Perhaps you have been through this type of thing before where by you have decided to improve your health and fitness and in the beginning you felt really motivated. Maybe you watched an inspiring film that prompted you to take action, perhaps a friend of yours you hadn’t seen for a while turned up having lost a lot of weight or having gained significant muscle mass or perhaps you were just fed up of feeling lethargic and unfit. Whatever the reason you started exercising and continued to do so for a few weeks.

However after a while your motivation decreased, you got busy at work, you got tired of making the effort or the results weren’t as good as you’d hoped for and you unconsciously quit your healthy exercise lifestyle. If that all sounds familiar then here are a few easy ways to help regain and sustain your motivation for a healthier lifestyle: 

Try setting an enjoyable goal. For example,what about planning out a mountain biking/kayaking/hiking holiday in an exotic tough part of the world such as the Himalayas,The Alps or The Candadian Rockies. With this trip in mind you really have a goal to aim for. You will need to be in good physical health in order to enjoy your trip to the fullest. If your trip is in 5 montsh time then you can plan a realistic schedule with your fitness goals in mind.

Optin to take part in a local area event. I bet there are plenty of local events that you can get involved with simply have a look on line. Target one of these events as a goal to aim for. Inform a close friend of yours about your future intentions so they can act as a buddy and provide encouragement to you and come to support you on the day. 

Take up a sport or hobby, this doesn’t have to be an ultra serious thing just a light hearted game of soccer or hockey at the weekends but it gives you an easy and enjoyable way to monitor your fitness levels. The first few sessions you will feel the strain but over the course of a few weeks you will get noticeably better.

Visualise. Although this may sound a little strange at first, find a piece of time every day to see in your imagination precisely what you want to do, be and look like. Carrying this out trigger powerful signals to be sent to your sub conscious mind that are about your everyday decisions and day to day actions. Continue to do this and your behaviour will begin to modify itself naturally to lead you towards your goals. This technique is proven to work and used by many top athletes.

Involve family, friends and even your pet dog. The more that you get involved the less likely you are to throw the towel in and quit. You are far less likely to be lazy and stay at home if your friends are calling and texting you to get you to join them.

Learn more. Be curious find out about building lean muscle mass, find out how to get a 6 pack, find out how to shed pounds, find out what muscle building nutrition you need for lean muscle building and so on. By growing your knowledge you are quite probably going to improve the speed of your fitness improvement which in turn will serve to enhance your motivation.

Make sure that you do not make comparisons of yourself with others. I don’t care who exactly you are there is aways going to be people fitter, sexier, more muscular or whatever than you are. Acknowledge this fact and realise that we all travel through this life process each from our own different perspectives. Only make comparisons with your self and your own progress by taking measurements such as bodyfat percentage but the most important thing is that you feel good about what your doing and yourself this is a much better indicator of your improvement in health.

So, with those tips in mind go hit the gym and do whatever it is that you enjoy doing to keep fit, build lean muscle mass or whatever else you want to do, you can do it, just keep it fun.

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We hear loads of advice and guidance on what to do to build up muscle but much of it is conflicting. For that reason we are going to clear up a few things right now about what not to do to build up muscles. Here we go, 7 things not to do when trying to build muscle up:

1) Train for more than 45 minutes. training longer than this can actually inhibit muscle gains because at this point a hormone is produced that limits the muscle building process, train for less than 45 minutes and the hormones level is about correct for building muscle.

2) Eat lots of everything. Often you hear people say to eat as much of everything as you possibly can. Well sure we need excess calories to build muscle mass but do you really think that stuffing yourself full of E numbers, simple carbs (sugars), fatty red meats, fast food and so on is going to benefit you long term. Of course not, stick to sensible nutritious foods and you will put on lean muscle mass and save your body from long term health problems too.

3) Do not do lots of isolation exercises. That refers to exercises such as tricep presses that place focus on one individual muscle alone. This is not a very efficient use of either your energy or time. Exercise using multi joint exercises such as squats, pull ups,presses and so on. Muscle growth is triggered in more than just one muscle at a time.

4) Ignoring cardio-vascular fitness. I’m sure you have heard that you should avoid aerobic stuff as it uses up valuable calories that could be used for burning muscle. yes this is correct but come on there is a sensible balance to be had. Sure get big but do you want to be huge and not be able to walk up a few flights of stairs without panting. In order to preserve long term health then do aerobic exercise 2-3 times a week and simply make up for this by eating more.

5) Change exercises a lot. You may know that variety ensures muscles keep growing, that is correct but naturally at the same time not letting your muscles establish an exercise rhythm can also limit your progress that you might otherwise make. Stick with an exercise for a couple of months before dropping it.

6) Over train. Over training is probably the biggest cause for lack of progress. One to two workouts a week for each muscle group should sufficient fro most people.

7) Give up. Too many people give up when their muscle growth slows down. This is the exact time when you should be rising to the challenge and training with more intensity, paying attention to muscle building nutrition and showing determination.

Go get em!

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