7 Ways to Jump-Start Your Enthusiasm

God bless you all. Let us always remember to be thankful for the blessings we forget to count every day.

Enthusiasm – passion and excitement for what you do. This is the key to hard training. The key to doing your best in your workouts. Hard training produces gains. More muscle, more endurance, more whatever, but it’s hard to do if you’re bored with what you’re doing, or if you’re not clear on your purpose.

Here are 7 tips to ramp up your enthusiasm:

1. Be clear on your purpose. Know exactly what you want out of your training. If you know what you want you can set clear goals. When you have clear goals you can map out a clear course. It’s easier to get excited about a tough race when you can see the finish line.

2. Condition your mind. Most of us have some innate passion for training. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be doing it. Learn to enjoy the road to your goals, not just their end accomplishment. Find your own on-switch. Something that you do on every workout at the beginning that clicks you into training mode and condition yourself to be excited and ready to rock when you start training. The more you practice it the better you get. The better you get, the better gains you make. It’s a self perpetuating circle.

3. Talk to like-minded people. When you want to get and maintain long-term excitement for your training develop some friends whom you can consistently talk, share and gain excitement from. Your deepest motivation must be internal, but surrounding yourself with people who are passionate about the same things you are breeds excitement and success.

4. Watch DVDs of inspiring performances or read inspiring literature. One of the greatest things that comes out of the information products about hard-core training right now besides the sharing of knowledge is being able to watch other people and have your enthusiasm renewed by their performance. Be challenged and inspired by the great performances you see on TV and DVDs and read about in strength books and magazines.

5. Use consistent variety. If you really want to make tangible gains you’ve got to work the same big exercises over and over again for long periods of time. But along the way, there’s a tremendous amount of room for, and strength to be built in, trying new things. A new training implement, a new training program will jack up your excitement and intensity. As long as you keep coming back to your long term goals, you can experiment with anything that turns you on along the way.

6. Balance your training and time on and off. If you’re doing all strengthening and no conditioning, eventually you’ll burn out and vise versa. Also renewed enthusiasm is often built by rest. Taking a short vacation or down week from training will allow your energy reserves to build up along with your excitement for training. That doesn’t mean you should do nothing. Be physically active, but a short break from hard training and paying attention to your rest and recovery will keep you raring to go.

7. Kick the negative people and influences out of your life. Stress happens, you have to deal with it, but often we allow stress into our life that doesn’t necessarily HAVE to be there. People and situations that are constantly dragging the energy out of your life need to be controlled. If you let them run rampant in your life they will affect not only your day to day energy and training, but even your longevity and health. I don’t believe in writing people off, because I believe everyone needs Christ in their life and can become positive people, but at the same time I don’t believe in allowing someone who constantly forces negativity on you to have access to your life. You have to take control of the amount of negative influence in your life. But when you do the dividends it pays in every area of your life is worth the amount of work to get it done.


There you are. If you can’t wait to get to the gym, then you’re going to have a great workout. String together some great workouts and you get some great gains. If you’re not excited about training, then look at these seven areas and pull something to turn it up.