Summertime And The Livin Is Easy

As the song goes, it’s summertime and the livin is easy. Great song, but sometimes, we tend to take it to heart and make our lives a little too easy. It’s not exactly a piece of cake to keep working hard when it’s this hot. On top of this, the looming holidays don’t do much to make you want to work hard and sweat... In fact, you’ll probably find yourself fantasising about the exact opposite: doing nothing. However, once you break the routine, you're more likely to break it a second time, and it doesn’t take that much to let things derail.

For gym veterans, it’s much harder to completely get out of a workout routine, simply because when someone has been training for years they’re less likely to stop doing it. Once it becomes a habit, there’s not that much effort involved in keeping doing it - it’ll probably feel worse if they don’t. But if you're a beginner it’s not uncommon to need a few tries to actually get the machine oiled enough that you'll do it without thinking. When that time of the day or week comes, you just get up and do it.

Several of my clients have subscribed to gyms before, but until they had the commitment of booking sessions and having me there waiting for them every week, they didn’t really get consistent enough to truly make it a habit.

If you’re headed this way, then it’s great that you found this article, because as with most things in life, this “problem” has a solution. First things first, you need to figure out what point you’re at.

• Have you pretty much given up and haven’t gone to the gym for weeks?

• Or are you slowly skipping more days (for example last week you went two times instead of three, this week you only went once)?

If it’s the latter, you’re still in time to correct this, and I’m here to help. For starters, don’t feel too bad about yourself because you’re not alone! In fact, this is pretty common. So much so that I recently wrote about motivation and tips to help you keep a workout routine in the hot season. It already proved helpful to some people I spoke to recently and maybe it can help you too, so give it a read.

If on the other hand you’re way past this point and feel like you need something more to get you back on track, that’s fine too. During the lockdowns, most of us saw ourselves (involuntarily!) in exactly this situation. This led me to create a free comeback program to guide people back into training whilst avoiding both injuries and disappointment. Since then, this program has helped people reach great results when coming back from summer holidays, or any other type of long break.

My experience taught me that the biggest obstacles to a comeback are often psychological rather than physical. You’re likely feeling guilty and bad about yourself for not going to the gym, which is not a great mindset because it’ll make you feel more frustrated than motivated. Once you’re there you’re very likely to try and pick things up pretty much where you left them, which usually results in one (or both) of the following:

• You manage to do it but get so sore afterwards that you can’t even think of going back (worst case scenario you might get an injury of some sort, which will delay things even more)

• You can’t lift as heavy or get the number of reps you set up to do, and you end up more frustrated and thus less likely to go back

So if you want to avoid this, head to my website and scroll down on my plans & pricing page for the Bridge Comeback free programme. And of course, do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, would like more support, a custom plan, or PT sessions (online / in person). You can also follow my instagram for short content and tips and interactive stories where I periodically invite you to ask me questions - great if you’re shy and need a little prompt now and then.

Wherever you are, I hope you’re enjoying a great summer and taking it easy… only not too easy ;)

Train ComplEat,

Coach G.