Pre-coronavirus, you probably experienced many things that made sticking to an exercise routine problematic. If it wasn’t your work schedule or social calendar getting in the way, it was your mind peer pressuring you to veg out instead. (Like the time you finally signed up for a fitness challenge, panicked, and immediately unsubscribed.) But there’s no need to beat yourself up over it — it’s normal to experience resistance when you’re trying to stick to an exercise routine.
“Even under the best of circumstances, exercising regularly can be a challenge, and it’s not exactly your fault,” says Steve Levinson, a clinical psychologist and author of Following Through. “The fault lies with the way humans are designed.”
Although we’re smart enough to know what’s best for us, we’re not always compelled to take action. “Intelligently deciding to exercise regularly doesn’t guarantee you’ll actually feel like exercising,” says Levinson. “And when you don’t feel like it, there’s a good chance you won’t do it, despite your good intentions.”
Add a pandemic to the mix, and even the most motivated of fitness enthusiasts might find themselves struggling to keep their exercise regimen on the rails.
“An exercise routine is held in place by a variety of factors that affect your motivation to exercise and how you feel about actually doing it — any change in your circumstances can wreak havoc on the routine,” says Levinson. If exercising was satisfying a social need before the pandemic and no longer is, for example, missing that ingredient will make it harder to exercise regularly.
Other missing ingredients that can wreck a person’s motivation to exercise now include not having enough space or the right equipment at home, abrupt changes in workflow (and location) derailing the normal scheduling of workouts, and the loss of accountability from personal trainers or class instructors.
“Anxiety and other mental health issues have also skyrocketed, presenting additional emotional barriers,” says board-certified sports physical therapist Leada Malek. As the pandemic continues, it makes going back to your usual exercise routine that much harder— and that much more distant of a prospect.
How to get your body moving again despite how you feel
For months now, your mind and body have been on high alert, responding and adjusting to the jaw-dropping number of changes that have happened within the last year. Your blasé feelings about working out might be less a matter of lacking motivation and more of bandwidth.
“Given the sharp increase in stress as we manage multiple, ever-changing responsibilities all at once, engaging in self-care now requires a greater level of energy, time, and creativity than ever before,” says California-based licensed clinical psychologist Sheva Assar, Psy.D.
If you’ve lost the primary ingredients that motivated you to exercise because of the pandemic, you may have to start from scratch and build an exercise regimen that’s designed to work under the current circumstances, says Levinson.
Here’s how experts recommend reintegrating exercise into your life, despite feeling meh about the whole thing.
Create a compelling reason
If your motivation to exercise for health reasons isn’t cutting it anymore, you need to find a compelling reason to exercise that’s more powerful than your resistance.
“One of my favorite examples of this is a young man who decided that, from now on, he would own only one stick of underarm deodorant and keep it in his locker at the gym,” says Levinson. Not wanting to smell bad overpowered his not wanting to exercise, and ultimately got him to the gym more often than anything else he had tried.
The pandemic equivalent to this strategy might involve having your partner hide (or lock away) something of value to your hygiene — deodorant, toothbrush, razor — and only let you use it once you’re done your workout.
Only require the bare minimum from yourself
Instead of expecting yourself to exercise for 30 minutes every day, require nothing more from yourself than putting on your exercise clothes and sitting on your exercise bike or standing on your treadmill. Setting the bar epically low allows you to begin creating the framework of an eventual exercise routine in a pressure-free way.
“Although this strategy is especially useful when starting a new exercise regimen, it’s also helpful in dealing with occasional dips in motivation or surges in resistance that, if unchecked, can derail even the most established of regimens,” says Levinson.
Decide what your lowest bar is for the particular workout routine you’re wanting to establish (50 steps, 5 minutes of pedaling or jogging, one round of sun salutations) and use this tiny benchmark whenever you catch yourself dreading exercise to at least maintain the framework of the routine.
Focus on the behavior, not the ideal duration or outcome
Release yourself from any expectations you have about how much you “should” be exercising, what that “should” look like, or how you “should” feel while doing it, and solely focus on engaging in the behavior for as little or long as seems feasible for you that day.
“When we don’t have expectations of ourselves or the new behavior, we’re more likely to actually engage in the behavior,” says Assar. “Focus only on engaging in the behavior, versus for how long or what you need to experience because of it.”
If you’re getting into the routine of walking as a form of exercise, for example, identify a time each day and walk sans expectations. “Even if you walk for five minutes, that’s still five minutes of walking,” says Assar. “Wherever you start from is okay.” You’ll probably end up walking longer than anticipated, but what matters more is building upon the core behavior.
Match the level of effort to the level of motivation
View motivation as a wave. There are high points and low points. “When motivation is high, we can do things that require much more effort,” says Ian Elwood, a certified athletic trainer and strength coach. “When motivation is low, our ability to put forth effort also decreases.”
The key is to match your effort to the amount of motivation you have, but you must do it consistently, he adds. On days when motivation is high, crush an intense online workout for an hour or two — and when it’s low, take the dog for a walk or go for a leisurely bike ride.
