Tips to Get Back into Exercise After a Break
Getting back into your workout routine after a break can be difficult. From finding the motivation to overcoming challenges like fatigue and self-consciousness, there are plenty of obstacles standing in your way.
How to exercise after a break
Regardless of whether you took a break because of an injury or the stay-at-home orders interfered with your typical workout regimen, getting back into the routine takes discipline. But luckily, you’re not on your own.
We’ve created this guide of 7 tips for getting back into exercise after a break, to help get you started on the right track.
1. Find Your Motivation
While maintaining your mental and physical health is obviously a big motivational factor, many of us already know that’s why we should work out, but still have a hard time actually committing to it.
To help you get motivated to jump back into your fitness routine, find a more immediate factor that can keep you on track as you power through even the hardest workouts. Do you want to compete in a race or competition that’s coming up?
Or maybe you want to look your best for your best friend’s wedding? Either way, find a more tangible goal that you can work toward in the near future.
One note about staying motivated—many people find themselves discouraged because of the pain and discomfort of getting back into exercise.
Find a reliable pain management solution like CBDfx topical cream, to help you overcome the soreness that often comes along with the beginning stages of working out.
It’s not enough to just want to start working out again, you need a plan to put your goals into action. Figure out where you’ll work out, what type of exercise you’re going to do, when you can fit in exercise, and other important factors so you can make picking up your exercise routine as straightforward as possible.
With an easy-to-follow plan, it will be harder to come up with excuses to avoid putting in the work. Consider even writing your plan down in your phone’s notes or a journal so you can refer back to it.
3. Find helpful resources
For many people, getting back into exercise after a break is difficult because they don’t know where to start. If it’s been more than a month or two, you might find yourself unsure of which workouts to do while you’re at the gym or what the proper technique is.
Luckily, there are plenty of online resources, many of which are free to help you ease back into it. Just do a quick search and you’ll find influencers sharing their full workout routines with step-by-step instructions on TikTok to blog articles laying out how to do exercises that target each part of the body.
4. Keep it interesting
Burnout is real in every area of our lives, especially when it comes to the harder things like working out. Keep yourself interested in your exercise regimen by making an effort to make it fun. Here are a few ideas to make your workout routine less boring:
- Create a Spotify workout playlist
- Buy workout clothing you actually want to wear
- Try different workouts each week with ClassPass
- Join a workout group or class
5. Get a workout buddy
If you’re finding it hard to stay motivated, you might benefit from having a workout buddy to join you in your fitness journey. Plus, they can benefit from the buddy system keeping their goals on track, too.
You can make plans to join the gym together, go to the same classes, or even do video conference workouts while lockdown is still in effect. Having your friends support you and vice versa can be a very powerful motivator.
6. Track your progress
Sometimes it’s hard to see when we’re making progress with things like working out because it can take time for the results to become apparent.
However, by closely tracking your progress (by making micro-goals along the way), you have a reminder that you are working towards something and your goal is becoming increasingly within reach.
As you meet these goals, you should also have a plan for scaling your workouts to get to the next level and continue pushing forward.
7. Hold yourself accountable
While having a buddy system and plan in place can help you stick to your goals, it really comes down to you making a commitment to yourself.
At the end of the day, you’re the one who has to physically put in the work and continue to do so day after day. So, make sure you have ways to hold yourself accountable like calendar reminders.
Wrap-Up
Exercising is an essential part of any healthy lifestyle, from helping you manage stress to keep your body strong, so don’t give up even though it might seem hard to get back into your routine.
You’ll see that after some hard work and dedication, you’ll be back to your old exercise regimen (and all the benefits that come with it) in no time.
