Hometown Healthy Workouts!

By Dariann Sellitti

If you’ve had the same workout routine for months now, you may start to feel like your workouts have become tedious. When things start to get boring and repetitive we tend to lose our interest and motivation to continue on the same path. In order to keep yourself from abandoning your routine, try to make the workouts more interesting. Push yourself further and step out of your comfort zone, mix up your old routines and find something new to try. Many people only like to exercise in one way, like running, but there are so many different ways a runner can push themselves and keep their workouts interesting. Enjoying the particular exercise is only half of the equation, you still need to have fun and keep yourself interested.

Motivate Yourself

Give yourself some motivation and start setting goals. For those of you with a competitive edge, go ahead and research races and athletic competitions to participate in. This will give you a reason to train and stay motivated, it will give you more motivation to work out and even make you work harder. Find friends to participate with you, this way you have people to work out with and who will push you to challenge yourself. There are 5ks, 10ks, half –marathons and marathons; Cyclists also have rides that range from criteriums to century rides. You can also sign up for competitions that require full body training such as Tough Mudder, which is super fun when you do it with a group of friends.  You could even just give yourself a more challenging route or a further distance to travel; like a certain amount of miles you want to reach by the end of the summer. Set goals for yourself that may seem farfetched but at the same time, they are possible. Maybe set a goal of finishing your bike route or run in a certain amount of time. You give yourself weekly or bi-weekly goals and watch yourself progress.

Explore New Grounds

Getting stuck in the same cardio routine is very easy; you have your route, you’re familiar with the area, and you know the distance and how long it should take. Eventually, you will get sick of the everyday routes you have designed for yourself. The best way to avoid this is to find yourself new routes to run or bike by changing up your location. Take advantage of the nature trails where you can go running or biking while enjoying the great outdoors. A change in scenery can really go a long way, it’s worth it for runners to hop in the car and cyclists to throw their bikes in the car and go find a trail to ride. Limiting yourself to only the immediate world around you is what can make your cardio routines become so overplayed. Make sure not to limit your options, broadening your horizons and stepping outside of your comfort zone will only help you on your journey to making fitness fun. If you live in a city area, Strava is an app that can help you find unique running and cycling routes, you can download it on your phone or the computer.

Take Advantage of Technology

Gadgets can help keep things interesting, they are so advanced in today’s time that they offer so many different qualities. Having a fitness tracker can help you set your own personal goals too, they give you the ability to see the distance you’ve traveled, the calories you’ve burned, what your maximum heart rate was compared to your minimum, and plenty of more.  Some watches even have GPS as a feature, which lets them know the exact mileage they’ve gone and alongside a heart rate tracker it shows them how long they were working at their maximum effort.

It matters on the individual’s preferences in order to pick out the perfect watch, doing thorough research will help make the decision easier. One person may say the Vivoactive is the best fitness watch, but another may say the Fitbit Blaze is; it’s best to do your own research and then compare and contrast. A great feature that most of the watches have is a “diary”, this is where your work out data is stored. Some watches also give you the ability to plug the watch into your computer and analyze the data. This way you can go back and see how your week of fitness was compared to last weeks, or last months. If your intensity has dropped off due to boredom, being able to see your data right in front of you will help you to motivate yourself and get back to where you were.

Appreciate the Boredom

At times you’re going to have to accept that there will come a period of time where you are bored with your routines. But make the time away from people and stresses of an everyday life useful; use your exercise routines as an outlet. This is your time off from constantly worrying and thinking, it’s a great way to alleviate some of the built up stress. Try not to view your workout as boring and appreciate that you have time to shut off your brain and put your worries on pause.