Published March 19, 2013

Tricks to Make You Exercise

by Helen M. Ryan

Sometimes…you just don’t feel like exercising. Sometimes...me either. There, we’ve addressed the elephant in the room.

However—and there’s always a however—we need to exercise, right? For our health, fitness, and moods. (Or it’s ‘table for cranky, right this way.’ )

So there was one morning I had another moment of not wanting to work out (boo on mornings). I thought about putting it off until later in the day, but I looked at my schedule and thought, “Ain’t gonna happen. I have to do it now, or I won’t.

My home gym is a wonderland of fun and low-cost torture workout equipment, but I just couldn’t bear the thought of using any of it. Then I realized that what I couldn’t bear the thought of was another workout with me. (Like sometimes when I teach too many Spinning classes and I think, “oh no, her again?” of myself as my own teacher.)

Usually when I feel this way, I block off a few minutes here and there for mini-workouts throughout the day. They’re effective for your body and great for tricking your mind.

I decided to scrap my “workout as usual” and go for something different: A workout by someone else on YouTube.

Time actually flew by and the original 15 minutes I had planned to squeeze in turned into about 40 minutes (yay me!) My arms felt shaky after using lighter than normal weights and more reps, so I know I was working.

If you don’t feel like exercising, do it anyway, but do it differently.

Take a class you’ve never tried before, look on YouTube, hire a trainer for just one session, grab a workout buddy, or your child/cat/dog. It doesn’t matter what it is as long as it’s something.

It also doesn’t matter if today was your “upper body” day and you did abs and toes. Truly, it doesn’t.

Just keep moving and get ‘er done.