Activating your body
The hardest part about going for a jog first thing in the morning is getting started, but once you are in your jogging gear and out the door, the rest is easy. And don’t you always feel a lot better for it when you’ve finished!
If I start the day having done a good workout, my blood is oxygenated and I feel fit and alive.
Morning exercise wakes you up and causes you to be more alert and active for the rest of the day. It is also the mornings that you will do your best creative thinking.
Step-by-Step coaching is all about using your body to drive your success. It requires little effort to smile; yet the smile triggers positive emotional response. Likewise, moving our bodies in other ways can easily trigger other positive responses.
Tricks to getting started
This is a mindset exercise.
If you say to yourself, ‘I’m going to get up an go for a jog at 6am’. It isn’t enough.
How many times have you said something like this and then 6am comes and you are snuggled up in bed? It is cold outside and you start making excuses for yourself like, ‘where are my shorts?’ ‘Damn, my t-shirts are all in the wash,’ ‘I’ll go tomorrow,’ or ‘I’ll go at lunch time’, etc.
My three biggest tricks are very simple:
Firstly, get all your gear ready before you go to bed and lay it out so it is all ready to put on as soon as you roll out of bed. The first thing you do is put it all on. Once it is on, you are half way there. Walk out the door and start jogging down the street’?
Secondly, if the above hasn’t worked too well, add an element to motivate you. The best thing I know is to arrange to meet a friend and do your exercise together. Lay all your gear out the night before and when morning comes, you will have the extra motivation to get up and get going.
Thirdly, tell your partner or someone you want to impress, that you are getting up at 6am to go for a jog.
If you do these three things, it makes it a lot harder not to keep to your plan.
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Update April 2013
My City2Surf Training Program is now an eBook
‘How to Break Your Fitness Slump and Comfortably Finish a Fun Run’
My full City2Surf training program is now available as an eBook from all leading online bookstores and contains a link to download the training schedule as an iCal file, so you can import it into your calendar.
Also, feel free to join my free Facebook training group the City2Surf 100 day Challenge.