Keep the Momentum Going

When you’re a professional athlete or even an amateur training for a specific goal, you can’t just wing it. This is something you realize almost immediately. Or, if you don’t, you’ll pay for it pretty quickly. I mean, imagine trying to run a marathon without ever putting in the time to train. You can’t just go from your couch to a 26.2-mile run, can you? If you can, seriously, give me a call because you might be a super hero. For the rest of us mere mortals, we need to create a schedule and stick to it.

When I was still competing full-time in mixed martial arts, my whole day was structured. My meals were, too. Everything was really organized because it had to be. This was my job, not just a hobby or a way to improve myself in my own free time. But here’s the thing: you don’t have to be a pro athlete to see the benefits of charting your progress and making sure that you’re staying on track. 

Even if your goals aren’t super ambitious, you might want to start keeping a schedule. You won’t believe how helpful it is. Here’s what you do: take a monthly calendar—the ones that have a box for each day—and put a little X in the box after each workout. Once you see that you’ve had a certain number of days working out in a row, it sort of becomes a challenge within a challenge to make sure that you’re not breaking that streak.

Say you’re trying to get faster, stronger or have more endurance. You can take this a step further and instead of simply Xing off the days that you rocked it at the gym, you can also write down your times or weights or speeds. You’ll notice that sometimes it’ll fluctuate, but overall, it’ll be really helpful to see how you’re trending over a longer period of time. This helps for two reasons: one, you’ll make sure that you’re moving in the right direction, and two, you’ll be able to shake off days that maybe didn’t feel so great or meet your goals. When you start taking the long view and focusing on the bigger picture, you’ll see how the little things add up and how every day is not a challenge but an opportunity to improve.

If you are currently trying to step up your workout routine—or you’re like 99% of Americans and you’re almost always pressed for time—another way to make sure you’re getting the most out of your workouts is to introduce the O2 Trainer to your routines. At first, it might take a while to get the hang of it. I know for me, the first few minutes didn’t seem like they were any different than normal, but when you start hitting your target heart rate, you’ll see how much of a difference it makes and how much harder you’ll have to work to get through the workout. And here’s the best part: the O2 Trainer can help you get all your workout goals checked off the list in so much less time than what you’d need if you were doing it on your own.