Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2022: Lost Motivation to Workout? Do this…

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin provide five steps you can take to bring back the drive to work out. People don’t have trouble starting workout plans but maintaining them! (1:58) Discipline over motivation. (7:30) The barriers that prevent consistency. (10:12) Five strategies to take if you’ve lost the motivation to work out. (14:26) #1 - Instead of working out for an hour a couple of days a week, do a little every day. (15:34) #2 – Work out at home. (24:13) #3 – Do things that feel good. (29:17) #4 - Change expectations/goals. (34:37) #5 - Follow, listen to, and watch related content. (38:45) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit PRx Performance for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! March Promotion: “Time-crunch Bundle” (MAPS 15 Minutes, MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Prime + Eat for Performance eBook ALL for only $99.99!) Mind Pump #1925: How To Build A Great Physique In 15 Minutes A Day Mind Pump #1347: How To Modify Your Gym Workout For Home Mind Pump #1522: How To Stay Consistent With Your Diet & Workout The Resistance Training Revolution – Book by Sal Di Stefano Mind Pump Free Resources      Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube    

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? Today's episode, we're going to talk about what to do if you've lost your motivation to work out. This episode will get you back on track with real advice that works. This is stuff that we learned over the last two

and a half decades training everyday real people. This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, PRX Performance. They make home gym equipment that is better than this stuff you see at the gym and also designed to maximize space For example, they have a squat rack that folds into the wall But I'm not making this up their equipment is literally Better than the stuff you find in the gym the squat rack is the most secure squat rack of ever using my life great weights

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Go to prxperformance.com forward slash mind pump. Also, this month we're running a huge special on a time crunch bundle, which is actually perfect for this episode. You get maps 15 minutes. That's a 15 minute workout every single day. You get maps anywhere. So workout you could do at home or anywhere.

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In today's episode, we're going to talk about how you can keep yourself going when you've lost the motivation. I even like, you put up. I even like better saying like how to maybe restart because I think the inevitable for most people, right? We have a percentage of people that are fitness fanatics that remain pretty damn consistent, which I think is a very small percentage. And then we have a majority of people that are on

and off the wagon, including myself. And I think my entire journey, what I've gotten better and better at is not allowing the swings to be so dramatic, both in how far off I go nutritionally on the diet and then also how far away from doing something in the gym that I stray away from or exercise-wise, that's good for me.

Does that make sense? So, and I think that better suited than just like, oh, addressing people that are losing motivation to keep going is that like, hey, maybe you're in one of those slumps and what are some good strategies to not allow that slump to turn into a one month, two month, five month off time from exercise and training?

Yeah, I remember years ago, as a teenager, I don't remember where I read this, it was an article I think in one of those fitness magazines. And the person who wrote it made the point, and this is now something I've quoted many times on the show, and they said something along the lines of a subpar workout will outperform an excellent workout if it's done consistently. In other words, a subpar workout that you do consistently will do better than a great workout that you do and consistently. And I was like, wow, that was so mind blowing to me

because at that point, it was like all or nothing. Like, I'm wasting my time if I'm not really going after it and it really being perfect. And if it can't be perfect, then it can't go after it like why even try. And when I read that, I't go after it, like why even try. And when I read that, I realized, like, that's totally true. Like, you know, even it's never going to be always perfect. It's never going to be always the greatest workout or the right, the time that you set aside to work out or whatever. But something is always better than nothing.

Of course, within the context of appropriate, right? You could hurt yourself and all that stuff, but the consistency of doing something is the key, not doing something perfect. That's not the key. In fact, nobody will ever do everything perfect when it comes to anything, let alone fitness. Well, that was a big lesson I had to learn. It's not always, you're not always gonna be the hero

of the workout and you're not gonna have the best workouts every single time How do you keep doing them consistently? And that was, that was a hurdle I had overcome because I always thought, well maybe I'm just not adding enough intensity, maybe I'm not doing, you know, enough things to really challenge me the right way within the workout setting when in fact it was really about kind of taking a step back and realizing like, I need to just keep taking steps and I need to just maybe approach this little differently

in terms of my intensity going in and just so I keep doing it, keep it fresh. Maybe tweak a few things to make it interesting but not necessarily take on the kitchen sink every single time. I always struggled with the, like I'm really good about if I commit to something, whether it be something competitive,

like I'm gonna prepare for some, you know, muddy buddy thing, or I'm gonna get ready for a basketball season, or my buddy and I are competing against them, and I decide where I have this goal, the body fat percentage wise, I'm really good about committing and then going all in on the diet and training. But if I don't have that, then I always struggled with just staying active and fit because I didn't have something

to focus on and to be fully committed. And so then I would kind of ride it off. I'd have this attitude of like, ah, I can whip it back into shape, and I know what to do to get in shape pretty quick. And so you can always fall back on that, right? Yeah, so I knew what I needed to do. And so I just had this at, oh, I'll start later. I'll get back on it later on where now, you know, the older wiser version of me is like,

