How to Holiday-Proof Your Fitness
Six Strategies for Exercise Motivation Over Christmas
Nov 12, 2008
You may be tired and busy at year-end. In the southern hemisphere life proceeds at a breakneck pace as everyone prepares for an extended summer holiday. In northern and southern countries, people plan and shop for end of year festivals.
You know it's worth maintaining hard-earned physical fitness over this time, but how can this be achieved? With planning, it's easy. Here are some ideas to think about.
Schedule a break or easy period in your programme. Unless you are a top-level athlete or seriously intending a mountain run or triathlon on New Year's Day (and such events do exist), it is entirely "ok" to build an easy week or two of training into your plan for December or January. Peter Hadfield (How to Get Fit While You Watch Television. Sydney: ABC books, 2000) observes that the all-or-nothing approach to fitness is no longer considered appropriate, and that all good schedules now include "space" for relaxation, rest and fun. You will not lose much fitness provided your week or two does not turn into a month.
During this more relaxed period, you may wish to set performance goals rather than outcome goals. For example, you may set an objective of skiing or gardening for an hour a day, rather than aim to take a minute off your ten-kilometre running time. Performance goals have the advantage that it is clear when they are achieved, and they may be more realistic during a busy time of year.
The third strategy applies all year around, but especially during stressful periods. Think of exercise as self care. This is the "pay yourself first" principle, a good one to remember for people with big family responsibilities during the Christmas season. Try hard to stick to your modified programme. Eric Harr in his book The Portable Personal Trainer (New York: Broadway Books, 2001) warns that "almost invariably, if you go too deeply into the mental debate about whether or not to exercise, your mind will convince you not to work out." Don't let the debate start. Just get it done.
That said, keep guilt at bay. Missing a workout is not a reflection on you as a person. Even hardened personal trainers advocate viewing fitness in the context of one's entire life. Harr notes that "champion athletes feel zero guilt about missing exercise", knowing the recovery will do them good and that they will make up the missed session.
Also, don't worry too much about the occasional Christmas cookie--"the secret to lifelong fitness success is to be bad on an infrequent but regular basis", Harr says.
Improving the Mental Game
This season of the year may provide some unique opportunities for people interested in fitness. It can be a good time to cultivate the intellectual and spiritual aspects of training. Many athletes, for example, do not devote much attention to relaxation techniques, or to mind-body approaches such as yoga. In his book MInd Gym (Chicago:Contemporary Books, 2001) Gary Mack comments that baseball pitchers (for example), "are taught to grip a baseball as if it were an egg, but in the heat of competition, some squeeze it as if they are choking a chicken." He advocates spending some time learning how to access "the zone" by actively learning how not to hurry.
More fundamentally, you might wish to use the down-time to reconsider your exercise goals, your motivation and maybe even your choice of sport. It could be that your (serious, non-holiday) training is not yielding the results you had hoped. Or you may have changed--the reasons you are training or exercising may be different from a year ago. If your sport or activity seems stale, consider cross-training, or even a switch to something completely different. "Remember", Hadfield advises, "goals can change". As a person and as an athlete, you are the one responsible for your fitness and overall happiness.
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