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Keeping your January momentum

Posted February 7th, 2019

How are those New Year resolutions coming along? Are you still on track? Or are you beginning to slip back into old habits? If you vowed that 2019 would be the year that you’d lose weight, exercise more or reach a fitness milestone, today’s post is going to help you stick to your resolve and make sure that you’re not making the same old promises (and inevitable excuses) on the 1st of January 2020.

Give yourself credit
We’re more than a month into 2019 so, if you’ve been following a regime, you should be beginning to see some improvements in your body and physical ability by now. Often, people don’t give themselves credit for these ‘mini results’ because they haven’t hit their ultimate goal yet. Tunnel vision can be detrimental to your success because, with an ‘all or nothing’ attitude, the finish line will seem a million miles away.

To tackle this kind of negative thinking, it’s a good idea to record your progress as you go. Keep note of your weight or physical ability (the number of lengths you can swim, the distance you can run on the treadmill etc.) and use this information to track any monthly or bi-monthly improvements. Congratulate yourself for all the incremental steps towards your ultimate goal – remind yourself that you’ve worked hard and are on the right path!

Shake up the routine
You’re probably in a good gym routine by now, but after a while this can become monotonous. It’s important to keep things fresh otherwise exercise will become boring and feel like a chore. Instead of bashing out the same sets every time you visit the gym, mix things up with different movements and surroundings.

The Thames Club has just installed 35 new Technogym bikes. We’re running our regular spin classes and we also offer My Ride Virtual classes too. My Ride Virtual has several different modes – including a virtual personal trainer and a world view of spectacular scenery – all of which add diversity to your workout. Next cardio day, try mixing things up and head down to the Spinning Theatre to give these bikes a go.

Get a buddy
Keeping a resolution is a journey of ups and downs, and it’s a lot easier to deal with those downs when you’ve got a friend who’s going through the same thing as you. For those times when you want to skip leg day and have a legs-up-on-the-sofa day, having a buddy can give you that push you need to stay on track. Ideally, this person should be roughly similar to you in terms of fitness – purely because it’s easier to moan to someone who’s going through the same thing – but this isn’t always possible. In fact, it can sometimes be hard to find anyone to go to the gym with, either because of distance or schedule problems.

If you find yourself in this situation, try joining an online fitness community forum. It’s not quite the same as having someone next to you when you’re struggling through those final deadlifts, but it’ll provide you with a network of people to talk to and engage in a bit of friendly competition with. There’s a plethora of boards and platforms to suit every goal and interest, so it’s really just a matter of finding one that suits you.