WITH FEW DAYLIGHT hours and less than favourable training conditions, remaining motivated to stay in shape over the winter is so much more difficult than in the summer.
Getting out of a warm bed in the morning any time between now and well, April, is so much more challenging when you’re faced with cold weather or when you know you’ll have to boil the kettle to defrost the ice on the windscreen before going anywhere.
But staying motivated is your job and no one else’s, so here’s 10 things you should try before you hit the snooze button and say f**k that….again
1. Buy something new
C’mon admit it, you love those Lidl or Aldi catalogues that fall out of the Sundays with fresh-faced athletes adorning the front all cosy and happy in the company’s latest clothing range?
Okay, maybe not quite, but there is something about buying new gear, be it runners, or a new iPod or a waterproof jacket that makes us think a little longer about re-launching a training regime. If you’re wet during a run it’s the wind that will make you cold and this is enough for you to get turned off until the temperatures rise….in six months. Kit yourself out properly.
2. Sign up for a race
There’s no excuse here and Athletics Ireland, Cycling Ireland and Triathlon Ireland must all be commended for their calendars which give all the information you need on upcoming events. But why not try something different, like an adventure race? Mark it in the diary, gather a bunch of mates and make a weekend out of it*?
*Make a weekend = go on the tear afterwards.
3. Try a new class in the gym
Fed up of the same training routine, week in, week out? The off-season is the time to mentally as well as physically reboot. That doesn’t mean putting your feet up and piling on five kilos. Try something totally new, like a Zumba class, a BodyPump workout or a circuits class. Or even a yoga class if you’re really brave!
4. Totally change your exercise routine
If you trained in the evening before, switch to the mornings, and vice versa. Remember, the evenings are gone now anyway so it doesn’t matter! Try different foods as well as this is all incorporated into your routine – which must be varied as often as possible. Routine is the enemy. It leads to laziness. The minute you conquer something you must change it up.
5. Go with someone else
Be it going to the gym or for a run or a bike ride, unless you’re extremely motivated it’s hard to stay focused in the dregs of winter with no one for company. That’s why exercise classes are so great, the ‘all for one’ attitude is impossible to understate.
6. Challenge yourself with food
Okay now it’s getting really serious. You can train all you want but unless you get the diet right you’ll never look better, you won’t shed that belly fat and you’ll end up becoming even less motivated, thinking ‘what’s the point’. Abs, for example, are made in the gym but sculpted in the kitchen. You know what’s right and wrong, so give up one treat one day a week and notice the difference.
7. Plan an adventure
This needn’t be anything drastic like a 10-day self-sufficient mountaineering excursion in the Alps but why not set a target of climbing the highest peaks in each of the four provinces in the next six months? Plot a trail in any of the country’s myriad mountain ranges? Kayak a river, ride up one of these mountains.
You get the idea.
8. Log it in a diary or on an app like Endomondo Sports Tracker
We are all vain, from time to time. We love telling our friends and family we ran this fast, this hard, lifted this much, this often. Logging a diary of exercise allows us chart how and where we’ve progressed, or not. It’s also a great thing to look back prior to a competition as it serves as a little confidence booster.
9. Train outdoors
Cabin fever can often set in in the gym, if you’ve been going for months it becomes hard on the mind. You see the same faces, the same machines and it all becomes a bit stale. Make training different, drive somewhere where you can do a great 10k trail run in a forest or join a boot camp somewhere outdoors. There’s no shortage in Ireland, and in fact, we’ve some of the best trails in Europe so get out there and find them!
10. Embrace winter
Embrace the bad weather. Be prepared to get muddy and wet and miserable. It’s character building, is getting drenched, keep reminding yourself of that. It’s not going to change, the weather, so you might as well be the one who changes.