I never won, do I allow myself to get so far off track that I write off training, exercising, and then also the diet? It's like, okay, I recognize there's times, there's to be times in my life where I've got a move where I get sick where, okay, I'm probably not gonna get as much physical activity and so I need to, you know, cut back a little bit on the calories.

And so, and then also learning, okay, there's times where maybe I'm limited on time, and I can't commit to that full hour intense workout, but it doesn't mean I can't go to the gym and just do one exercise. And in the past, I used to think that, that was worth so little, that unless I could fully commit to this full workout schedule

and plan and goal, then I wasn't gonna do anything at all. And I think that was such a bad strategy. We're now, many times, I'll have these stretches where I go months, where I'm not trained at hard, but I'm still active and doing things for my body that is either improving mobility or improving strength or improving a movement.

Like I've found ways to always be doing something moving that direction even if it's just a little bit. Well, I mean, every step is forward. I remember having a client once that I, one of the things I loved about training, people was, you train people from all different walks of life. And if you're a smart trainer, you start to realize that you can learn a lot

from each of these people because you'll have executives in different fields and professions and different age groups. And so it's great because you can have these conversations and if you're, like I said, if you're smart, you can learn from them. And I remember talking to one of my clients, it was very successful. And I said, how are you, like, how do you stay motivated

to do what you do for as long as you've done it? And he goes motivated. Is he the one motivated all the time? So obviously, there's not discipline. And so what's the difference? And it was what the difference is, you know, I get motivated sometimes and sometimes I'm not. It goes away like it does for everything. The discipline is I just keep moving forward anyway. I just keep doing it anyway. And I said, okay, well, how do I stay disciplined? He goes, you just build it like a skill.

You have to practice discipline over time with small steps, which eventually become bigger steps, and then you become a master of discipline. And then motivation doesn't matter. He goes, and it's great when you get it, and when you get it and when you get it you accomplish so much more but when it's not there the discipline stays there. Now this changed me as a trainer because as an early trainer my goal with my clients was

when you're coming in you're going to get the most effective workout you could possibly get. Later on I realized the goal is to get the client to show up and if they show up, that's like 80% of it. And then we'll do something and we'll make sure it's appropriate and I'll make sure there's some value. But if I can teach this person to show up, weaken and weak out a few days a week, keep coming back. If I can do that, I have one because managing gems and working in gems that we all did for for a long time

The turnover rate was so huge That you realize it wasn't getting started that was the problem We used to sign people up every month every month. We'd sign hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of new members up. By the way, this is a gym in a city, meaning it's the same populace or people coming in or whatever. And oftentimes, I'd sign people up, oftentimes, who were members at some point before or were members of another gym at some other point. So the challenge wasn't getting them started. The challenge is how can we figure out a way to keep people consistent, to keep people coming? And so, there's a few things that you notice with this,

is that there are barriers that prevent people from maintaining this consistency. And we talk about motivation, but motivations of feeling. So we're not gonna talk necessarily about the motivation part of it. Although I will say this, if you do all the stuff that we're going to talk about, that feeling of motivation will appear more often than if you don't. So if you want to invite or create the environment for motivation to pop up more often, just do what we're talking about.

But if you just focus on trying to be motivated all time, then you're gonna be screwed. And you'll end up doing what we just talked about, which is either in or out, either on or off. And it's usually off, because motivated state of mind is not the majority of the time of your state of mind. Very few people are motivated all the time.

Most people are motivated a little bit of the time. And then the rest of the time, they're like, everybody else got in normal. Most people are motivated a little bit of the time, and the rest of the time they're like, everybody else got in normal. So there are real barriers that can get in the way, and I say real barriers, because there's a lot of fake barriers as well. There's a lot of barriers that people will kind of say or create, but then there's ones that are like legit.