Create systems that build habits
“Because motivation waxes and wanes, we can’t rely on it to always get us out of bed and on the move,” says Elwood. His solution? Create systems that build habits.
Habits take less energy to complete than non-habit tasks, since they’re the equivalent of your brain being on autopilot — it doesn’t need to “think” about what it’s doing. The actions are second nature.
“Systems require a few things: an anchor behavior (something you already do regularly), a trigger (a reminder to do the new behavior too), and a reward (a small gift to yourself that reinforces the extra work you just put in),” says Elwood.
Anchor behaviors can be literally anything that you do all the time without really thinking about it, such as getting out of bed. The trigger might be placing your workout clothes or gear right next to the bed so you step on it when you stand up.
Then after you work out (to a level that matches your motivation), reward yourself — say, with a fancy brew from your favorite mom-and-pop café. “Just make sure the reward aligns with your goals,” says Elwood. If you’re trying to cut back on your sugar intake, then a candy bar probably isn’t the best reward.
Add exercise to things you always do
If your days have no rhythm or routine to them anymore, the attempt to habit-build might add more stress to your plate than it takes away. If you find this to be the case, you can instead tack exercise onto things that you always do.
For example, do squats as you brush your teeth, calf raises as you put your dishes away, lunges as you wait for the microwave to beep, or march in place as you scroll through your social media feeds.
“This allows you to get almost a full workout in by the time your day is over,” says Malek.
Do reps between TV show episodes
When you’re sucked into yet another binge-watching session, doing a set of 10-20 reps of any exercise between episodes (planks, squats, crunches) lets you squeeze some movement into your TV marathons. “If you do this every time you watch TV, you might notice your quality and form improving and become motivated to try new workouts,” says Malek.
Choose an exercise move du jour and set a goal number, challenging yourself to hit this number between every episode of the show you’re currently vegging out to.
Conduct walking meetings
If it feels like you have no time to work out, walking during phone calls is a convenient way to get your steps in without disrupting your already-packed schedule. “By knowing you’ll get some steps in, you’ll feel more confident about your ability to fit exercise into your schedule no matter how busy you are,” says Malek, and this will likely lead to you making it happen more often.
Scan your week for meetings — including family ones — that you can take over the phone. Allow yourself enough time to get dressed and outside, prep your phone with notes if necessary, pop in your earbuds, and get moving.
Make a cringeworthy pact
If you miss the intensity of being challenged by your gym comrades, try sharing a fitness goal with a friend and making a pact that if you don’t follow through on your goal, you have to donate money to a cause you don’t believe in or straight-up despise, to the point where it would sting to hand over even one penny.
The idea, of course, is not to create any more divisiveness in your life — you can make the variables of the pact anything you want. “The only purpose to this exercise is to stay motivated and consistent,” says Elwood.
Exercise to thank your body
Find small pockets of time — first thing in the morning, during work breaks, after Zoom meetings — to check in with your body. Ask your body what it needs in that moment (a walk, stretches, deep breaths?). Treat each check-in like the exercise version of intuitive eating, and use it as a way to thank your body for getting you through another crazy day.
“Rather than thinking of exercise as something you need to do to avoid negative consequences, you can reframe it as thinking of exercise as something you’re doing to thank your body and appreciate it,” says Assar.
This strategy helps your mind focus more intentionally on the benefits and positives of exercise, she adds, which can eventually lead to feeling more motivated and energized by the idea of working out.
Think of yourself as someone who exercises
When stress levels are sky-high, taking time out of your schedule to exercise may be the last thing on your mind, especially if you’ve never been a fan of working out.
Turn things around by making exercise something you just do, like showering or brushing your teeth, essentially programming your brain to believe that it’s simply a part of your day and as normal as getting out of bed in the morning.
“To do this, you have to shift your internal identity to that of someone who exercises regularly,” says Erin Reynolds, a Texas-based clinical sports neuropsychologist. “If you struggle with motivation towards working out, your brain isn’t currently programmed that way.”
Making the shift means first committing to change. “The process is easy, but it does take commitment,” says Reynolds. “Your brain responds strongly to consistent repetition. Your old habits and internal identity of someone who doesn’t exercise may be deeply engrained, but you can actually change the neural pathways in your brain, leading to new underlying beliefs with repeated exposure to new thoughts.”
While your brain will start to catch on that you’re trying to create a new habit after 10 repetitions, Reynolds explains, it can take up to 67 days to establish a completely subconscious habit (meaning one you don’t have to think about).
To get started, search YouTube for “self-hypnosis exercise motivation” and start listening to guided meditations on the subject every night before bed.
“This may seem counterintuitive, as you’re literally lying down playing pretend,” says Reynolds. “But if you commit to this every day, over time, you’ll reprogram your brain and build new neural pathways — the pathways of a person who regularly exercises and doesn’t ever worry about motivation.”
Krissy Brady covers women's health and wellness.
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