Fitness is a personal journey of discovery, challenge, and transformation. Yet, it’s hard to choose the best way for you to achieve your fitness goals among all the viral trends, diets, and advice. If you’re feeling confused or frustrated that your current approach isn’t working, you’re not alone. The world of fitness can feel overwhelming, where everyone claims to have the ultimate solution to peak health and wellness. However, you can achieve your goals and push aside all the hype and promises by doing what works best for you.
Key Takeaways
- Personalizing your health goals and fitness routine is vital for establishing a sustainable habit.
- Your ideal workout strategy is unique to your body, goals, and lifestyle.
- Continuous exploration and self-awareness are critical to your long-term success.
The best fitness routine is one that’s uniquely yours. All you have to do is find something that works for you, and you’re on your way to achieving your best self. It may seem obvious that if you want to get stronger, you’d lift weights. On the other hand, if you want to lose weight, you’d run. However, that may not work for you. In fact, you may not want to do those workouts at all.
Everyone’s body tells a different story. Your genetic makeup, lifestyle, past experiences, and current goals create a complex blueprint that no generic workout plan can perfectly capture. What works for your gym-mate might leave you feeling frustrated, bored, or injured.
Your Personal Fitness Plan
Think of your fitness journey like building a home. You wouldn’t pick a random blueprint off the shelf. Instead, you would choose one with a layout that fits your specific needs. The same principle applies to your health and fitness approach to determine what works best for you. So, how do you go about finding your perfect workout routine? Through self-discovery.
The Self-Discovery Process
First, it’s crucial to determine why you want to improve your health and fitness. Whatever the reason is, your why is fundamental for setting you on the right path. Determining your why is an exercise in self-reflection on what you’re trying to achieve, rather than jumping into a fitness routine and brute-forcing your way toward your goal. That is one way to do it, but it will likely be a long and frustrating road that makes it harder to achieve your goals.
As part of the self-discovery process, you should also ask yourself questions to help personalize your fitness strategy:
- What are your actual fitness goals?
- What motivates you?
- What has and hasn’t worked in the past?
- Do you enjoy group classes or solo workouts?
- What are your current stress and energy levels?
These kinds of questions are vital for creating a personalized fitness plan that helps determine what will work best for you. Then, the next step is to experiment with different activities to find what feels right.
The Experimental Mindset
Trial and error may seem like a waste of time, but it really sets you up for long-term success. Treating fitness like a scientific experiment at this stage removes the pressure. It’s ok if you have a bad workout. You’re not failing, you’re gathering data. Each workout, diet adjustment, or exercise activity is a valuable piece of information about what works and doesn’t for you and your body.
While you’re in the phase of discovery, you should keep an open mind and try a variety of workouts, such as HITT, strength training, yoga, running, biking, walking, etc. Most importantly, don’t have any expectations or specific goals other than keeping an open mind while trying something new. Your goal is to find activities you enjoy.
It’s also important to keep track of your experiences in a notebook or fitness journal. You’ll want to keep track of what you did, whether you liked it or not, and why, as well as how it made you feel physically and mentally. It seems like a lot to record, but it really is straightforward.
Try each activity a few times before deciding whether it’s a good fit for your ideal routine. Remember, you’ll be new to some of these movements, so be patient with yourself. Don’t be afraid to ask for help from a friend or a personal trainer. Their experiences can help you craft your perfect workout routine. A good personal trainer will act as a guide in your fitness journey, helping you adjust as needed to stay on track and engaged.
Don’t Focus Only On Physical Fitness
Fitness isn’t just about muscles, low resting heart rates, and a faster metabolism. Your mental and emotional state play a critical role in sustainable fitness. You may be able to leg press twice your weight or run a 7-minute mile, but if you don’t feel a sense of joy while doing those things, then what’s the point?
If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, you’ll end up feeling bored, loathing exercise, or mindlessly going through the motions with your workouts. That last one is particularly worrisome because you can increase your risk of injury.
Regularly ask yourself whether your current activities are bringing you joy, reducing your stress, and aligning with your health and fitness goals. If your answer to any of these questions is no, it might be time to consider changing your routine.
A workout that feels like punishment will never be sustainable. The most successful fitness routines feel like a celebration of what your body can achieve, and something you’re looking forward to doing.
Creating A Routine That Works For You
Let’s put this together into a plan that can help keep you on track to find what works best for you.
| Phase | Goal |
|---|---|
| 1. Assess (1 – 2 months) | – Determine your why – Baseline physical measurements – Initial workout exploration |
| 2. Experiment (2-3 months) | – Try 3-4 different activities – Track performance metrics – Note energy level, mood, and physical changes |
| 3. Optimize (Ongoing) | – Refine your approach – Gradually increase complexity and challenge – Continuously realign with evolving goals |
By investing this time upfront, you’ll have more time to find activities you enjoy, which is vital for maintaining a life-long exercise habit. You’re future self will thank you for the groundwork you’re doing today.
Ongoing Optimization
Once you determine the kind of routine you want to do, your work doesn’t end here. You’re goal is to watch out for signs of boredom, fatigue, and injury. Your life goals will change, and so will your fitness routine. Always be open to the idea that you might have to adjust your routine to realign with your goals.
Tracking yourself is a great way to keep an eye on your progress and give you early indicators of trouble. There is a plethora of modern tech that can make this easy. For example, a fitness tracker can track your workouts, a smart scale can track your weight, while a fitness app can let you add details about your workouts and bring all your data in one place to review.
While technology isn’t necessary to achieve your goals, it certainly can help keep you more organized and accountable. Regardless, it’s up to you on how you manage and track your workouts. Whatever works best for you.
No workout will be sustainable at the same intensity for every workout today and for years to come. You will have to make adjustments throughout your life regarding your workouts. Don’t mindlessly follow your routine and ignore the signals your body is sending you that you’re overdoing it or it’s time to make a change. If you need to take a day off and recover, then do it. One day will not erase all your hard work.
Conclusion
Your fitness journey is a lifelong endeavour that you adjust along the way. It’s not a finish line that you achieve. Embrace the process of continuous learning, experimenting, and adapting as you age and your goals shift.
Remember, the goal isn’t perfection. It’s about progress, understanding, and creating a sustainable lifestyle that empowers you to feel healthy, confident, and authentically you. Fitness isn’t about comparing yourself to others. It’s about becoming the best version of yourself, one workout at a time.
FitTrend’s mission is to help you along your self-improvement journey, promote an active lifestyle, and help you achieve your goals. Our journal can help you track your workouts, weight, mood, calories, and more. Also, FitTrend allows you to connect supported gadgets to your account to make it easier for you to update your journal automatically. Create your account today and start using FitTrend for free!
Disclaimer: No content on this site should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