Like I could see, like how this is a real challenge, and if we could solve this barrier or move this barrier out of the way, then the lack of motivation or the feeling that I don't know if I wanna do this or not, it doesn't become so difficult to overcome. One of them is not enough time. The time issues a big one.

Now I used to, I used to scoff at this when people would tell me, oh I just don't have enough time. Why would I scoff at it? Because I would do the stupid speech, which I've heard trainers say over and over again. Still popular, by the way. Still popular, which now when I look back,

I wish I could go back in time and slap myself. Yeah. Because it was so naive, right? But it was this whole like, we all have the same, 24 hours in a day. And what you do with those hours is up to you. And the more you invest in your health, the more time you'll have to do all these other things,

the more energy you'll have you do. So it's not that you don't have enough time, it's what you do with your time type of bull crap, okay? Now, as a father of four kids, the person who's on businesses before, it's a real issue. Time is a real issue. And prioritizing, you know, being able to work out, you know, for hours at a time.

I mean, that's going to be really, really challenging when you're, you've got little kids, you've got bills to pay, your job is stressful, you have to produce there. You don't have endless, you know, boundless energy. So time is a real issue, so we got to deal with that. Not having access to a gym is another issue. Now, this is not as big of an issue as it sounds because there's actually a lot you can do tons without a gym, but I want to address it because for a lot of people, this is a real issue. They're like, well, I can't work out at a gym. I don't have equipment at home.

Going to the gym is too hard or I don't want to spend the money because I don't work out at a gym. I don't have equipment at home. I'm going to the gym is too hard or I don't want to spend the money because I don't know how motivated I am or how consistent I'm going to be. So I like to get that one out of the way. So time will figure that one out and let's figure out, don't have access to equipment or a gym, let's figure that one out.

And then the last one, and this one actually, is a big one, is that people just don't know what to do. So when they finally do decide to do something, they end up doing something, which is fine. I like that people actually would do something, but whatever they do, because it's so such an inefficient, ineffective thing that they choose, that they soon think to themselves,

this is just a waste of my time. I can't do this a lot because I don't have the time to do so, and maybe obviously because I don't feel the energy to do so or the quote unquote motivation to do so. And I did see some results for the first month, but now I'm seeing nothing, and the little bit of results I got in that first month Devoting this time doing this thing and it feels hard and I'm sweating and I'm getting sore and now my knee hurts

Not worth it. So those are the three kind of like you know big things I would say that we That we if we can get rid of those barriers then we can focus on building habits and building discipline and And then success is there and I'll tell what, the success rate for the average person with staying consistent with the workout routine is less than 10%. The success rate in my experience, once you do what work about to talk about, is north of 50 to 60%. Now, it doesn't sound like a lot, but it's five to six times higher.

So if you're serious about this, and you wanna give yourself five to six times more probability that you're gonna stay consistent, then keep listening. Well, first of all, I think we have to, or I wanna address, you made a comment about the real challenges and then fake challenges that people have.

And the truth is, all the challenges are real. If they believe them to be real, it's a real challenge. So, and that's the idea of this is, we're addressing, I think, the most common challenges that people express. And instead of looking at those challenges, whether we believe them to be true or not, that, if that person believes it to be true, it's true.

And so instead of looking at it as like, oh, I can't do this because of these reasons, let's find ways that we can solve that issue. And my favorite is the very first one that we did. And I know we addressed this just recently, ironically, in all the programs that we've created that, you know, looking back, it's probably something that we probably should have done sooner. And that's a shorter workout or what I've suggested in the past when we get our live questions is,

just pick one or two exercises and do that. Instead of over-complicating it, like, oh, I need to have this crazy workout, I need to get this crazy burn or sweat. It's like, I'm just going to commit that every day, I'm going to this crazy burn or sweat. It's like, I'm just gonna commit that every day, I'm gonna do one exercise or two. Just, that's it. And doing that, I think will build momentum, and you can build on top of that, and you talked about creating motivation.

