Training
Marisa HeinzeSeptember 9, 2020
How to hack your Fitness-Mindset
Everybody who does sports knows this feeling: Sooner or later there are phases in which we lack the necessary motivation for our workout. Maybe your training hasn't brought the desired success lately or maybe you have lost the routine of completing your weekly exercises. Or you find it difficult to get up for sports, especially in the warm season. For whatever reason you lack discipline: The good news is that there is a solution to this problem.
Many athletes focus their training only on the exercises of their skeletal muscles and completely forget about their "center". Our brain, as our control center, is fundamentally involved in all our processes. So it also plays a major role in training. The messenger substances that are released when we do sports ensure that we feel good and feel a kind of reward when we have achieved something. The expectation of this feeling of happiness ensures that we are motivated before the sport and have the will to achieve something.
With targeted mental tricks you can get yourself to make the best use of the reward center in your brain. This way you can regain more discipline for your exercises and are more motivated to stick to your training plan. We'll give you 5 ultimate tips to get the most out of your workout mindset.
Set challenging, but realistic goals
This point comes before the actual training and involves two things:
First, you should set concrete goals that you want to achieve. Studies show that set goals ensure that we change our behavior with regard to sports and nutrition much sooner than we would without them. It is best to link your goals to a deadline, which means that you set yourself a precise time when you want to achieve them.
The second aspect of your goals is that they must be the right ones. You should have to make an effort to reach them, but it should still be possible.
For many ambitious athletes this means that they have to lower their goals a little bit. Although it may feel a little against your intuition to lower your goals if you want to achieve a lot, this part is still essential. Because if you set goals that you cannot achieve, you will experience failure and feel bad. As a result, the brain does not evaluate the sport as something positive, and after your failure you are less motivated to stay on track.
If, on the other hand, we reach our goal, we have success and our brain releases happiness hormones. We feel good, which is why we are also motivated to set ourselves the next goal and continue working on ourselves
Many athletes focus their training only on the exercises of their skeletal muscles and completely forget about their "center". Our brain, as our control center, is fundamentally involved in all our processes. So it also plays a major role in training. The messenger substances that are released when we do sports ensure that we feel good and feel a kind of reward when we have achieved something. The expectation of this feeling of happiness ensures that we are motivated before the sport and have the will to achieve something.
With targeted mental tricks you can get yourself to make the best use of the reward center in your brain. This way you can regain more discipline for your exercises and are more motivated to stick to your training plan. We'll give you 5 ultimate tips to get the most out of your workout mindset.
Set challenging, but realistic goals
This point comes before the actual training and involves two things:
First, you should set concrete goals that you want to achieve. Studies show that set goals ensure that we change our behavior with regard to sports and nutrition much sooner than we would without them. It is best to link your goals to a deadline, which means that you set yourself a precise time when you want to achieve them.
The second aspect of your goals is that they must be the right ones. You should have to make an effort to reach them, but it should still be possible.
For many ambitious athletes this means that they have to lower their goals a little bit. Although it may feel a little against your intuition to lower your goals if you want to achieve a lot, this part is still essential. Because if you set goals that you cannot achieve, you will experience failure and feel bad. As a result, the brain does not evaluate the sport as something positive, and after your failure you are less motivated to stay on track.
If, on the other hand, we reach our goal, we have success and our brain releases happiness hormones. We feel good, which is why we are also motivated to set ourselves the next goal and continue working on ourselves
No "all or nothing" mentality
It's the middle of the week, you haven't been following your training plan very well and you haven't been eating well. And then the thought comes up that the rest of the week is more or less the same, because the week seems to be lost anyway?
Many people know this or similar thoughts. They stem from the fact that we see our fitness as a long-term project in which we always want to be perfect. Instead, we should rather think of our health as many small decisions every day. This way we have the opportunity to make a good decision in every situation. If you decide to do your workout, this is one of those good decisions. If you train a little longer than you planned, you already have the next one. So a day consists of all these small decisions, you don't have to wait until the next day or week to start over.
Find a Mantra
It may sound a bit trite, but a personal Mantra can be a strong motivator. It can help you to go to the workout at all, as well as to endure a particularly strenuous set.
Your mantra can be a sentence you read in a book or heard in a movie. Or maybe you have your own set of beliefs that motivates you to work out. Whenever your discipline wavers or you think you cannot endure any more practice, you can recite your Mantra from within. You will see that you can mobilize unimagined powers.
Your mantra can be a sentence you read in a book or heard in a movie. Or maybe you have your own set of beliefs that motivates you to work out. Whenever your discipline wavers or you think you cannot endure any more practice, you can recite your Mantra from within. You will see that you can mobilize unimagined powers.
Stay focused
During your workout, you should be fully focused on what you are doing. This also means putting your cell phone or whatever else might distract you out of your reach.
When you do an exercise, concentrate completely on that exercise. When you take a break, focus on the exercise that comes next. If you are exercising a specific muscle, focus all your attention on that muscle. Think of your training time as a gift to yourself that you don't want to waste a moment of.
When you do an exercise, concentrate completely on that exercise. When you take a break, focus on the exercise that comes next. If you are exercising a specific muscle, focus all your attention on that muscle. Think of your training time as a gift to yourself that you don't want to waste a moment of.
Visualize your success
To increase the reward effect on your brain, you can make visible to yourself what you have accomplished. This can be a simple grid that lists the days you want to train. Whenever you have completed your planned workout, you can check off the day. Or you can write a training diary in which you document your progress.
However you want to visualize your success for yourself, the effect is the same: Our brain likes to collect such positive reinforcements because they also ensure that more happiness hormones are released. The hurdle to miss a workout is greater because we don't want to lose our visual reward, but we do not want to lose it.
However you want to visualize your success for yourself, the effect is the same: Our brain likes to collect such positive reinforcements because they also ensure that more happiness hormones are released. The hurdle to miss a workout is greater because we don't want to lose our visual reward, but we do not want to lose it.
Conclusion
Our thoughts determine our drive and our training motivation. By specifically influencing your thoughts you can discipline yourself and become stronger. Maybe one or the other of the above mentioned tricks will help you to use the power of your mind for yourself.