Top 3 Ways to Stay Motivated for Home Workouts

Top 3 Ways to Stay Motivated for Home Workouts

You just finished a long day at work. It's about 6 PM and now you get to sit in traffic for over an hour until you finally get home to put your feet up. Chances are you may not have the time or the motivation to exercise.

Most people in today's busy world would find it difficult to find time to go to the grocery store for fresh food, much less working out. Taking two hours in the morning or evening to train hard is difficult. We just don't have the time in our busy lives.

However, the rise of fitness movements like calisthenics has made it easier and more accessible for all to exercise to the best of their ability in any location.

With a massive array of information online regarding exercise programs and various workouts, the most difficult component is not how to exercise but rather how to stay motivated.

Why Home Workouts Are Difficult

Gyms are built to be spaces where people of all goals and fitness levels can gather together and motivate each other. For some, this can be intimidating, but for many, seeing others exercising and working hard can be a great source of motivation.

In your home gym, you will not have that. For this reason, it’s important to find unique ways to motivate yourself.

Maintaining Your Motivation for Home Workouts

When working out at home, your biggest challenge is staying on track and progressing towards your goals.

Keep in mind that any goal that you have of building muscle or losing weight will take time. This is not a week-long event. You’ll need to stay motivated over the course of many months.

So, the big question remains: “How can I stay motivated for the long term?”

Try these motivating ideas, so you can achieve your fitness goals while working out from home:

    1. Change it up. This is one of the easiest methods to stay motivated. If you’re continually doing the same workout (or series of workouts), you may find that you get bored very quickly. Additionally, having no variability in your training will make your progress much slower.

        ◦ Do yourself a favor and keep your mind open for new and unique workouts.

        ◦ Follow your favorite fitness trainers on social media. Chances are they will post workout routines that you can follow along with and see faster results.

    2. Grab a suspension tool. Suspension tools like a Monkii or a TRX are great ways to always have a source of fun and engaging exercise. Pushups and lunges can get boring very quickly, and suspension tools have a huge amount of online videos with exercises for beginners all the way to advanced.

        ◦ When you make the exercise fun and interactive, you’ll be more motivated to exercise and stay on track. Suspension tools can help with that!

    3. Make time. Integrate your home workouts into your daily schedule. Understandably, there will be days where you don't want to train but having your workouts in your schedule and viewing them as an important element of your life will ensure you prioritize the workout.

        ◦ You’re more likely to follow through on training sessions when your workout time is on your regular schedule at the same time each day, or the same days each week.

        ◦ Making it a habit will get you to automatically work out without having to make the decision to do it.

Are Home Workouts for You?

Home workouts aren't for everyone. Many people enjoy the setting of the gym and find that training at home is difficult. If you’re the type of person that can self-motivate and plan your days ahead of time, home workouts are for you.

Not only are they a great space to develop your relative strength, but training at home is cost-efficient, time-saving, and a great way to connect with yourself.

A Workout In Four Minutes

If your typical excuse for not exercising is a lack of time, you may need a new one. Research has shown that even a four-minute workout – or one that requires as little as seven minutes of your time three times a week – does the same job as 30 minutes of exercise three or more days per week. They key is giving the short workout maximal effort and repeating it several times, which is why it is called High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT.

The first study showing that HIIT can make you fit quickly came from Canada’s McMaster University. Physiologist Martin Gibala Ph.D. and his team found that three-minute intervals on a stationary bike – 30 seconds of intense pedaling followed by a brief rest, repeated five or six times – led to the same muscle-cell adaptations as a bike ride lasting much longer, an hour and a half to two hours.
The next year, Dr. Gibala’s group reported that HIIT worked better for fat-burning than did conventional aerobics. Participants in this study were divided into two teams. One did 20 weeks of conventional aerobics while the other did 15 weeks of HIIT. The first group burned 48 percent more calories per session than the HIIT group, but those in the HIIT group burned 900 percent more fat over the 15 weeks than the first group burned in 20 weeks.
Since then, more and more studies have shown that HIIT can match the effects of longer, more leisurely workouts if you’re willing to push yourself really, really hard for a few minutes a few times a week.