Like, if I can just discipline myself to commit 15 minutes to go carve out, to do a couple couple exercises. I know what will happen and eventually what will happen is I will build momentum. The momentum then will cause more motivation and then I can build on top of those workouts. Well look to put differently. Imagine if you were trying to read a book that you weren't really super into but you're like I got to read this. What is going to be more challenging for you to stay consistent? Think of your life, think of everything

that's going on in your life, think of how this book, you think you know you should read it, but it's not like this book that's really pulling to you. Type of deal, obviously you're in the state of mind where you're like, I'm not motivated. What is gonna be easier to stay consistent with? If you read 15 minutes every day, or if you read for 55 minutes or so twice a week,

it's gonna be the 15 minutes a day is easier, much easier. So instead of, because a lot of people think, okay, I'm gonna start working out, so I'm gonna go to the gym and I'm gonna work out for an hour, and I'm gonna start small. I'm gonna go an hour twice a week, which is fine, actually. That's a fine goal.

But it's actually easier to do 15 minutes a day, every day. It's easier to find 15 minutes a day than it is defined for a lot of people, one hour twice a week. And they both come out to roughly the same, close to the same amount of time that you're exercising. But there's also another part to this that's important, close to the same amount of time that you're exercising. But there's also another part to this that's important,

which is we talked about building discipline. It's easier to build a discipline when you do a little bit frequently than it is to do a lot infrequently. The best way to build a discipline is to practice daily. The hardest way to build a discipline is to practice infrequently. Even if it's a long

period of practice infrequently, you're better off in terms of building the discipline of doing something to do it a little bit every single day than it is to do it infrequently. I love that analogy because you can you gave a suggestion, but nothing stops the client from taking that to an even further extreme. Meaning you get the suggestion of reading for 15 minutes and I know you're drawing the parallel to the 15 minute workout that we wrote, but nothing stops that person from reading one page. Sure, if you feel like you have no time, right?

So instead of being like, oh, I'm just so, on my day is crazy, I have no time. Give me five minutes. Give me, give me, give me five minutes. Give me, give me, give me two sets, you know, of something, of something. And can you do that one time in the morning and then one time the afternoon, guess what? We have four sets right there. Four sets of squats in a day is actually not a bad, not a bad, like, step forward in, in getting started here. So wherever you're at, you meet yourself there and start to build the discipline, even if it means one page, right?

Or two sets of something and then build on that. Yeah, it's funny because most of the majority of a lot of fitness people and influencers will invalidate people's excuses, right? And that's the big thing is to try and wedge in that time and punch in the amount of time that you can provide yourself, instead of realizing that these are real concerns and real barriers throughout your day that will prevent you

from being consistent and going through like a longer type workout. Why not reduce that barrier down and make it to where it doesn't feel like it's very invasive at all. So this is just something that now you can you don't have to pick of definitive time that you have to punch in. It's there for you any time throughout the day. It's just a matter of stepping into it, accomplishing it in little doses consistently, and then building off that. This is exactly why I wanted to address what Sal said,

because I don't want to invalidate anyways, excuse. Like every excuse is okay, but instead of going like, that's my excuse and never doing the about it, let's solve it. Yeah, let's solve the problem. And I think a better way to word it, to word what I said would have been more like these

are the things that I had to really solve for people as a trainer because if I didn't solve those things, it was almost impossible. Like if you didn't solve the time issue, we wouldn't be able to be effective. And if you couldn't solve the gym issue, if you couldn't solve that the person didn't know what to do, then there was nowhere to go. So I guess I definitely could have ordered that. The truth is what Justin is saying is so, so, so on point. Like trainers, the influencers, I should say, in the space lean on the motivation side.

So they look at a challenge, like time, like gym, like money, like this. And it's like, anyway, right. Like instead of, instead of addressing the actual concern, whether it's true to you or not, it's true to the client. Instead of addressing that, they go to the motivation route. And like, how do I fire you up to be motivated, to train harder or find a way versus, okay, well, we can work with that.

Oh, you have no equipment? Okay, I have something for that. Oh, you don't even have 15, 20 minutes a day? Okay, I got something for that. Like, that's what we're supposed to do. Right? Like, that's what that's what we get paid for is to take those, those challenges that people have that have kept them from getting in shape in the past and find ways to start creating these small steps in the right direction. You know what? This is talking to even people again that are advanced. Experience, I'm experienced.

