Why Consistency Beats Intensity for Long-Term Fitness
Fitness has become a priority for many of us. Most of us even have a set workout plan or routine that we strictly adhere to. Some of us are even willing to spend money and hire professionals to keep ourselves fit. However, the mentality behind fitness has often been “go-hard or go-home”, which backfires because it makes us lose interest or burn out.
How can we change the perception of fitness from something we must do to something that is part of our lifestyle? By understanding that sustainable fitness has to do more with consistency and less with intensity. Keeping a consistent fitness routine, even in small doses, will be more beneficial for us than irregular bursts of intense exercise.
The Science Behind Consistency
When we begin our fitness journey, we always have a goal in mind that drives motivation. It could be about losing weight, increasing strength, building stamina, or anything that inspires us to start moving. We then come up with a “perfect” plan to reach that goal. The problem with doing things perfectly comes when it gets too overwhelming, or the motivation may end once we reach the goal we set.
Consistency, however, provides less pressure. We would still indulge in our favourite desserts or occasional late-night snack without feeling guilty. Consistency is just about building a habit in fitness through repetition. It just becomes part of what we do instead of what we must do.
An article suggests, “Consider the concept of the compound effect: small, repeated habits accumulate to produce significant changes over time.” For example, walking for 20 minutes a day will show greater improvement over time compared to doing a high-intensity workout every other week.
Building a Habit that Sticks
Habits are started through repetition. Making fitness part of our habit can be challenging, especially when it is often a conscious decision that we make. So the key to turning fitness into a lifestyle is to keep doing it.
Start small. Instead of drastically changing or adding something into your daily routine, build up to it. You can start by changing something that is already a habit. For example, following a more structured schedule for drinking water or having a more wholesome breakfast instead of just grabbing what is quick. You can also try walking up the stairs instead of taking the lift if your home or workplace is not that high up.
Little changes like these can help ease fitness into your life without making you feel overwhelmed or pressured. Small, repeatable actions build confidence and reduce the mental barrier to exercise.
Realistic Fitness for Busy Lifestyles
Our busy schedule and fast-paced lifestyle as Singaporeans can make it difficult to cultivate any form of habit. As soon as you start something, it can get disrupted by overtime, travel, or unexpected weather. Here are some tips we can share.
Make your routine realistic or adaptable. Say you begin to adopt a habit of walking after work for maybe 20 minutes, and then one day it rains and doesn’t stop for the next 3 days. Does it mean you just stop? No, you could still walk indoors, just make it fun. Put on some music or maybe a guilty pleasure show as you walk around your dining-living area.
While it may not be as intense as if you walk the trails of the park with hilly or steep paths, the point is to keep it consistent, building muscle memory that this is what is just done in your day-to-day.
You could also have a fitness buddy, someone who can keep you accountable when you start to slack off or motivate you to maintain the habit. This can be your partner, a sibling, a friend, or just anyone who shares your goal to turn fitness into a habit.
While intense workouts or training are admirable, they don’t promise sustainability. You can amp it up whenever you join a particular event, like marathons or weight-lifting competitions, or when you have a set goal within a time period, like getting your bikini body before September. However, to change your overall approach and mentality towards fitness as a lifestyle, you will need something much more powerful with surprisingly less effort.