HEALTH: BODY: Consistency is Key

Consistency is Key

BY CORY FREEMAN

Imagine yourself walking into a gym or fitness center after a long break from exercising. The atmosphere is familiar with the sounds of cardio machines humming, the sounds of weights clanking, and in the distance, you can hear the muffled soundtrack to a spin class happening in another room. The front desk staff greet you with a smile, and you look across the open space and observe a sea of unfamiliar faces. You begin to feel somewhat intimidated and wonder inside yourself for a moment if you really want to do this. You take a deep breath then remind yourself that you are here for you and to achieve your health and fitness goals. You move towards your machines that you are familiar with, and go through the motions of what you know or have seen others do with those machines. You feel yourself sweating a bit and breathing harder, but nothing intense. Once again you question yourself silently, “What am I doing? Is this even doing any good for my body?” You allow those thoughts and questions to move through you as you push on through the remainder of your workout. Upon completing your workout, you feel better for doing so, but still wonder if what you did is helping you work towards your goals.

When it comes to achieving our fitness goals, the single most important factor is consistency. Showing up and putting in the work week after week, month after month. Your training sessions do not need to be intense; they do not need to be exciting or unique. They need to be consistent. There are many days after working 10-hour shifts and little sleep the night before I’d really like to skip the gym. What I tell myself is that I am at very least going to show up and pedal for fifteen minutes on the recumbent bike. Sometimes on those days that is all that happens, but more often than not, I get going and my energy and motivation finds me there. As the habit sets in, even with a poor to moderate exercise program and technique, you will still see progress to your goals just by being consistent. I have also found that having a supportive workout partner will help with consistency. Whether training with my son, age 10, or my boyfriend, we rely heavily on each other to encourage and support each other in getting to the gym consistently. We hold each other accountable to our fitness goals and both understand that at very least we need to get to our training sessions.

As you can commit to consistent exercise you can begin to focus more on mastering the fundamentals of exercise to accelerate your results.

CORY FREEMAN is a two-time first-place national bodybuilding champion, having won both of his first-place titles, The Men’s Classic Physique Master’s Over 35 at the 2019 NPC Viking Championship and at the 2019 NPC Masters USA in his rookie year. Cory works as a physical therapist in the home health industry.