Do You Ever Get Bored Of 'Training'?

[quote]Mad Martigan wrote:

Second, the best way to eliminate boredom is to always be setting and meeting goals. Without goals, even small ones, training will seem purposeless and therefore boring.

[/quote]

Right. This is really the thing I think most people are missing in their training. This was one of those “a ha” moments I had when I started helping people out… Most people just go into the gym and do stuff randomly and without thought to their previous workout. This machine, that machine, some cardio, leave.

Take something like EDT or 5/3/1 where EVERY training session you have a goal to beat. To me that is very exciting, gives me purpose in the gym, and shows tangible results which are motivating. “Last time I used this weight I did 4 reps, today I did 7… Progress”

I understand not everyone has the passion to lift just for liftings sake. I lift because I love to do it the same way a recreational artist does their art because they like to without any thought to making any money/fame or whatever.

[quote]Mad Martigan wrote:
picture of Roger Estep that is frequently confused for a picture of Rippetoe.[/quote]
By who lol

OP, do you also have trouble getting mentally prepared for big/money sets? I just feel like either you have it or you don’t mentally.
Ex. Kobe Bryant’s instincts

I don’t really know how to describe it. I just think it is almost a responsibilty of being a man to get strong. Might sound stupid to some people that’s just how I feel. How strong? Well there is a scene in the movie “Unbreakable” where this bad guy walks up to this house and tells the man of the house he likes it and wants to come in.

The dude is like “no man, you can’t come in” the bad guy just pulls open the door and comes in. Ends up raping the wife and she dies, kills the dude, and it seemed that he was saving the kids to do something to them also. Well, if you are not strong enough to stop a guy from just pulling open your door with you hanging on then you are not strong enough.

I do not train for this reason or do I live thinking that is going to happen, but if I ever started to get bored with it, I could just think of that scene and find myself on the way to the gym with probably a pretty high motivation to hit a pr

Bored? No.

Frustrated at times? Yea, dem barbells can be a huge tease.

If anything I miss being able to walk to the gym in 5 minutes. I’m bored of walking 20 minutes to the train, taking a 15 minute ride, walking five more to the gym, and then changing and putting my shit in a locker for another 5-10 minutes before I can finally lift.

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:

[quote]ChongLordUno wrote:
Lately I’ve been asking myself “why do I train?”. Strength training is all manly and fantastic however unless you compete in sport then real world application of your gains is very few and far between. [/quote]
Seems almost related to the ‘Keeping the Bodybuilder Lifestyle in Perspective’ thread currently going on in the Bodybuilding forum.
http://tnation.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/sports_body_training_performance_bodybuilding/keeping_the_bodybuilding_lifestyle_in_perspective

It doesn’t have to be an either-or. Just saying, you could totally take up cycling and adjust your training to support it. 100% your call though. As was said, it could be useful to make some drastic changes to your plan and try things you haven’t done in a while - new exercises, techniques, sets/reps, whatever.

I realized I was coasting and kinda on autopilot a while ago, so to make the gym fresh again, I came up with some particular goals. The first of which was to stick to programs from the Archives here for a straight year. Now that I’m just about wrapped up with it and I’ve gone through 6 or 8 different routines, I have to say it worked and I’m a little more refocused on being productive in the gym.

It basically helped me re-learn what I like/don’t like and what I do or don’t respond well to, so I can make better decision in my own programming going forward.

On the flip side, instead of “just” focusing on short-term goals, I’m also giving more thought to Wendler’s concept of very-long term goals (as in, ‘where do I want to be when I’m 40?’ (6 years away).[/quote]

@ChrisColucci

Hey Chris! Would you mind sharing with us what 6-8 programs you chose to follow for the past year. Maybe enlighten us on which one gave the most results, which one sucked ass, and all the in-between. Just curious. Thanks!!

