Bored?
Put the pepper back in your workouts

Are you bored with your elliptical miles? Tired of your treadmill? Just getting plain sick of the sight of the same downward facing dogs week after week?

Don't fight your boredom: Switch.

Just switch.

Try some new thing. Push yourself into a class that challenges you a little more or a little differently. Try a new sport. Switch your aerobic routine.

Or if you've grown too fond of the folks at your gym to try a new place, then shake things up within those walls a little bit. Try organizing a new sort of class, or a workshop with an exercise physiologist. Think about changing the music, switching the channels on the TVs or reversing the order of your exercises.

Get yourself a nice music player, and distract yourself with your favorite tunes, a wild morning radio show, or even a book on tape. Find a gym with machine-mounted PCs for surfing the Net while you sweat. (No, really.)

New clothes can help. New shoes can help even more. New venues, new people, new styles, new routines. All of these can help you look forward to your workouts a bit.

I can see my workouts working into seasons. Summer is clearly home-based workouts, running, and Pilates.

Fall will find me swimming again, taking a Yoga class, and studying Pilates.

Deep winter will put me back on elliptical machines with Joni Mitchell and Ella Fitzgerald belting it out in my eardrums, weights, and Pilates.

So far I haven't found it possible to bore of Pilates, because there's always more to learn. I feel the same way about Tai Chi, Yoga, and dance classes. Maybe Spring.

What will help put a little more pepper in your exercise program? Or what will lure you to start one? Do you need people to make it fun? Prefer to work out alone? Like the privacy of your home, or crave the open air?

Spend some time figuring out your workout needs. Don't let yourself grow bored. Don't let yourself quit. Don't let this time be the bad medicine you have to take just because you have to. If you plan to take weight off, and especially if you plan to keep it off, you will need to find ways to keep your exercise interesting. Don't fight the demons if you don't have to.

Just switch.

JuJu

Lots of new exercises
What's Your Exercise Personality?
How much/how hard should you work?
Surf while you work


18 days left to support JuJu’s jog for the Canadian Diabetes Association in the Toronto Waterfront Half-Marathon. Every Little bit helps

Uncomfortable donating online? Here are phone numbers and mailing addresses for the Canadian Diabetes Association

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