Frank Mikulka's Weekly Fitness Tip
How to Recharge Your Motivation (December 26, 2006)

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Question:

I’m really enjoying my training program and am now training 6 days a week. However, lately I feel that it is becoming routine and honestly I’m losing my motivation. Any tips to recharge? (Terry, Astoria)

Answer:
We’ve all been there! We die-hards can fall into the do more, get less trap. At this rate you will soon be “over-training” and that’s a part of town we try to stay away from. When we are training, we try to fatigue the muscles (intensity, repetitions, etc), then recover and repair the tissue. To get a training effect we put ourselves in a place that will increase our strength and promote hypertrophy or growth in the size of the muscle – which is our ultimate goal. Simply put: by training so much, without rest, this process can never occur. We are constantly tearing down muscle without giving it a chance to grow. Remember less is more. Training should be a continual process of progression.

Training is a mind/body experience. When you over-train, you are off balance not just in your workouts, but in the rest of your life. That’s why your motivation is affected because overtraining can lead to emotional fatigue.

Create more balance in your weightlifting program along with a nutritional plan for gains and balanced cardio exercises to keep you more motivated to forge ahead in the plus column. You grow and gain while you rest. Let your motto be: Stimulate, don’t seek to annihilate!

Listen to Frank Mikulka’s Weekly Fitness Tips every week on Debbie Mandel’s Turn On Your Inner Light Show every Tuesday evening from 7:00 to 7:30 pm on WGBB 1240AM. Also available on www.turnonyourinnerlight.com/page3.html