I still find myself in these moments too, as much as I love fitness. I love fitness. Yet, I still have moments in my life where other things take a priority and it feels like I have no time where all these things are hard. But instead of not validating that

and going like, oh, I'm just being a whoosh, I can figure out. I go, okay, yeah, it's tough to figure that time out. And I'll just do this. It's unique, because this isn't like a goal where it's a seasonal goal, or it's like a very specific thing I'm training for, and then I'm done. Like this is a lifetime pursuit we're talking about. It's something that we're trying to figure out

how to actually be motivated to keep up the effort you're putting in to better yourself and in, you know, being able to do that in a way that's realistic and reasonable. Yeah, the working out a little every day versus a lot a couple days a week. I first applied that to my new mom clients that would come and hire me. These are with moms, it's like six months or nine months or a year postpartum. Hey, I want to start exercising. I still take care of the baby. So I think I can make it in twice a week. I got a sitter or my mom's going to watch the kid or whatever. And evidently, they'd miss a workout because kids are super unpredictable.

And I would say to them, do you think you could do like 10 to 15 minutes a day if I gave you some stuff that you could do at home and they'd be like, yeah, I mean, maybe goes down for an app or, you know, I got 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, absolutely. And so I started doing this with these clients

and the results they got were phenomenal. Why? Because they were consistent. And they were like, oh my God, this is so easy. Now there's some more benefits to this, by the way. The feel good chemicals that are produced And the results they got were phenomenal. Why? Because they were consistent. And they were like, oh my God, this is so easy. Now, there's some more benefits to this, by the way. The feel good chemicals that are produced through exercise, the immediate ones, you get more of them more frequently if you do this.

Meaning you're setting up the environment, I said earlier. You're creating an environment where that feeling of motivation is going to pop up more often. So those feel good chemicals, you get them with that one hour workout as well. But what if you could get a little bit of them every single day? You're now creating an environment where that feeling of, wow, this feels good is now happening on a daily basis. And it also reinforces this potential discipline that we're trying to build.

So working out a little bit every day versus less, but more, but longer, less frequently throughout the week, that's one of my favorite strategies for this particular individual. Next is to work out at home. Work out at home because, not because you got better equipment or anything like that, you might have any equipment. In fact, you don't need equipment.

Travel time. You have eliminated a barrier of having to drive to the gym. Yeah. Get in the car. Which is a big one. Get over to the gym, put your stuff in the locker, get out, do your thing, put your stuff back in, drive back home. Oh my God, it's traffic.

So your hour workout actually now took an hour and a half or longer because of travel time and setup and all that stuff. What if you could just work out at home? Now, statistically speaking, people who work out at home versus who work out at gyms are more consistent. Now, it's not a huge percentage because consistency's a challenge across the board,

but working out at home has a better track record than people who sign up to go to classes or to gyms or anything like that. And you get also think that paint the whole picture. You're alone at home. You don't have motivating classes. You don't have all the fancy equipment and lights. And yet, people still find that they can be more consistent at home. Why? Because you don't got to go anywhere. It's there. I can do it. Does it require equipment? No, you could do it with no equipment or you could do it with resistance bands, which are super inexpensive and you could literally store in a small drawer or in the corner or you could have like a suspension trainer, which you

literally hang in the doorway and is super stable. And when you're done or you could have like a suspension trainer, which you literally hang in the doorway and it's super stable. And when you're done, you could hang it over the door. If you want to take it off, you could take it off. You don't need barbells, dumbbells, a squat rack. If you have all that stuff right too, that's even better. But you need nothing, but working it at home eliminates all that. And then parents who are listening right now, it's awesome because you can model this in front of your kids.

You can do your exercise while your kid is over there and then what you'll find your kid in the end up, ends up trying to do it with, you know, practice it with you or whatever, or if you, you know, want to take a break from something you're doing at home and do what I said earlier, which is work out a little bit at a time. There's your boost of energy, go do your exercises. You didn't have to worry about going anywhere or changing your clothes or anything like that. Heck, you can listen to whatever music you want, work at it at home. I always tell people, if this is a challenge for you, let's start you off at home.

Yeah, no, I mean, this was the motivation behind writing maps anywhere. And when you haven't been consistent and you're trying to get back into like body weight training, body weight training is good good even for somebody who's advanced. Like I think all of us, I think no matter where we're at in our training, we're always incorporating some sort of body weight exercises in there. So they're good even for an advanced person. But man, if you haven't done anything really like body weight, lunges and pushups and pullups and dips and row, I mean, you get a phenomenal workout,

and there's lots of ways to progress that. So, I mean, and then back to your point about being as a parent, like, I love the idea, and this is how I've seen our maps anywhere used a lot, is somebody who has a kid that's a toddler or whatever, and you can break up the workout, it could take you four hours to get the 40 minute or 30 minute workout in, because you do it in these

little five minute increments every time you have a little bit of it. That doesn't change the effect of it. It doesn't it all. I would even argue it makes them more effective. Well, it hasn't the research came out and supported that like you would have break up the same like a 60 minute workout done over the course of the entire day versus done it all together. All the other recovery is better. Your performance then as a result of that as you're doing the exercises better. And so it maximizes your efforts as you're actually doing it. And I love highlighting that because that was something I didn't understand.

