out at home or going for a run in my neighborhood – ALWAYS pack a bag. This does a couple of things for you:
- It is a commitment to getting that workout in the next day, albeit a small one, I find that this goes a long way
- Food is a common barrier to getting a workout started, especially if it is after a workday – you know that you’ll be hungry by that time, so pack a good pre-workout snack (banana/apple + almond butter is my favorite on the go snack)
- You know with 100% certainty that you have everything you need – it can be time consuming and frustrating if you can’t find something that you need in the morning when you have a limited timeframe to get your workout started or get out the door for work
3. Make the most of your mornings – remove all forms of resistance
At a high level, this means to make everything you have to do in the morning before starting a workout or going to work as effortless as possible, preferably have everything nearly done before you even get out of bed. Here are a few examples that I use:
- Coffee maker is setup at night and just needs to be started
- Breakfast is already made and ready to eat
- Lunch is premade and ready to grab for the office or eat later in the day
- Work bag is already packed or workstation setup
- Workout bag is prepacked
The end goal for this is that whatever you want to do between waking up and starting the “rest” of your day should be already done or so close to completion that it takes 0 effort to get done in the morning. If you can wake up and get almost directly into what you want to do that morning, it will make the morning and rest of your day flow significantly better and help avoid skipping anything that you planned to get done ahead of time but ran out of time for.
There are lots of ways to become more consistent, and everyone may need something slightly different, though I think these 3 concepts are a great place to start when it comes to leveling up your consistency from week to week and month to month!