And on those occasions, simply listening to Eye of The Tiger and drinking a couple strong cups of coffee simply isn’t enough to pull you through. So when you’re in a slump, feeling blah and unmotivated towards your training, and getting bored with the same old day to day routine, how can you get yourself out of that training slump?
1. Use Social Accountability. Using Facebook, Twitter, or your own blog, you can tell others about both your triathlon goals and your workout achievements. TrainingPeaks allows you to post workouts to Twitter and Facebook, and share with friends. Social accountability, and the ability to brag to others, are both great ways to get externally motivated to exercise.
3. Consider a Coach. Yes, I realize this is biased advice when it’s coming from a coach, but while a friend can certainly motivate you to train, a coach will push you, provide you with a plan, and get you results even faster. Sometimes, even if you know what to do already, simply having everything planned out from you allows you to somewhat “mindlessly” just go do the session.
4. Make a Plan. Even if you can’t afford a coach, one of the best ways to motivate yourself is to know what kind of workout you’re going to do, so that when you roll out of bed each morning, you’ve planned for triathlon training in your daily schedule. Here’s a link to some TrainingPeaks plans I’ve personally created.
5. Keep a Log. By doing your planned workouts, then filling in a quick description of how you did, or even simply “checking off” the workout as completed, you harness the power of the pen to keep you motivated to train. Motivation experts around the world have known for a long time that a key component of achieving any goal is to write it down – so if you’re not yet keeping an online or hard copy training log, try it out!
6. Self-Talk. Never underestimate the importance of talking yourself up. From a simple self-motivating sentence such as “I can do this!” to an all-out furious and angry speech to yourself to keep you from skipping your trip to the pool on the drive home from work, the simple act of voicing your workout goals, your workout reasons, and the weakness of your training excuses can get you to actually do your training session!
I realize that this brief article merely scratches the surface of ways to get yourself out of a slump, so now it’s your turn. Have you ever found yourself in a training slump? If so, how did you “dig yourself out” or re-motivate yourself to train? Leave your comments below!
Ben Greenfield is a triathlon coach and sports nutritionist at www.pacificfit.net.
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