How To Stay Motivated For Fitness During Coronavirus Lockdown?

By this time you must have one million workouts to stay fit at home with no or minimal equipment. But realistically speaking, motivating yourself to train at home can be challenging for most people.

Sitting at home watching Netflix, binge eating and not moving around due to lockdown can easily make you overeat calories with no motivation of working out, having a stiff body, back pain etc.

Having spent more than 10 years in fitness industry I can confidently say that the #1 reason why a person fails to reach his fitness goals is the mental attitude, loss of motivation, procrastination and laziness. The #2 reason is actually ineffective training and poor dietary habits.

Let us address the #1 reason here and discuss ways to stay motivated and achieve your fitness goals at home. Every coach has different ideas and ways about motivation, here are my personal thoughts and how to stay motivated:

✅ Intrinsic motivation : Attach a strong emotional reason on why you want to achieve a fitness goal. It can anything like looking good for an event, fitting into a particular dress, to be able to play with our kids with energy, move pain free or simply to have a six pack.

✅ Goal Setting : Setting EXACT goals of what you want to achieve. Goals that are measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound. For example : “I will be lose 5kg body fat in the next 8 weeks”. And write it down.

✅ Make a plan : Set an exact plan on how you’re going to achieve your goals and write it down. The plan should include exact training routine, diet plan and workout and sleep timings.

✅ Check weight daily : Stepping on a weight scale every morning on en empty stomach will help you stay on track. Weighing scale may fluctuate a bit on daily basis, but taking a weekly average of weight and tracking it will help you stay on track on your weekly goals.

✅ Take weekly measurements and pictures : Like weekly weigh ins, taking pics and measurements of key measurement sites and tracking progress is important to stay on course. Little difference each week will add up to big progress over 8 weeks.

✅ Take professional help : Don’t be embarrassed to take professional help from a qualified personal trainer who can help you achieve your goals and take you through the process. This also helps with extrinsic motivation and accountability. Many people fail to achieve their goals because they simply don’t know how to train and eat right or even the knowledge of what is a realistic goal and the process involved. Taking professional help will save you a lot of time and effort which otherwise you would have lost in your own undirected efforts.

✅ Believe and Visualize : Believe that you can ACTUALLY do it and visualize how you actually want to look at the end of it.

✅ Take massive action NOW : No procrastination. Take action NOW and don’t leave it for tomorrow.

✅ Surround yourself with like-minded people : Surround yourself with people who have similar goals and become a part of online community. This makes a huge impact and also creates a domino effect with more people joining you.

✅ Reward yourself : Reward yourself on achieving small targets. Fitness must be a part of your life and the ONLY thing in life.

ABHINAV MALHOTRAElite Master Trainer, Fitness First Middle EastUAE Personal Trainer of the Year 2019