Has your fitness routine lost its novelty?
Hi! My name is Kuang, and I’m a co-owner of Uncanny Fitness. I’ve been exercising consistently for 17 years, doing Fitness for 10 years, coaching for 8 years and a gym owner for about 6 years. For those that know me personally, I process things conceptually big picture first, and love talking about the principles behind how things are working in real life. Nothing I write is “the truth”. I’m wrong all the time. These posts more resemble a diary of what goes on in my mind and observations I’ve made with my own experiences and watching others. Almost none of the concepts are original. They’re almost always concepts and principles I learned or read from someone else.
Novelty: “the quality of being new, original, or unusual.”
Routine: “habitual or mechanical performance of an established procedure”
Fitness is a great example of the cycle of novelty/routine. NOTHING is novel forever. When we start something new (Fitness), it’s novel. After it becomes routine, we’ll need to introduce novelty back into fitness to make it novel again. For me personally, the novelty of Fitness wore off after about 5 years. When things become routine, we become pretty good and practiced, but it also loses the excitement, freshness and effortless motivation of novelty. I think we need both. We need practice to improve and make the novel a routine, and we need to introduce novelty to continue to grow.
Currently, I notice the novelty that I introduce into my fitness routine becomes “routine” after 3-6 weeks. How long is your cycle before somethings becomes routine?
Things that have made fitness novel for me again:
- Taking a week break from exercising
- Doing other fitness things (Cycling, Barre, Boot Camp, Yoga, Running, etc.)
- Focusing only on strength, cardio or mobility for a period of time
- Focusing on skill work only
- Taking away all expectations of performance and only showing up to socialize while I move my body and doing the bare minimum
What would make fitness novel for you again? How long would you need to do it before you can go back to something else? For me, it’s 3-14 days before I feel the urge and motivation to go back to what my general routine is.
Hope this provided some insight. I’d love to hear from you! You can message Uncanny Fitness on Facebook or Instagram or send me a message under “contact us” on our website.
Kuang