Squash a Workout Excuse + Fit Crew

Squash a Workout Excuse

A few weeks ago, I tweeted asking for your excuses you use when you want to skip a workout. I had a reason... :)

Did you make fitness/exercise resolutions for 2010 like:

• "Exercise"
• "Exercise More"
• "Lose 10 Pounds"
• "Be Active All Year"
• "Get Fit"
• "Exercise 3 Times a Week"
• "Run a 5K"
• "Train for a Triathlon"

No matter your fitness level or goals, sometimes, we all need a little help sticking to our fitness/exercise resolutions and routines. While we can be somewhat or even very motivated to reach our goals, life happens, we get busy, and often, we start to make excuses that we use to skip workouts or training sessions.

I thought it would be fun to try to help brainstorm ways to squash common workout excuses by featuring one excuse per week, offering some personal tips to counter those exercise excuses, and asking you guys (yes you!) to post comments with additional tips. I'm hoping these tips help people stick to their fitness resolutions, and I'm hoping to learn some new tips to use, myself!

Week 1 Excuse to Squash

Here's an excuse I've used many times myself: "I don't have time to workout"

Here's what I say to squash this excuse:

• You DO have time to workout. Everyone gets the same 24 hours in a day. If you think you don't have time to work out, you're probably spending your time on other things. You have to make an effort to ensure some of that time is spent working out.
• I may not get everything done today that needs to be done, but exercise is an important part of my life and I need to give it a priority so I can balance my life with it.
• I need to MAKE time to workout.

What would you say to counter this excuse? Leave a comment! :)

Fit Crew

In addition to the excuse-squashing, I thought it would be neat to start up a twitter support group that people could use to help motivate each other to workout. I'm calling it "Fit Crew" and using twitter tag #fitcrew.

I was thinking people could use the twitter tag #fitcrew to both ask for motivation and give motivation.

If you're feeling tired and don't want to do your scheduled workout, you could tweet something like, "Worked 9 hours today without a lunch break. Feeling too tired to workout. Help #fitcrew!"

If you're feeling pumped about working out and want to help motivate others to exercise, you could look for those asking for help and tweet back to them encouraging words like "@thechiclife - you can do it! #fitcrew"

For example, I just ran a search for "too tired to workout" on twitter (click for results) and there are TON of people tweeting this! What if we helped each other motivate each other to workout? How awesome would that be to help people make their workouts, brighten their moods, and get fit?!

This could be a horrible idea. Maybe no one will use it? But, I figured it wouldn't hurt to try. :)

Exercise

Comments

[Lindsay Maddox]

OK, I seriously and honestly LOVE when people try to give me the "two tired/don't have enough time" excuses to not work out. Being in the fitness industry, I know a lot of people who are living PROOF that you always can make time for it. In fact, one of my friends is a lawyer with two kids under the age of 10. She's up every morning at 4:30 so she can get in a 45 minute workout before having to make a nutritious breakfast for her family and get the girls to school. She's amazing... Oh, and I should mention that she's 42. Talk about inspiration! OK, off that soapbox.

#FitCrew is genius. Totally count me in on that one! :) Yay!

[Kath]

Great idea!!

[Abby]

Haha, wellll I gave myself an excuse last night when I sliced open my finger..added that to the snow... but really, I could have run. I just lost all motivation (must have been the pain). And I didn't even work out in the morning like I wanted to.

I'm going to make up for it tonight, I promise!

Wow, this is a pathetic comment!

(Thanks for the bandage tip! I'm going to try it!)

[Amanda]

I love this idea... Thanks for coming up with it. Definitely helps when you have people behind you to motivate you on Twitter!

[Good Taste. Healthy Me]

Loving this idea! I've already taken advantage of it! :)

[Britt]

I don't tweet, but the fit crew idea is great! Sometimes I really need that extra push, but heck just thinking of the idea will keep me motivated. =]