Q: I just can’t stick to a routine, do you have any advice about how to build a gym habit, and stick to it?
I find that the best way to get something done is to do it. It’s a pain, and as much as it would be easier for someone else to do it for us, our bodies demand personal attention.
Recently, and at the risk of alienating a few readers who spend money on minor electric shocks, an elderly gentleman joined my partner’s niche training facility. He had been going to a mall to have electrodes stuck onto him so that electric pulses would exercise for him.
After a few months of doing appropriate exercises at the facility, he was astounded that his golf swing didn’t hurt any more and he had gained metres on his drive. What was the magic, he asked? The answer lay somewhere between “you are moving your body” and “you have now committed to an exercise regimen appropriate to your body, age and lifestyle”.
Let’s be honest, the gym chains that tie you into contracts make a substantial portion of their income from people who just can’t stick to a gym habit. If only you could be as disciplined as the monthly debit order!
The world is awash with clichés about forming habits, and the most common one is that it takes 21 days to form a habit. That sounds doable — just three weeks and voila, a gym bunny is born with a beach body in tow.
The bad news is that it is simply not true. A study titled “What can machine learning teach us about habit formation? Evidence from exercise and hygiene” that was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in April found that it takes on average about six months to build a reliable gym or fitness habit.
The authors say you can learn to wash your hands in a few weeks — thank goodness — but that, after studying the gym badge swiping patterns of 30,000 people at a 24 hour gym facility for four years, you would need about half a year to develop a predictable habit of going to the gym on the same days every week.
The authors determined a habit has been formed when it could be predicted when the trainee would go to the gym — to the day. They also found, unsurprisingly, that the longer the break between gym visits, the harder it is to form a reliable habit.
None of this should be surprising. How many of us have gone through phases where we managed three months of dedicated eating and training only to allow life’s woes to violently pull us off the wagon. If gym habits were formed in 21 days, a wobble after 90 wouldn’t matter, right?
So, how do you get yourself to the gym for at least six months? Theories abound. Do what you love, some like to say. Well, I would contend that if you loved it so much you wouldn’t need to fight with yourself to do it.
Fit it into your lifestyle, others suggest. That’s easier said than done, and perhaps the better option would be to fit your lifestyle into fitness. The difficulty here is that you risk alienating your friend circle and family. We all know that one person...
There’s no hard and fast rule about how to build a habit as we are all different. My advice is certainly not scientific, it’s just another theory. I find that it is best not to think about training as an end in itself, but rather as a tool to help you achieve something bigger.
Perhaps it’s wellness broadly, perhaps it’s a goal such as a better golf swing or more efficient cycling. Maybe you want to see what you’d look like with a 32-inch waist, or maybe — no judgment — you wish to get under your in-laws’ skin at the next family holiday at the coast.
Find your “why”, focus on it, and then treat training as one of the tools (don’t forget a proper diet) to help you achieve it.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.