If you’re looking to start or resume a fitness habit in the new year, here’s the best advice you’ll get all month long: start now. Yes, now, in the middle of the holiday season and year-end chaos. Yes, now, when no one else is doing it. Yes, now, although you may not even have decided exactly what you want to do or how to do it. Now it’s perfect.
From now on you can determine what you want
Even if you think of January as the time when you make a fresh start in fitness and life, you can think of December as your sandbox, the place where you test ideas and think about what you really want.
If you haven’t been to the gym in a while, go now. Check the place, try out the machines, take a look at the class schedule. Heck, take a class or two, without promising yourself if you think you’ll come back. If you haven’t signed up to a gym yet, go to a few different ones and take your time deciding.
Experimentation is valuable; it teaches you about yourself and about the thing you’re doing. Maybe you thought you were going to start couch-to-5K in the new year, but now you’ve fallen in love with the exercise bike. Maybe you were going to do a beginner routine on the machines in your gym, but you picked up a barbell off a lark and now you think you might want to hang out. learn to use the squat rack In place.
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You’ll enjoy the mental health benefits
December is a stressful time for many of us, whether it’s good stress, bad stress, or a combination. I spend the last month of the year constantly slapping my forehead and thinking “oh okay, I gotta do this too!” where “this” is choosing a health insurance plan, wrapping up a project for a year-end deadline, or attending a kids’ holiday concert. I know I’m not the only one.
At first it may seem like doing a few workouts each week will add to the stress. But a workout is actually the easiest thing to put on your calendar: there’s no prep and no homework. You just have to show up and do the thing. Literally schedule it if you need to and stick to this appointment with yourself. Exercise is a stress relieverand settling into an exercise routine will likely reduce the total stress you feel in your life.
Starting your routine when you’re busy will also keep you honest. Are you really drive to that gym across town? If you manage to do this throughout December, you know routine is a keeper. On the other hand, if you find yourself skipping the car ride to go for a run in your neighborhood or do push-ups and kettlebell swings at home, then this might be what you can stick with. also in the future.
You will beat the rush
Gyms are busy in January; it is only one of the natural rhythms of the world. Instead of trying to grab a treadmill when everyone else wants one too, why not start while you have the place to yourselves? Learn how to handle yourself in the gym when it’s just you and a few regulars.
Then, when it starts to get crowded after the new year, you’ll already know the tricks of the trade. Instead of wondering if there’s a pair of 2.5 pound plates somewhere, you’ll know that the gym has two pairs and you can usually find one on the very last bench in the row.
You will also have understood your routine and preferences by then. You know which courses you want to enroll in, since you have sampled them all; you know what to wear for cold weather runs, because you have experienced some of them. You know it’s not the end of the world if you catch a cold and have to skip a workout because you have a few weeks off. consistency under your belt and you know you’ll be back. You will do things with confidence, and that’s because you started this process a whole month ago. Or, in other words, now.