Have you ever lacked ANY motivation to go to the gym? Maybe you want to create a new fitness routine, get back to an old one, or just feel stuck. When we understand the psychology behind building healthy habits, we can create a foolproof formula for getting results at the gym and beyond.
What Is Exercise Psychology?
The psychology of exercise highlights the connection between mental and emotional factors that influence physical activity and fitness behavior. Our thoughts, feelings, and attitudes can impact our motivation to exercise and our follow-through. When we consider psychology, we can bridge the gap between intention and action. Your thoughts and actions have a huge impact on your athletic performance and your body.
The Mental-Physical Connection: Why It Matters
Everything in the body is connected! Poor mental health can manifest through physical conditions, chronic illness, and autoimmune issues. Sleep deprivation can lead to symptoms of depression and anxiety, and other physical factors affect mental health. Good sleep, quality nutrition, the right amount of exercise, and proper hydration can have a positive impact on your mood, help build confidence with daily tasks, and create balance in your life. If you are currently in a period of depression, heartbreak, or other difficulties, try focusing on sleep, nutrition, and exercise. A healthy lifestyle means better well-being—physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Exercise Psychology: Mental Strategies for Success
It’s hard to get going on the things you want to accomplish at the gym and in life. However, once you know how to leverage psychological factors that feed into accomplishments, you’ll be able to implement strategies into your everyday routine to see real results and build your confidence.
Goal Setting
Goal setting for long-term success is all about setting clear, achievable goals with two kinds of goals: progress goals and outcome goals. Outcome goals are what we typically set when we think of fitness goals and expectations. Outcome goals include losing weight or building muscle. Progress goals are the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals that progress us toward the outcome goals. Process goals for fitness could look like training the full body three times a week for 3 months, gaining two pounds of muscle by a certain date, or training with particular movements to nail your first pull-up or splits.
The most important part of goal setting is that both short-term and long-term fitness goals need to be realistic. If you want to lose weight, having a process goal of losing 1-2 lbs per week max is a realistic and sustainable goal. However, it’s important to note that weight loss, in general, is NOT a good short-term goal because weight shifts, changes, and fluctuates so much. Even eating a salty meal can drastically impact weight. Instead, focus on other short-term goals like strength, improving your form, getting better sleep, or hitting macros.
When you feel discouraged with your outcome goals, hitting your process goals will keep you motivated, help you feel successful, and create momentum toward the outcome goal.
Visualization Techniques
Visualization, also known as mental imagery, has been recognized by countless studies as a powerful psychological technique. One way to use visualization is to vividly imagine yourself performing a task or achieving a goal. In the context of exercise, you can mentally rehearse your performance before physically engaging in it. This can actually improve physical performance and help create a positive mental space for training.
Try visualization when you’re winding down for the night. Visualize what your day will look like tomorrow and how well everything will turn out. To visualize working out, focus on things like your form, the sensations in your body, and the emotions you want to feel—whether it’s strength, confidence, or calm.
Positive Self-Talk
Positive self-talk gives you the power of accountability and responsibility. When your words shift from “I can’t” to “I don’t want”, you create a sense of power and autonomy for yourself. For example, saying “I don’t want it” versus “I can’t have it” when faced with peer pressure helps you own your power in the situation.
Inversely, when you say “I want to” instead of “I have to,” you give yourself more control. Next time you go to the gym, reframe “I have to go to the gym” to “I want to go to the gym” and feel the difference.
Overcoming Mental Barriers to Physical Performance
Whether you’re starting a fitness routine, coming back to one, or trying to strengthen one, there are a lot of barriers everyone has to overcome to build a strong fitness routine. The hardest part about going to the gym or working out is starting. But once people actually get to the gym, they complete their workouts and feel great afterward. To increase the likelihood of getting to the gym, train with a personal trainer (having a scheduled session with someone else that you are paying for) and complete shorter but more frequent workouts. For example, instead of working out for over an hour three days a week, try working out for 30 minutes six days a week.
Building Motivation and Consistency Through Psychology
The truth is, you cannot rely on motivation because it is fleeting and inconsistent. It’s important to form habits, which take about 21 days to establish. Having consistency with your habits over time turns into discipline.
How Habit Forming Works
This is where psychology really comes in. Building a habit loop, or a psychological pattern that involves a cue, routine, and reward, is how you reinforce your habits to become routine. All of us have habit loops: you make coffee in the morning, (hopefully) brush your teeth, and walk your dog—these routines are habit loops.
Let’s look at an example of a habit loop for running. If you want to start running in the morning, your cue might be placing your running shoes by the door the night before. This visual reminder prompts the routine—going for a run when you wake up. The routine is the run itself, and the reward could be the endorphin rush you feel post-run or the satisfaction of marking it off your to-do list. Or maybe it’s a coffee post-run. Over time, this loop becomes ingrained, making it easier to stick with.
Habit loops are why a lot of people have trouble stopping drinking wine at night or eating hyper-palatable foods—they are experiencing a reward (the buzz from a glass of wine or the delicious taste of salty or sugary foods), which reinforces the habit (drinking or eating the snack every night at the same time, maybe in front of the TV). Reverse-engineer this process for healthy behaviors instead of unhealthy ones.
Leveraging Exercise Psychology for Lasting Success
Here are some tips for building and maintaining exercise habits:
- Start small and build gradually
- Add things in instead of taking them away, especially at first
- Link exercise to an existing habit
- Reward yourself for consistency
Remember, if you combine habit formation, SMART process goal setting, and visualization with a gym routine (or any good habit you’re trying to set), you’ll see optimal results. And if you need help, hire a coach! Barpath Fitness has qualified clinical registered dietitians, nutrition coaches, and veteran online fitness coaches and personal trainers on our team. We can help you stay accountable and change your habits.
Want to learn more? Listen to episode 207 of the Stronger Than Your Boyfriend Podcast: Exercise Psychology: Mental Strategies for Success.