I’ve gotten bored before but not in the long term. The feeling usually passes

But with that said, if you don’t have any training goals anymore, then taking up a sport is a great idea. It’s a good way to add variety and really improve your conditioning, as a plus it gives you a goal to train towards. If cycling has an off season, you could then resume long periods of intense training and be confident that your performance will improve when the season starts again

[quote]chobbs wrote:
OP, do you also have trouble getting mentally prepared for big/money sets? I just feel like either you have it or you don’t mentally.
Ex. Kobe Bryant’s instincts[/quote]

I’ve never had a problem getting myself prepared for ‘money sets’. Why should I? It’s just lifting weight. It’s not an audition for American Idol. People make this out to be a whole lot more than it actually is.

[quote]CMdad wrote:
I have been wrestling with this problem of boredom with training for the last 4 months or so. I’ve been in a fat-cutting phase over this time period and getting up the motivation to train in a constant caloric deficit has been exhausting. It’s rewarding to see the lard coming off but, I keep asking myself “to what end”.

For me, I could care less about the esthetic side of things; I only care about performance. Cutting the fat is for the long term health benefits. For where I’m at in my life (32, married, 2 kids, small business owner), I’m about as strong as I think I’ll ever need or want to be. Thus, I’ve come to the conclusion that I will be focusing on boxing for the forseeable future and lifting only to maintain the strength that I’ve built up. Mentally and physically, I simply need the break from balls-to-the-wall lifting.[/quote]

This post really resonates with me. “To what end” sums it all up perfectly.

Boredom with training is always fleeting with me and usually coincides with a shit session, generally a few hours after I am pretty excited to get it out of my system with a better session.

I have always been a goal oriented person, to a fault. Many things, important facets of my life I am just worried about the end result and not how I accomplished the goal. Its a problem, with training and always setting goals big and small, near future and distant future it has showed me how to respect and enjoy the process and not just the goal. Its a big issue for me to implement this way of thinking into other aspects of my life.

I guess I generally do not get bored because I enjoy the process, I don’t find it boring and I am also one of those lifters that does find mentally therapeutic.

If you over think things almost everything becomes meaningless.

The mind can be a terrible thing…sometimes.

No, I don’t get bored, because it was never fun for me in the first place. I have goals, and I put in the work to reach towards them. That’s all there is to it.

[quote]ChongLordUno wrote:
Ok guys, we all know that we’re hardcore T men who pray to the steel, purging our sins and issues through the medium of basic, hard exercise.[/quote]I’m bored of seeing people calling lifters ‘hardcore’, even if it’s just sarcasm…

I think this is an important question. And yeah, I get bored sometimes. I tend to get bored with my specific workouts, though, rather than get bored with the whole idea of working out. For quite a few years now I have been going back and forth between barbell routines and kettlebell routines. I know the kettlebells don’t get a lot of love here, but I find them to be really fun, useful tools.

Anyways, that is just what works for me. But I think the other thing that allows me to keep going is having other pursuits that don’t necessarily relate to lifting. In some parts of the year I’m really focused on training horses. My workouts become punch the clock type routines that keep me going. At other times I’m hitting the weights hard and striving to put on some muscle or add pounds to my deadlift. I know this method will not bring results as quickly as others, but I’m lifting for life. I want to be doing this, and enjoying it, for a long time.

To the OP, I think picking up a new sport like cycling could be awesome. I used to cycle competitively, and I wish I knew more about strength when I did. You could find it is a really great sport for you. Like Chris says, you can also add some weight stuff if you feel like it. Or maybe you hit it hard on the bike all summer and then crush the weights in the winter. Again, not the fastest way to make progress in either area, but it strikes me as a downright fun way to train for a while.

[quote]jbalplayr02 wrote:
Hey Chris! Would you mind sharing with us what 6-8 programs you chose to follow for the past year. Maybe enlighten us on which one gave the most results, which one sucked ass, and all the in-between. Just curious. Thanks!![/quote]
Not meaning to hijack this thread, I talked on and off about them in my ‘How Do You Train’ thread:
http://tnation.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/sports_body_training_performance_bodybuilding_beginner/chris_colucci_how_do_you_train

In order, for 2013 I did:
Waterbury’ ABBH 1 and 2:

(Nice split, would’ve liked more leg work.)

