PART 2 OF A 10-PART SERIES TO HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS

Mmm … what kind of training suits you best … I suppose that’s a pretty easy question. If you’re a weights guy, there’s your answer – weights. If you favour bodyweight exercises, again, the answer’s pretty clear – bodyweight exercises. If yoga is your thing, it’s yoga, and so on. But let me ask you this … how many different types of training have you actually tried?

The reason I ask is that people who train in a gym, using weights (primarily), generally don’t do other things, apart from that kind of training. Or they only rarely do other things. Because we’re creatures of habit! If you’ve done yoga since you were 15 years old, you probably wouldn’t want to waste your time lifting weights. And if you’re a bodyweight trainer, you probably can’t even be bothered to try another method of training, because you’re convinced your method is the one. It’s no surprise really, since we are so much caught up in our habits.

Too often we let our habits dictate to us

It’s not just that we’ve formed a habit of doing one particular type of exercise, we’ve actually convinced ourselves, more often than not, that this one way is the best way (and virtually the only way). We tend to make these decisions and assumptions based on very little, and never really bother with the other options. It’s just a way of getting through life quicker and easier – make decisions and go with them, no matter what. Don’t start questioning those decisions later, that’ll only confuse the issue!

So what I’m going to ask you to do is to be open to change, and to ask yourself what kind of training might be best for you. I want you to at least consider trying another fitness method, and to give it a fair crack of the whip. If, for example, you train in a gym, I’d like you to take up yoga for a while, maybe three weeks or a month. Or do nothing but bodyweight exercises, and for the same period of time. And if you’re a yoga aficionado, try giving weights a go.

Be more open to change, and more willing to adapt

Why am I asking you to do this? Well, it stands to reason that if we tend to stick slavishly to one method of fitness training, we’re effectively closing off every other avenue of fitness training and possibly missing out on their benefits, and that can’t be a good thing. I mean, if you’ve never tried yoga, for example, how do you know whether it would suit you? And if you’ve never tried bodyweight exercises, is it fair to assume they’re not a patch on ‘real’ training, y’know, with those big, macho weights?

I want you to become more open to change. I want you to experience at least one more method, and preferably more, over the next few weeks. And I want you to feel the difference in the way if affects you. You might find that another method, one you’ve never tried before, suits you really well, and is a complete revelation. Or maybe it’ll strike you as a perfect complement to the routine you currently follow. You might find it’s a bit of a failure, but, hey, that’s a success too; at least now you know that yoga, or t’ai chi, or weights, or whatever, just doesn’t work for you.

But the key thing is that you tried it! You didn’t close off yet another avenue of experience. Life is all about choices, and about experiencing new things. And fitness, like so many other things, is something you really should experience in all its flavours. Don’t just assume, without trying it, that a particular method is weak, or limited, or pointless. Don’t just repeat what you’ve heard, that yoga is ‘just for women’, or bodyweight training is just a poor replacement for ‘real’ training, like for when you can’t get to a gym.

Ideally, you should be open to change, and you should experience several different fitness methods. It’s great to have a wide choice of approaches to fitness. Then, once in a while, you can switch from your favourite method to another one, and get benefits from that in turn, benefits that your favourite method can’t manage to provide.

A change might reveal something of real value

Obviously you can stick to your preferred method if you like. That’s your choice, always. But at least consider taking up a new method, and try to stick to it for a few weeks. That’s really not long to perform an experiment that could change your life. You might find that one of the new methods you had never tried before is actually proving more effective and enjoyable than your long-time favourite method. And without being open to change, and without actually taking the bold step to actually change your training methods for a while, you’d never have known what you were missing.

Like I said earlier, it’s your choice. You don’t have to give this a go. But we’re only talking about a few weeks. And it could prove to be a turning point, who knows? And once again, this applies to all kinds of things, not just fitness. The important thing is to maintain a willingness to try new things, and to be open to possibilities. Never restrict your options. The fact is, sometimes you’ll find they’re restricted anyway, whether you like it or not, but as long as you have any say in it, why not take a broader view and stay wide open to all possibilities.