Life-Long Fitness

Internal Motivation vs. External Goals

For many people, practicing yoga has as much to do with mental and emotional goals as physical ones. It is great that yoga encourages the practitioner to remain present, pay attention to his or her breathing, and provides a workout for the mind as well as the body. Just as often, fitness is seen as a way to improve the quality of another aspect of life, like lifting luggage, playing with kids, walking up stairs, performing on the field of play, or carrying groceries. In fitness, there still needs to be a mental and emotional goal that each person strives for. Fitness, if done correctly provides a workout for your mind. Think about having to contract and relax certain muscles to complete a TRX Push Up on a Bosu Ball with the Splits. Think about how much is going on in this advanced movement. As with yoga, attention to detail must be present.

Placing the fitness focus on external goals, as opposed to the internal experience of exercise, makes working out seem more like a step that must be accomplished to get what we really want, as opposed to an experience or a reward in and of itself. Keep in mind there is nothing wrong with having external or aesthetic goals because they are life changing. Looking better helps you increase your self-esteem. There have been countless studies that prove that the better we feel in our skin, the higher our sense of worth and value. Therefore, internal vs. external motivations have benefits depending on the person who is involved in the fitness goal. In general, people who are able to find true, long-term success also tend to fall in love with the process itself. This is another key that helps people stay committed to life-long fitness.

Hit Your Goals and Keep Your Gains

If your goal is to get stronger, protect your joints, maintain fat loss, build lean muscle mass, increase balance and mobility, and improve your cardiovascular system make sure you come see us at GIT RIGHT SPORTS PERFORMANCE & FITNESS. To hit your goals you must be on the right track. For example, if you are shooting at a target you have got to be laser focused with your aim, just as in your fitness program in order to hit your target. If your going to get stronger, why would you lift super-light weights or avoid any type of resistance training? This tends to happen by women who think that if they do some type of resistance training they will build large bulky muscles. There are many training designs that we offer that will not bulk you up; instead, the training designs will build lean muscle mass that will burn more calories at rest and help you maintain your fat loss. You see how they work together? Muscles are good, very good ladies and gentlemen. The point is to have a focus and realize that fitness is a life-long habit that will bring you closer to your goals and allow you to maintain the results you work so hard to achieve.

Enjoy Your Success

There is so much joy to be felt in fitness, so many different ways to progress, and so much pleasure in movement and overcoming obstacles. These are the life-long habits that make your success gratifying in the short term and in the long term. Celebrate all the great accomplishments you achieve and learn from those failures. They all play a role in your overall success. Think about this, what if you never strayed from your diet? You would miss out on tasting some really great foods that grandma or grandpa made. Aunt Sue makes a killer apple pie. What if you never missed a rep? Then you would never be challenged enough because the stimulus was not great enough. That means you are not pushing through an obstacle which in turn will strengthen your muscles. Let’s take our time to learn the basics before moving on to the complicated activities. Let’s aim to be constantly improving and taking on new challenges, and pushing our limits.

Reference:

Jessi Kneeland – The Tiny Tweak That Makes Fitness Fun, Effective, and Easy to Stick With Forever