Yeah. I mean, even as a coach and a trainer, as a trainer for many years, again, the way I coach clients was very similar to the thought process that I approached my training, which was this all or nothing. Like, if I wasn't getting after it for an hour, it was all said and so less effective. When the opposite is true, it's as effective or more effective for me to do it that way.

And it's easier. It's more conducive for my lifestyle, especially being a father now, to be able to go, hey, I got these four or five exercises I'm gonna do. I'm not gonna tell myself I have to dedicate this hour of a block. I'm just, hey, I got a little bit of exercises I'm gonna do. I'm not gonna tell myself I have to dedicate this hour of a block. I'm just, hey, I got a little bit of time. I'm gonna bust these lunges out.

When I got a little bit of time, I'm gonna bust these push outs out. And it's like, you're getting that full work out today. I mean, look, if you've been listening to show along and if you know Adam was like anti-home workout for a long time, then he had a son. And this is how you guys worked out. I haven't been to Jim's since.

No, but this is how you guys work out. You go out in the garage and you do your three, four sets of something, go back inside, go ahead and Katrina is how you guys worked out. I haven't been to the gym since. No, but this is how you guys work out. You go out in the garage and you do your three, four sets of something, go back inside, go in and Katrina is the same thing. You guys are maintaining great fitness from doing this and I mean, like you can see, you can see the difference in the value and working at home. It's, this is a great place to do it. In fact, I would say if your base workouts are at home

and then you get those bouts of motivation that are wonderful when they pop up and you wanna go to the gym, go to the it. In fact, I would say if your base workouts are at home, and then you get those bouts of motivation that are wonderful when they pop up, and you want to go to the gym, go to the gym. Yeah, perfect. But yeah, you make the workout at home your base, you're far more likely to be consistent by doing so because of the convenience factor. No, the next point I really like, because it's something, again, that I found later as like a focus, when I get in these places and I start back and I typically pick one or two exercises Then I'm going to start back into doing is I pick something that I know is is going to really benefit me Sometimes that's a mobility exercise Sometimes that's just a squat. That's it

But I'll choose something I know that my body needs I'll choose something I know that I neglect or that adds so much more value. And so instead of, again, looking at this huge workout that I have to plan and be consistent with, it's like, hey, I know what I consistently do my 90, 90s, I feel so much better. So like, and I haven't been doing anything, I'm going to commit to that little exercise today. And I'm going to do that one thing. And then slowly build on top of that versus feeling like you have to organize this crazy ass workout. I'm just going to pick one or two things I know that will benefit me. Well, especially being in the pattern of sitting in my car sitting here on the podcast like you know

beating gridlock and just like constantly shrimp and hunched over all the time to open myself up you know pull my shoulders back, to open my hips up, to, man, it's amazing. One kind of feedback that gives your body in terms of how you feel. You feel good, which then, that's another bit of motivation you could feed off of that bleeds into wanting to work out and wanting to exercise.

Again, learned from training my clients, I call this do things that feel good. Okay, so this is a trainer hack. Anybody who's been a trainer successfully for more than let's say five or 10 years, you learn this. If I can make a client feel good at the end of the workout, not hammered, not blasted, not like they just got beat up. But if they leave the workout feeling better than they came in, they're gonna come back and they're gonna be clients forever.

And this was, I figured this out as a trainer on getting clients to stay consistent was give them something that feels good. Now, I know that sounds silly, but a lot of people have this weird idea, especially people who don't exercise, you know, right, or haven't done it really long enough to figure it out, there's this weird idea that workouts should suck somehow, or that workouts should feel like crap.

You're a form of punishment. And if they don't feel like crap, they're not effective. First of all, here's why it's not effective to feel like crap when you work out. You're not gonna wanna do it. Bottom line, even if it is an effective workout, which crap when you work out. You're not gonna wanna do it. Bottom line. Even if it is an effective workout, which usually isn't, by the way,

feeling good after your workout, it's actually a good sign, means you're probably working out the right way. But even if that weren't true, even if the workout that made you feel like crap was the more effective workout, it still would be less effective, because nobody would do it.

