Pimp your Workout

I thoroughly enjoyed this article, and its given me some great tips on maximizing the effectiveness of my workouts. I’m still new to the gym so my training hasn’t yet gotten stale, but I still want to maintain the edge I currently have and keep my workouts fresh, inspiring and challenging.

I have joined Fitness First in my current locale of Portsmouth - Not only are they my nearest club, but they are also a great club, having won club of the year this year (within the Fitness First chain). The facilities are top-notch with everything I could possible need to assist my training.

The most impressive thing about the gym however was the staff - they are absolutely brilliant, and were really supportive and encouraging - without making me feel as though they were twisting my arm to get me to join.

All in all, this is a great next step in my training and one that I am sure is going to bring me really positive results.

I have to date been a member of 4 different gyms in 2 cities, and though each sign-up was accompanied by much handing over of cash and a great deal of enthusiasm, I never managed to stay the course. I always managed to go for at least a couple of weeks, but the lure of bad food and good movies always got the better of me.

I am confident that the abiding motivation of my climb will provide the impetus to stick with it -The anticipation is building along with my focus, and the prospect of maximizing my training capacity as well as getting access to all the additional resources is pushing me towards joining.

The financial aspect of gym membership is always one method of motivation that many ascribe to - the fact that if you don’t go your losing money. I don’t think this is particularly valid, except for when the initial stretch to afford your gym fees has been tight. By putting the onus on not losing money, as opposed to getting fit, you’re automatically putting yourself into a negative state of expectation… and what you think about, you’ll probably get.

My focus this time around is on more than just getting a bit fitter - I am achieving a massive challenge that I have set myself, and hopefully doing some good in the process - Only time will tell if I can manage to stay the course.

Understanding your Dominant State
Before I get on to exercise, it’s important to understand an important metric in evaluating how different activities and relationsips can affect us - it’s called State.

Simply put, your state at any given time is the sum total of all your thoughts, all your feelings and the physical condition of your body. It’s never fixed - your state is constantly changing, depending on the situations you are moving between, the people you’re with and the different actions you’re undertaking.

All of us, no matter what the specifics of our life situation are, have a dominant state - the state which we normally occupy for most of the day. This might be high-energy, very positive and optimistic at one end of the spectrum and at the other, a dominant state might be lethargic, bloated, negative and stressed.

How would you describe your dominant state? Remember to examine your thoughts, your feelings and how your body seems…

How exercise affects your Dominant State
From my own research, as well as having read a lot of exercise books and articles, I believe that the initial few minutes of any exercise routine induce a spike towards your dominant state - If you’re quite a positive, healthy person you’ll get a positive energy boost - If you’re quite a negative person, or are feeling tired, lethargic or stressed in any way, you’ll get a boost of negative energy (which may spur you to give up).

However, after the initial few minutes (as long as you’re not pushing yourself too hard), the energy will continue to build, but only in a positive direction - To again compare the two ends of the spectrum, the positive person would continue to feel good as they stick with it; the negative person would feel a lessening of their negativity and would feel better.

In the case of the negative person, the eventual state they reach might not be completely positive, but would be a marked improvement on where they were when they started. By continuing to exercise, they would gradually improve their dominant state towards a more positive level.

None of this is new information - many of us know that exercise will be of benefit to us, either physically or mentally, but I think this is a good way of looking at how exercise can affect our moods and attitude.

For myself, I know that a run before work - no matter how hard it is to get up and go - will always result in a positive improvement in state, giving me more energy, more patience and a boost in productivity that easily outstrips the days when I don’t run.

The next time you’re about to exercise, or are feeling unmotivated to exercise, have a think about your state - Decide whether you want to continue to feel the same way, or whether you want to do something about it…

I’d love any feedback on this concept, so please email me, or leave your view in the comments.

I find it helps me to consciously ackowledge mile-stones like this, as I have a finite amount of time to prepare now and I constantly need to refocus upon my training in order to ensure it remains a priority.

I am about to move into the final 6 months of training for my climb now - I am drawing upon all the information and resources I have gathered over the last 6 months, and my experiences with different types of training in order to pull together a final 6 months training program which will really push me to my limits!

I shall post details as I finalize them.

The way back is a clear, mostly straight route which I’m pretty much stuck on - There are no short-cuts, no shelter, no way back, no lift - it’s a simple choice between run or freeze.

I always enjoy my running, but sometimes I need that little extra kick to get me out of the door - this hack never fails!

I’m not particularly upset, as I have already lost a great deal of weight since I started training and am planning on reaching my target weight early in the New Year (if the holiday season doesn’t blow me off track).

Now that I have heard I am filled with a mixture of disappointment and relief! On one hand I am really keen to test my running mettle against the supreme challenge of a Marathon; on the other I still feel that one ridiculously tough challenge is enough for next year!

I am going to keep applying for the marathon every year from now, until I successfully get a place - I am confident that when the time is right, I’ll get a place and be able to participate.

Maybe that will be a future annual fund-raising challenge for me - To run the London Marathon, though in order to compete with Kilimanjaro I’ll have to do it in a ridiculous costume.

Please post suggestions for a potential costume in the comments!

I just received an email notifying me that I will soon be notified whether I have got a place in the Marathon next year. Nice - thanks for the heart attack.

Like the climb, as much as I like the idea of the marathon, there is a little boy inside me that keeps hoping that if he closes his eyes and wishes real hard that it will all go away and he won’t have to run 26 miles or climb a big-ass african rock.

I’ll keep you all posted about the state of my nerves and my results as and when I get them…

I am highly selective about the information sources I subscribe too - I rarely get subscription email, have a maximum of 5 RSS Feeds at any one time, and only ever subscribe to one or two magazines (probably ever). A source of information has to have a clear, tangible benefit to my life before I will commit my time to it.

Mens health is one such source I don’t want to be without - it’s articles and stories, especially those about guys like me who have overcome adversity, are incredibly motivational - I always feel like hitting the gym, or going for a quick run, every time I put the magazine down.

What information sources do you let into your life? Do they have a positive or negative impact upon you? Let me know in the comments…