Starting a Workout: Getting Your Body to
Move
(Part 5 of a 5 Part Series on Body Awareness)
I want to tell you how easy it is to workout
every day.
But before I begin, I want you to do one
thing. I want you to grab your car keys and go out to your
garage, carport, or driveway and get into your car.
Put the keys in the ignition and turn.
If your car normally works, there should be no surprises here.
Your car will start.
Now here's the important part. While the
car is running, I want you to think about all the possible
places you could go to at that moment. The post office, the
supermarket, Miami, Cancun.
When you have a running car, you can go
absolutely anywhere. All you need to do is get it started,
then you can decide from there.
When people start an exercise program,
the most important skill to develop is to learn how to get
started. Just turning the key is often the most difficult
thing to do.
Have you ever been overwhelmed by exercise
or your exercise program? Maybe you thought you didn't have
enough time to exercise 30 minutes a day. Or maybe you knew
that you needed to workout for an hour and all you had was
fifteen minutes.
I bet you I know what happened. You put
working out off for the next day. I know, because I've done
it too. The danger of this is that suddenly it is a week later
and you still haven't found the one hour you needed to exercise.
This is how many good intentioned people
fail with their exercise programs. They think too far in advance
and never find the ideal situation for their ideal workout.
They get overwhelmed.
Imagine if you could replicate the action
you took when you started your car--find a key that would
instantly get you going--and apply it to exercise. Could you
see how easy that would be?
It would start by, first, not even thinking
about the type of exercises you want to do for the day. Forget
about "I'll do 20 min of cardio today," or "I'll pop in the
gym to do some chest and abs." What you need to do is simply
get a key. Something that will get you moving. For many people
it is a single stretch or exercise that they can do. Once
they've done the ONE exercise then they can decide where to
go from there.
Just the same as the possibilities in your
car... you can take your workout where ever you want to go
once you've started.
It's basically a mind trick. Your body
wants to exercise. In fact, it always wants to exercise. We
are naturally and always in motion. Our minds generally out-think
our instinct and then we end up on the couch for 4-6 hours
watching the USA movie marathon. All the while knowing how
much your body wants to move.
So we trick our bodies, by using our key
exercise, and once we're moving we have the option to move
more.
Sometimes you won't move after and you're
body will turn off again and that's OK. On the other hand,
many times you will get going and you will have great workouts.
Why does this work?
Because you've put your body in motion.
Any motion creates a reaction. Once you are moving then you
can decide if you want to continue.
When you never make it to the starting
blocks--never get moving--you never have the option to continue
or to stop. Just like the car metaphor, I used earlier. If
you never start your car, how the heck are you going to get
to the grocery store?
When it comes to exercise, it is very easy
to out-think your goals. We get into our cars, hope we'll
make it to the store and never turn the key to physically
get moving.
It's really that easy. Find a key. Turn
it. Get fit.
When you are overwhelmed about time and
energy, you'll never, never get started. Let your key start
you up and succeed with your health and fitness.
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