We’ve all been there. You’re in the gym looking to get a quick workout in. But then as you start to lift, you find yourself thinking about a problem that happened at work the other day. Then your phone starts buzzing because your friend wants help moving this weekend….
You shake out of it and go through with your workout, but then you notice everything feels heavy. Reps are hard and it feels impossible to work through your regular workout routine.
So what’s the problem?
Focus.
Or, I should say, lack of of focus.
We live in a busy world and it gets tougher and tougher to protect personal time. With smart phones, it has become nearly impossible to find time to be alone and think. To focus on specific tasks and knock them out.
Often-times the gym is a place that is used to re-gain focus. However, as any regular gym goer knows, even the gym can be full of distractions.
Below are 4 ways to improve your focus in the gym. Check them out and follow them. You’ll have more productive workouts and you’ll make better gains because of them!
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Ditch Your Cell Phone
Turn your phone off when you’re in the gym. With the ability to text, go on Facebook, and make phone calls, there are too many distractions when a phone is present. This is why you need to ditch your cell phone while working out.
If you use your phone for music while you workout, consider getting a separate iPod. This will allow you to listen to your music without the distraction of having your iPhone present. If that’s not an option, then at the very least you can turn your phone on Airplane mode while you workout. This will silence all of the notifications and allow you to focus on your workout.
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Take Some Caffeine Before Your Workout
Many times, when you head to the gym to workout, it’s after a hard day of work. You’re tired. Your energy levels are low. This can lead to lack of focus when it comes time to exercise. A great way to combat this is by drinking coffee before your workout. The caffeine that is found in coffee will wake up your system and help you to be alert during your workout.
Be aware that if you drink coffee too close to bedtime, it can mess with your ability to sleep. For all of you hardcore people that workout late at night, I suggest taking L-Theanine with your coffee. L-Theanine is an amino acid found in green tea that minimizes the negative side effects of coffee and keep your system from crashing (source).
Instead of getting jittery and amped from coffee, you’ll have a sense of calm and focus. This will help you to crush your workout AND be able to sleep later on at night.
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Workout With A Friend
Exercising with a friend is a great way to bring focus to your gym time. A good gym partner will help to keep you accountable, and will push you to become fitter. In fact, a new study came out that shows that working out with a friend improves how hard you work (you can read that study here).
One thing to be aware of is that sometimes working out with a friend can be a negative thing, especially if you tend to spend your time talking instead of exercising. So make sure to have a set fitness program that you have agreed upon beforehand. This will help to eliminate wasted time.
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Find a Fitness Program That Is Rewarding
One major cause of lack of focus in the gym is workout programs that are wrong for you. If you like lifting weights and every workout you do is running, you aren’t going to enjoy it. On the other hand, to get the best results, you have to do things that are difficult and challenging.
So what’s the solution?
Find a workout program that mixes things you like with the things you dislike. We all have exercises that we like.
For instance, bicep curls. Every guy loves building their biceps. However, you can’t just do curls. That won’t help you lose weight, or build muscle throughout the rest of your body.
What you can do is use what I like to call “dessert exercises”. These are your reward for doing difficult exercises. So, as a personal example, I don’t like to do lunges. However, if I do 100 lunges and “reward” myself with curls afterward, it motivates me to get my lunges done so I can move on.
Create little system like this to help you stay focused on the workout at hand. It will go a long way towards helping you achieve better overall health and wellness.
Written by: David Brett
Coach Brett is the owner of and writer at www.brettsfitnesstips.com. He has a passion for sharing his knowledge of health and fitness with others. Check out his website for fitness tips!