Nobody would do it. So this is another hack. Do something that feels good. So you're like, oh, I'm not, you know, I don't feel the motivation to like, work out right now. I know they said I'm mind pumped to do a little bit every day, work out at home,

but I really don't feel like doing push-ups. I don't feel like doing lunges. Oh, you know what's gonna feel good? Let me do some combat stretch. Let me do some wall presses or some 90, 90, or let me do some scorpion. Like these are positions and movements that they require movement, but as you're doing them, you start to feel good. They're really good. They feel nice. And then when you're done, you get up and you're like, oh my god, I'm so glad that I

did that. Like that felt really good. And that again reinforces that discipline and opens the door for motivation to walk in. The more things that you do with exercise that feel good, the more opportunities for motivation to kick up and make you want to do and you end up doing more. You know, in the two year kick that I was on when I was on the H like a hardcore mobility kick, this was kind of the attitude that I had was like, I was gonna be so consistent

with mobility. And then of course, strength training, you know, when I can get around to it, it was become, it became like secondary to my primary goal, which is all these mobility drills. But what I found many times was after doing my combat stretch in my 1990, my hips, my back, everything felt so good that I wanted to go test it in a squat.

And so even though I waded, yeah, even though I went into the workout and I said, like, oh, I don't feel like training, I'm feeling anything, but I'm gonna do my 90-90s. I've disciplined myself to be consistent with that. I'm gonna do my 90-90s, I'm gonna do my combat. And then after I get up from doing that, I feel so good, then I want to go squat.

And so I love that approach, that idea. And I remember watching that work in my own life and applying it myself and going like, man, it's crazy just knowing that how much that made me feel better, that quickly then motivated me into doing what you know. We know the opposite, feeling stiff and rigid and little bits of pain. It's like, you know, how much do you want to beat yourself up?

You know, with weights, like, it's one of those things, it's just psychologically it's a deterrent. So if you can really like regain some of that function and feel good and smooth and that your body's moving well, like it really promotes you to then wanna take the next step. Yeah, it would be like having a massage therapist in your house and then you're like, oh, it's time for your 15 minute massage. Everybody would be like, yeah, I'll do that. Because it feels good. Yeah.

It's a little bit. It's a little bit. You like the way it feels. So do things that feel good. All right, next is to change your expectations and goals. All right, what do I mean by that? Well, let's say your goal is to lose 30 pounds. But now you're in the space where you just don't want to work out. You don't want to do it. You just like, my god, I can't even pull myself to even think about getting in the car driving the gym, saying, I don't know the gym or whatever. All right, I'm going to change my expectations.

My goal is no longer to lose 30 pounds. My goal is now to do a little something for 10 minutes every day. That's my goal. Now, why is this effective? Because that goal leads to the other goal. The goal of a hitting, I'm going to do 10 minutes every day, I'm just going to do 10 minutes every day, that leads to that bigger goal. So you can find ways of doing this by changing your goal so that you can get to that bigger goal. But don't focus on that bigger goal, focus on the smaller goal. And then it's a win. What you end up doing is you end up scoring wins. And the more often you have little wins, the more likely you are to want to go after the big wins as a side effect, as an absolute side effect. So set your expectations differently.

So your expectation might be, like, let's say it's with diet, instead of saying, I'm only gonna eat, you know, 2000 calories a day. I'm so hungry or whatever, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm not gonna eat heavily processed food. I'll just eat as much as I want. Like, that's not, it's a different goal, but it'll probably lead to what the other goal was

in the first place. This is so effective that I think 100% of the time, when we get somebody who asks a question regarding weight loss, we almost always steer them in the direction of focusing on strength. How often when someone calls in or asks us a question related to losing 30 pounds or 20 pounds or 50 pounds, do we not almost always go focus on getting stronger? Even though they're calling in, asking a question about losing body fat, we almost always shift their focus for them because we know that if they focus on that, that this will end up happening for them.

