Living a healthy lifestyle is difficult at times, especially for those who tend to fall off the exercise bandwagon. Upon failing to create consistency in your fitness routine, it becomes impossible to achieve any sort of results. Once you find the key to remaining consistent, you will be set up for success.
Why Consistency Is Important
Remaining consistent is crucial when it comes to health and fitness. Whether your driving force for exercise is health or physique, make fitness a lifestyle rather than just a box to check a few times a month. The only way to truly lead a fit lifestyle is to consistently perform some form of exercise every day, whether that be running, walking, stretching, pilates, resistance training, etc.
When striving towards any fitness goal related to physique, endurance, weightlifting, etc., progressively push yourself to the next level (i.e., progressive overload). This is where general adaptation syndrome (GAS) comes into play. In a NASM article about GAS, Kinsey Mahaffey writes that on the physiological side of this syndrome, the body responds to positive forms of stress stimuli by making physiological adaptations over time, which can lead to “improved fitness.” This means that as the body is pushed in different ways, it is able to change in order to meet the new demands placed on it.
Whether you are pushing yourself to lift more weight, slow down your lifting tempo, or run faster, an article from ISSA explains how the overarching idea of general adaptation syndrome in fitness is that “we challenge our bodies in terms of strength and endurance to make them adapt.” These adaptations happen over time with persistent, strategic work, and that is why consistency is so important. So, how do you create consistency in fitness?
1. Establish a Goal
It’s difficult to put in consistent work when you have nothing particular to work towards. Establishing a fitness or health goal will create a visualization and reminder of why you need to keep at it week after week. Choosing a specific goal, such as losing a certain amount of weight or body fat, running a faster mile time, or lowering blood pressure, will help you gain a better understanding of why you are being consistent and in what specific ways you need to create that consistency. Having a goal gives you the incentive to keep showing up, even when it’s the last thing you want to do.
2. Create a Weekly Routine
Once you have a specific goal in mind, you will need to create an action plan in order to achieve that goal, which ultimately leads to a consistent routine. An example of this is someone who wants to gain a certain amount of muscle in a set time period, so they create a personalized exercise program focused on progressive overload. This could be as simple as writing out a list of exercises for an upper body day, a lower body day, and 2 full body days, and following that program for several weeks before switching it up and repeating the process.
When you establish a specific routine with a particular end goal in mind, you are more likely to exercise consistently, leading you to see results. If you had an end goal in mind but no plan of attack, it would be difficult to create a pattern of behavior that brings about change.
3. Find Accountability
After establishing a goal and routine to achieve it, there may still be times when someone lacks the discipline or desire to remain consistent. This is why another important factor to remaining consistent is finding someone to keep you accountable. Accountability comes in many forms, whether that be signing up for boot camp, finding a partner or friend to be your gym buddy, or hiring a coach. By bringing another person into your fitness journey, you not only gain an extra source of encouragement to keep showing up, but you also have another outside factor pushing you to remain consistent and strive toward your goals.
Consistency is a crucial part of leading a fit life, and knowing some of the key components is a good place to start. By establishing a goal, creating a routine, and bringing in accountability, you set yourself up for success.
