When you feel pressure to hit the gym or get on the exercise bike at home, you tend to avoid workouts altogether. Ideally, people engage in different workouts because they strive to be healthier. When exercise becomes a requirement or something you should do, though, you no longer enjoy the sweat session.
It’s rare that you ask yourself, “What type of workout does my body need today?” Is there a certain movement that motivates you more than the next? Getting in tune with your body is at the core of intuitive exercise, which is similar to intuitive eating. Connect and communicate with your body by choosing a workout that the body wants to engage in, not by doing one based on a fitness influencer. There are internal physical and mental signals that you learn to read in order to cater fitness to your body.
What Is Intuitive Exercise?
Intuitive exercise is the feel-good way to love and enjoy every single sweat session. Working out, while it can be challenging at times, should be an enjoyable experience that puts a smile on your face. The concept of this style of exercise is about listening to your body and understanding what it needs on any given day. When you identify these cues from you body, you can choose movements that inspire you and promote self-care in the process.
When people are toddlers or children, they don’t consult fitness magazines or physical therapists for lessons on how to move. They just move and the drive to do so is inspired by different urges, for example, to explore the world around them. At some point in life, people lose that sense of intuition and allow the outside world to influence their exercise habits. We can only hope that the desire to incorporate movement into your daily life never dies. Continue reading to learn how intuitive exercise may help you keep that drive alive.
Scrap The All-Or-Nothing Thinking
A lot of workout programs take the all-or-nothing approach, which can cause you to lose motivation. You don’t have to be all in all the time; rather, you can adapt to changing responsibilities or life events. The beauty of intuitive exercise is that you break away from the limited thinking of the all-or-nothing mentality. Concentrate on what you can do with the time, budget, and obligations you have.
Gentle Guidance
You don’t abandon all of your fitness and health goals just because you pay closer attention to what your body needs. Once you understand the principles of intuitive exercise, you can experiment with goals or routines that work with your lifestyle. Keep checking in with yourself to ensure that your motivation comes from self-compassion, not a response to diet culture pressure. If you find that you start exercising for the wrong reasons, make it a point to take a breather and connect with yourself.
You Do The Types Of Workouts You Enjoy
Do you want to quickly lose motivation in your workouts? If the answer is yes, then continue doing workouts that feel like a chore or punishment. You shouldn’t feel the pressure to engage in certain types of workouts because they are trendy. It’s more important to adhere to exercise programs, classes, or types of workouts that excite you. The approach of intuitive exercise is that you do workouts you want to do, not workouts you must do. Try different disciplines until you find the ones you really love!
More Motivation To Move
Everyone is different and a workout program that works for one person may not be right for you. When you adopt the intuitive exercise model, you can experience more elation when you exercise. Additionally, you may find that you want to exercise more often when you find a program that you love. Listening to your body is all the motivation you need! And understand that exercise is for every body type, not just for those who fit tabloid beauty standards.
Shift The Focus To Self-Care
Burning calories or losing weight is often the singular focus of exercise, and many fitness brands use that to motivate people. It’s healthy to have workout goals, but exercising to lose some inches can prove unhealthy for your mental health. Obsessing over numbers, successes, and failures can lead you down a self-deprecating spiral. Working out should not negatively impact your mental health; rather, it should boost feel-good hormones. Intuitive exercise shifts the focus from how hard you work out to doing movements that positively benefit you, both physically and mentally. Exercise becomes more about self-care in this regard, which is why many people love the intuitive approach.
Vincent Stevens is the senior content writer at Dherbs. As a fitness and health and wellness enthusiast, he enjoys covering a variety of topics, including the latest health, fitness, beauty, and lifestyle trends. His goal is to inform people of different ways they can improve their overall health, which aligns with Dherbs’ core values. He received his bachelor’s degree in creative writing from the University of Redlands, graduating summa cum laude. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.
