In the last few months, I’ve spent a bit of time working with a group of fantastic fitness experts to create a fitness program that I think could change people’s lives.
But what I’ve found, in doing research and working with beta testers, is that the most important thing isn’t some secret ideal fitness plan … but forming the habit of fitness.
It’s the habit, not the plan, that makes all the difference in the world.
It’s fascinating, really. I’ve found that you can give beginners 10 different fitness plans — yoga, running, Crossfit, TurboFire, P90X, bootcamp workouts, MoveNat, etc. — and they can all fail. Why? Because it doesn’t matter how good the workout is, or how good the diet is, if people don’t actually follow the plan.
The problem isn’t that people don’t know what kinds of exercises to do. They generally do know what they should be doing. And really, no matter what people choose, it’ll (generally) be better than nothing. It’s much better to do bodyweight exercises, or run, or do yoga, or play a sport, than to do no activity at all.
So how do you get people to do something, rather than nothing? It’s not even a matter of motivation. You can motivate people to get active — for a day or three. That’s not the hard part. The hard part is figuring out how to get them to stick to it.
When I first started running, in late 2005, I knew that I could get myself to run for a few days, because I’d done it a dozen times before. But never, in those dozen attempts at running, could I stick to it for long enough to make any difference in my health, fitness level, or weight.
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