We’ve all been there. Ask anyone who has ever tried to make an impact or achieve greatness in their life and they’ll inevitably have a story about a season of their life where they experienced burnout. They may not use that term, but the signs are all there. It may be called adrenal fatigue, mental exhaustion, lack of passion or motivation, etc… Whatever name we give it, we can all agree it’s a real phenomenon and one that is not enjoyable to walk through.
Over the course of my life I can point to several seasons where I experienced burnout. Not all of them were the same experience though. I’ve had mental burnout, spiritual burnout, and physical burnout. Today we’ll focus on physical and mental burnout associated with fitness. Here are five ways you can avoid burnout with your fitness.
#1 - Practice Gratitude
Most of the times when we’re experiencing burnout, the effects of it tend to carry over into other areas of our lives. One of the ways this happens is through our self-talk and our overall mental outlook at our current situation. Everything appears to be more challenging than it is in reality and because of this, the narrative we tell ourselves becomes unnecessarily negative. We start to feel sorry for ourselves and the ‘woe is me’ refrains become easier and easier to buy into.
The antidote for this is gratitude. Gratitude takes our hearts and minds off all the things we feel aren’t going right in our life and instead focuses our mind on our blessings. Every day we should be grateful for the health to move our bodies. Every day we should be grateful for the opportunity to choose to eat healthy. Even in our darkest times, our lives can be filled with hidden blessings to be grateful for. The act of expressing that gratitude serves as a flashlight in the darkness revealing our blessings.
One more note on gratitude. When we practice gratitude, it necessarily implies that we are grateful to something. We can’t just say we’re grateful for health. That health comes from somewhere, or more specifically, Someone. We can’t be grateful to chance. Chance isn’t anything other than a possibility of something happening. It has no power or ability to receive gratitude, therefore it makes no sense for us to be grateful to it. When you express gratitude, make sure you recognize Who you are ultimately grateful to.
#2 - Have Fun Again
Can you remember when working out was fun? Maybe you can, maybe you can’t. Perhaps working out has never been fun for you. It’s always been something that you’ve had to force yourself to do because it didn’t come naturally to you. If you’re in that boat, the first thing you need to do is try and find a way to make it fun. This may be in the form of a new sport or exploring some type of fitness that at the least peaks your interest.
Most of the people I work with do tend to actually enjoy working out. The nature of CrossFit almost requires that, in some sick and twisted way, you enjoy working out and pushing the limits of your ability. If that’s not the case, it will be very difficult to continue coming back day after day because the nature of our workouts are hard and intense. They require a lot of effort, but as I said, most tend to find that to be the fun part.
At some point along the road though, that fun can wane for a variety of reasons. For some it’s because they seem to be hitting a plateau and their newbie gains have started to slow. For others they just get bored with the monotony of the gym.
When you experience burnout though, it is crucial that you try to incorporate fun back into your training routine. One way to do this is by not following any kind of structured program but instead just have a week where you come in and only do what you want to do each day. For me this would look like a lot of power cleans. Whatever it looks like for you, just do the things you enjoy doing. Write workouts that look fun for you. Even if the programming looks crazy to someone else, if you have fun doing it, that’s all that matters. Sometimes we just need a break from structure and let loose a little bit to regain the fun we once had when we started.
#3 - Focus on Progress, Not Perfection
CrossFit tends to attract a lot of type A personalities. People that are very driven and tend to get obsessive about improving in whatever they immerse themselves in. As most can testify, this is a blessing and a curse.
In a fitness regimen like CrossFit, there is SO MUCH to get good at that it’s almost impossible to be good at everything. While that’s the ultimate goal, it can also be very hard for some people to accept that they aren’t good at everything. It can also be very easy to see how capable others are and have that distract you from the progress you’re making yourself.
If you try to focus on perfection, things will never go well for you. You’ll find yourself failing to meet that standard 100 times out of 100. It’s easy to understand burnout when you’re chasing perfection in the gym because every day you’ll walk away defeated. Even if on the off chance you do have a day in the gym you would classify as ‘perfect’ I can promise you they won’t come often.
Progress however is much more attainable. We can always find an area to progress in inside the gym. This is because progress has an unlimited range of variables to measure. We can make progress in our mobility. We can make progress in our movement quality. We can make progress in our nutrition.
This is ultimately where our mind should focus. Each and every day we can find some area to try and improve by a fraction of a percentage. When we do this we can ensure that we always walk away with a win. Winning makes it a lot easier to keep your spirits high. Losing by not attaining perfection, not so much.
#4 - Find Community
One of the best ways to avoid burnout is to find a group of like minded people that you can rally around to help with your fitness. Motivation and encouragement are contagious. This is why group fitness is so powerful and is usually the missing key for most people. Many have tried and tried to no avail to reach their health and fitness goals on their own. Then they try joining a group to workout with and all of the sudden they become more consistent and more committed because of the community they find.
The inner workings here are fairly simple. When I have a group of 20 people coming to workout, I can almost guarantee that some of them will be motivated for the day and others will not. The trick is to give those who are motivated the opportunity to let their energy fill the room. Typically, before you know it, those who were not motivated, begin to feed off the energy of those who are.
Another reason community helps fend off burnout is because it’s much easier to do difficult tasks when we know others like us are undergoing those difficult tasks alongside us. Shared suffering is real and it helps create deep bonds between individuals. These deep bonds allow us to continue pushing and stay motivated far longer than we would be able to on our own. Use the strength of others to your advantage. Find a group of people you can cut up with, be yourself around, and have fun with in your training.
#5 - Evaluate
Self evaluation can be a powerful tool in almost every area of our lives. It is important for us to sit down and map out what we’re going through, why we feel the way we do, and dissect why we’re responding the way we are. It can give us insight into the deeper parts of ourselves that are often overlooked by our modern day distractions.
When you start to feel burnout coming on, take some time to evaluate what it is that is really going on. Don’t just focus on the fruit of burnout (e.g. lack of energy, increased frustration, difficulty staying motivated, etc…) but instead try and get to the root. Ask yourself why and then ask it over and over again until you come to the answer you’re looking for.
Once you’ve come to that answer, don’t let yourself leave until you come up with a way to respond. Track what is going on, how it happened in the first place, and how you can prevent it from happening in the future. It’s not a difficult process but is one that you’ll have to force yourself to undergo. We don’t naturally gravitate towards self reflection because it often shows us areas in our lives we don't like to think about. That shouldn’t stop us from doing it. If you want to fix your physical appearance, you first have to start with looking in the mirror. The same is true for our inner appearance.
Jake Naumcheff, CF-L1
Owner/Head Coach of CrossFit Laminin