(Good stuff again, different-but-similar to first plan.)

Henriques’ Basic Strength Plan:

(Surprisingly simple and, derr, basic 3-day strength routine. Tough leg day.)

Cosgrove’s Complexes for Fat Loss:

(Brutal, but I added some simple strength work I felt was missing.)

Thib’s OVT:

(Solid concept, but long sessions. Got burned out mentally.)

Waterbury’s SOB Training:

(Felt awesome. Favorite plan all around.)

and currently finishing with Dan John’s Twice a Week plan:

(Killer leg day [30 rep squats], but honestly feels almost like a deload overall.)

But yeah, after a year of it, I’m kinda spent on following a script and I’m feeling amped to get back to designing my own plans.

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]Mad Martigan wrote:
picture of Roger Estep that is frequently confused for a picture of Rippetoe.[/quote]
By who lol[/quote]

I think the confusion is self-evident, don’t you? Someone took the time to lay that quote over that picture, which implies that the man talking about lifting weights is the same as the man depicted lifting weights.

Also, this is not the first time I’ve seen that particular picture, implicitly or explicitly, associated with Rippetoe.

No, I don’t but I often wonder if I would still train and lift if I knew I would never get any stronger or bigger. Would you still lift and train if you already had achieved the level of strength and physique you wanted or it was not possible to get any stronger or bigger.

OMG NO ! Training is the most exciting thing in the whole world to me !!

And there are so many super fun new things to learn and incorporate into your routine !

Like holds, drop sets, partials, partials plus normals then back to partials again, rest/pause sets, and many, many more !
And new exercises to learn and try.

Tinker tinker tinker!! It’s the tinkering that makes it so fun.
Especially if you have a body part that is bugging you. Reading about it and learning new ways to hammer at it is so rewarding.

EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeee

I spent two hours at work today typing out exercises for each body part that I consider “fun extra’s” to throw in at the end of my workouts if I have time that I might have otherwise forgotten about.

TOmorrow at work I am going to laminate it !!!
EEHEHE

I’ve never been bored of training, i love every second of it. I love the fact its something I can push my self physically in, I never had that drive in any other sport. The best part is the high afterwards, I feel like a million bucks. Being muscular and in shape definitely gave me more self esteem as well.

How often do you work to achieve specific goals in the gym? The only time I get bored is when I’m not working for a specific goal of some sort. I’m going to be honest, slightly rude, and possibly 100% off base. If the profile pic of you is recent, I wouldn’t even assume you have a gym membership, nor any kind of diet. Not saying someone needs to be cut up, but you can usually tell who takes training fairly serious, even if they don’t have much mass, they might be shredded, even if they carry too much fat, they still usually look massive and powerful. Maybe you need to reassess your training, set some new goals, and work towards them. That’s literally the only time I’ve ever gotten bored on a routine basis is when I don’t have a goal to work towards. Even if it’s as simple as losing 20lbs while maintaining the same lifts. Just SOMETHING to actually work towards.

[quote]Tattoo85 wrote:
How often do you work to achieve specific goals in the gym? The only time I get bored is when I’m not working for a specific goal of some sort. I’m going to be honest, slightly rude, and possibly 100% off base. If the profile pic of you is recent, I wouldn’t even assume you have a gym membership, nor any kind of diet. Not saying someone needs to be cut up, but you can usually tell who takes training fairly serious, even if they don’t have much mass, they might be shredded, even if they carry too much fat, they still usually look massive and powerful. Maybe you need to reassess your training, set some new goals, and work towards them. That’s literally the only time I’ve ever gotten bored on a routine basis is when I don’t have a goal to work towards. Even if it’s as simple as losing 20lbs while maintaining the same lifts. Just SOMETHING to actually work towards.[/quote]

Profile pic isn’t him. It was some random drunk who wanted him to take his picture at the pub or something, I can’t remember the story exactly.

Nope!