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My Favorite Fitness Hack: Give It 10

fitness-hack-585kgsThey say the only workout you regret is the one you didn’t do, and I try hard to live my life without regret. Still, that doesn’t mean that hitting the gym (or the pool, or the bike — whatever) with a vengeance on the daily comes naturally.

When I’m having a blah day, I’m often unclear as to why. In a lot of cases (like if I’m emotionally or mentally fatigued, stressed or just feeling lazy), getting in a solid workout is exactly what I need, even if gearing up for an hour or so of vigorous activity seems almost insurmountable.

Then again, there are those times when your body is just saying, GIRL, ENOUGH ALREADY. This is something I’m more and more aware of as I go through my half Ironman training and increase my hours and miles. Sometimes my body truly needs a little extra recovery time and something’s gotta give.

But it can be really hard to tell which of these culprits is to blame while you’re laying on the couch with a brain full of excuses for skipping your workout, right? You might not know until you’re a few minutes in. And that’s where my all-time favorite hack comes in: The Opt-Out (which I wrote about last year, too).

It couldn’t be much simpler: You just start on your planned workout, but give yourself the option to quit (or switch to a lower-impact exercise) — no second-guessing yourself and absolutely no guilt allowed — in 10 or 15 minutes if you’re still not feeling it. If the issue was some sort of mental block, the act of lacing up your shoes and getting out the door might be all you need to snap out of the funk, and if that’s not enough, 10 minutes of activity should get you warm and loosened up if you were dealing with some stiff but uninjured muscles.

I use this trick a lot, and have only taken myself up on the option to quit twice. Once, as I mentioned the first time I shared this hack, I was coming down with the flu. The other was when my back started out sore in the morning and swimming only added to the discomfort, so I crawled out of the pool and began a strict week-long regimen of heat, ice and trips to the chiropractor. Other than that, just getting a few minutes under my belt has been all I’ve needed to find motivation for a solid workout, even if that motivation is occasionally less in the form of, “I suddenly feel awesome!” and more in the form of, “Aww, hell, I’m already sweaty — might as well make it count!”

How about you? Is getting started often the hardest part for you? —Kristen

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