I had a question posed to me last week about staying motivated to train. This can certainly be a tough time of year to stay motivated with the short, cold days and lack of saddle time. I just went through a 2 week period where I got in about 2 workouts – I just did not want to hit the gym so I know how this feels.

Here is my advice on staying motivated to train…

1) Cut back on your training volume – if you don’t feel motivated to hit the gym for an hour, how about trying to get in and out in 30 minutes? You can either cut your prescribed sets in half or even just do 1 set of each exercise. Another thing to try is doing some combo drills since they get a lot of work done in a short amount of time (you can find an article covering this topic as well as a video demo of some combo drills on this site).

The point is that getting some work in is better than no work. You don’t HAVE to get the entire workout in so try cutting back for a couple of weeks until you get your motivation levels back. If you really want to get the shortest, most effective workout possible make sure that you have my DB Combos Program (www.dbcombos.com).

2) Watch some riding videos before you hit the gym – I know that every time I see a great riding video I get fired up to go ride or train.

3) Make sure that you are getting enough rest and good food – sometimes a lack of motivation is really your bodies way of letting you know that it is not getting enough rest and/ or fuel. This time of year is particularly tough with holiday stress and junk food around every corner. If you don’t take the time to take care of your body it will not be very motivated to let you take it through a workout in the gym.

4) Plan a winter time riding trip – if you can then plan on taking a riding trip in February. This will give you some motivation since you know that you are going to be hitting the trail in the near future and you certainly don’t want to be spending your time huffing and puffing on the trail. Setting a date and marking it on your calendar will do wonders for your motivation.

This seems to work for me when I’m faced with a lack of motivation to train. Whatever you do don’t beat yourself up over it since feeling that way is normal. Just recognize that you need to approach training differently and you’ll be back to your old self in not time.

-James Wilson-