All the patterns and behaviors that lead towards body fat loss and their desired outcome starts with that strength driven focus. And like all the factors have to align well for you to keep gaining strength. So to just focus on that helps then kind of simplify the process. I actually applied this a few years ago when I wrote the resistive strain revolution. I was like, man, writing every day,

as I, you know, this many pages or this much content, like, that sounds to me at least that sounded so just hard. Oh, how am I going to do that? So I changed my expectation. I said, every day at this time for 30 minutes, I'm just going to sit in front of my computer. And if I don't write anything, that's fine. But I got 30 minutes of just sitting there. And what did that end up turning into was nine at a 10 times, I would write something. One at a 10 times, I would just sit there. But nine at a 10 times, I wrote something. Versus, my goal is I have to write a thousand words

every single day type of thing. Right, I bet 50% of the time you stayed there longer than 30 minutes. Yes, exactly, yes. You got long days, you got small days. You're literally inviting motivation to come in and it does pop up more. And I say that because it's cool, but I don't want you to rely on that.

But it does happen. You do open the door and motivation will pop in more. I also think this highlights to how much we are all creatures of habit as far as what we gravitate towards in the gym or exercise. Like, you know, most people have a main goal, right, that they train for all of the time. They either like athletic type training or they like being strong or they want to look a certain way. And because of that, they tend to gravitate towards the same type of training program or

the same exercises that they always do. And one of the things that we know, one of the best ways to stimulate change is by, you know, sending a novel signal to them. So also learning to change your goal has incredible value to, for you to break through plateaus or speed up your results because you typically always train a certain way by interrupting that with something different. Not always in a great way to get, you know, back into the groove of things or whatever. It's also a great way to break plateaus. The last one is to follow, listen to and watch related content on a regular basis. This

doesn't mean you have to do anything else. It just means that you're keeping yourself in the mindset of what that ultimate goal is, which is to try to be consistent. So if you're on social media, follow a couple really smart good pages or listen to this podcast on a regular basis, buy yourself a really good, effective, well-written workout program. So you have a plan, we have some great ones ourselves.

But doing stuff like this, well, at least give you the framework and kind of keep you in the mindset. Even if you don't do anything, it's kind of still in your ear, you're still thinking about it. And people who do this particular step here, which sounds kind of silly,

but let's say you did this 10 minutes every single day, you were more likely to be consistent than the person that doesn't. And it's as easy as like I said, five to 10 minutes of following, listening to or watching related content in this particular space. Yeah, and it helps to just reinforce good ideas and good behaviors and to maybe even get a little more insight as to maybe how you could shift a little bit more to make it even

more effective for you individually because everybody's has their own complete preferences and ways that will help benefit them to structure this. So, that's just something to just keep the content coming in so it just keeps everything fresh and keeps the energy there. Isn't this the point of church? I know what church is. Yeah, that's the beauty.

That's why you go every week. Yeah, yeah, yeah? That's the whole idea, right? I mean, it's not like you couldn't, you couldn't, they teach out of the Bible, you could just read the Bible yourself. The whole idea is to be in that mindset where you're having somebody else teaching you all the time. You know, I would love to see the stats or maybe even just feedback from our listeners. I know a forum was probably good for this, is to hear the people that consistently listen to this podcast, if they've noticed their own behaviors of when they're falling off the wagon of training,

do they fall off listening to the show? And when they're training, are they consistent with listening to the show? What the correlation looks like I wonder how yeah I mean I would assume I mean we we've now noticed that the show is grown to a size that we actually feel the Industry waves like obviously the January early part of the year going to summer the business tends to feel Feel that we're early years when we were just kind of climbing and growing we were on such a growth a fast growth Pat pace we never felt that.

We're now we fill those trends. So be interesting to see if a lot of our audience falls on and off with listening and in correlation to how they do their training too. Right, so check this out. This is what we did for this month to help people with this because in the industry, January and February,

when a lot of people get started, marches when people start to fall off. So what we did is we made a time crunch bundle. We've taken our best programs that are right around the stuff that we just talked about, and we put them in a bundle, and then we made it very inexpensive to help people get started and to stay consistent.

So within this bundle, we have Maps 15 minutes, it's a 15 minute workout every single day. You use a suspension trainer so you don't need any other equipment, super convenient. We also included Maps anywhere, which is an at home workout program. We also included Maps Prime, which has those correctional exercises that feel good.

And then we threw in a bonus ebook called Eat For Performance, which talks about nutrition. And we made all of this in the bundle $99.99. So you get all of for $99.99. It saves you over $200. So if you're interested, you want to get set up, just go to mapsmarch.com. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam

and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is MindPump. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mindbump.