Keep Your Motivation to Exercise This Exam Season

Athletics and recreation

By Campus recreation

University of Ottawa, Wellness and Recreation

A person doing some workout.
Around this time of year, it’s easy to feel stuck in a slump when it comes to your fitness routine. Whether you’re bored with your routine or struggling to make it to the gym, everyone needs some extra motivation every once and a while. To help you stay on track with your fitness goals, we talked to a personal trainer to get some tips and tricks from the pros on how to stay motivated to exercise.

Write SMART goals

The best way to start your fitness journey and stay on track is to set goals for yourself and outline a clear path to achieving them. Personal trainers are a great resource for helping you create fitness goals, and they recommend using the SMART method. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Agreed upon, Realistic, and Time based. Following these guidelines is a great way to make your fitness goals successful, and keep you motivated to achieve them.

Get Organized

The pros know that balanced and organized workout routine is the best way to keep your fitness journey on track. Taking the time to create a schedule for exercising can increase your motivation and keep you accountable to yourself and your goals.

Create your perfect workout playlist

It’s no secret that the right song can put you in the mood to do almost anything, so your workout playlist can be a great tool to keep you pumped up from start to finish. The experts say to personalize your playlist to keep you energized and motivated throughout your whole workout.

Train with a friend

A workout buddy can be a game changer in keeping you accountable to your fitness goals. Whether it’s working with a trainer, or bringing a friend along, you and your gym partner can keep each other motivated and make your workouts more fun!

Compete with yourself

A personal trainers job is to encourage you to achieve your fitness goals, and they let us know that a great tactic for making training fun and exciting is a little healthy competition with yourself. Pushing yourself to beat personal records makes finding that motivation to hit the gym a lot easier.

Try a new workout

One of the easiest ways to get stuck in a rut with your fitness routines is getting bored with your exercises. Switching the routine up and finding a new way to get your workouts in is a great way to bust that slump. Try out a new class or exercise to keep yourself motivated.

If you’re still feeling stuck in a rut at the gym, consulting a fitness expert can be the extra push you need. Personal trainers are available at the uOttawa facilities to help you achieve all of your fitness goals, whatever they may be. Try these pro-tips during your next workout to shake up your fitness routine and keep yourself energized and motivated to exercise.