Sticking With It is Hard To Do

It’s interesting to me that so much attention, and research, is focused on what it takes to motivate someone to start exercising and yet research indicates that more than 50% of people who start a new program will quit within the first 6 months (Dishman, 1988). It might be useful to know this as you start a program so that you don’t beat yourself up if you quit. But rather, if you know this going in, then you may be interested in some tips and tricks that might keep you interested in keeping going long enough for your physical exercise to become a habit.

Let’s face it, there are so many reasons why we can find ourselves giving up on an exercise program from unexpected events and schedule changes to vacations and illnesses. For instance, I have had more than one instance of starting an exercise program, suffering an injury and then finding myself relapsing to my favorite one dimensional exercise, running. But most recently, I suffered a running injury, badly twisting the front of my foot, which meant no weight bearing activities at all for several weeks. As I slowly tried to continue working out in a gym, with a program modified for my injury, I eventually found myself working out less and less due to boredom and discomfort. However, as my injury healed, I found it really hard to get back into physical training, preferring to default back into my comfortable happy place of running. And there you have it…a predictable relapse!

There are many reasons why it can be easy to give up on an exercise program including:

• Personal attributes like:

  • demographics (Yikes - men have higher and more consistent adherence rates than women (CDC, 2013),

  • lower adherence in people with chronic health problems (like heart disease and diabetes)

  • past exercise program adherence

  • psychological traits - ability to self-motivate, set goals, monitor progress and self-reinforce all relate to stronger likelihood to adhere to an exercise program

  • knowledge, attitude and beliefs - health perception: those who perceive their health to be poor are unlikely to start or adhere to a program

• Environmental factors like:

  • access to facilities

  • time - yes, we’re all short on time but if you really believe your health is a priority, you’ll find the time to be active.

  • social support - the more of friends on team ‘let’s go for it’, the more success you’ll have

• Physical-Activity Factors

  • Intensity - this was an interesting one to me…the quit rate in vigorous-intensity exercise programs is almost double that of moderate-intensity programs

  • Injury - this one has always been my reason for dropping out…the research shows that the higher the level of physical activity, the greater the likelihood of injury.

So, do any of these strike a chord with you? Knowing what might be getting in the way of continuing, adhering, to an exercise program might give you a chance to think about what steps you can take to overcome it/them or how you can modify your thinking to not get discouraged by it/them. For instance, with my level of physical activity, I now just assume I will more often than not be dealing with some sort of injury. The key for me is to remind myself to stay positive/upbeat (which I find especially hard if I can’t be moving around outside) and remind myself I earned the injury doing something I love.