With limited mental and physical resources, adopting a simple approach will ensure your remaining energy and effort is put towards behaviours that will get you results.
There are so many things to think about, distractions and decisions you have to make on a daily basis that you may be left with minimal mental resources available to put into your health and fitness pursuits.
You may be working all day and dealing with life’s responsibilities only to have to sift through the latest health and fitness advice to make sure you’re eating the right things, training the right way, engaging in the best recovery protocols and so on.
Then you still have to have the energy to do those things!
The best thing you can do is to simplify your approach as much as possible so that you can focus on what matters and spend your remaining mental and physical resources on these few essential things.
Let’s dig into how we can achieve this.
Two problems:
• Problem 1: There are numerous decisions to make: What exercise should I be doing here? Should I eat this or that? When should I be training if x and y are happening? and so on...
There’s a good chance you have to make numerous decisions throughout the day and you’re left with ‘decision fatigue’ (your ability to make decisions and control your behaviour lessens after making decisions all day).
Why does this matter? When you’re faced with more decisions (like how to approach your training and choosing what to eat) you’re more likely to procrastinate and may decide not to act at all! (or choose a default option that isn’t supportive of your goals) (1)
• Problem 2: There are countless distractions (eg. advice from people around you and the differing opinions of health and fitness experts/influencers) alongside other mentally demanding activities (eg. work) that it becomes difficult to focus and intentionally engage on the right behaviours.
Fatigue is a common barrier to engaging in health and fitness pursuits. Similar to the concept of decision fatigue, you’re faced with many mental demands on a daily basis (creating mental fatigue) which not only negatively impacts your physical performance, but also how hard you’re willing to exert yourself (you prepare to put in less effort) and reduces the amount of exercise you perform. (2) (3)
Both problems centre around the fact that you have limited mental resources to make good decisions and control your behaviour, so it’s wise to use them on things that matter!
Making minimal decisions and reserving as much mental energy as possible so that your remaining energy and efforts can go towards behaviours like training/motivating yourself and having greater self-control over the behaviours you engage in!
Emphasising a simple approach will help.
Two things:
1. The 80/20 rule (Pareto’s Principle): 80% of your results will come from 20% of your behaviours (focus on what’s actually important and will deliver most of your results – the rest is nonessential).
2. Limiting the amount of decisions you have to make (but still allowing a small number of decisions for the sake of autonomy and competence (important for adherence)).
What’s important (80/20 rule)?
• Slowly progressing in a number of exercises that cover various movement patterns.
• Training with effort.
How do we simplify/limit decisions?
1. Your warm-up can simply be some core work (eg. Planks, Deadbugs, bear crawls etc. – shouldn’t be extremely fatiguing but will get you warm). You don’t have to perform an elaborate, time consuming warm-up routine.
2. Choose just a couple of ‘big movements’ that you would like to get better (stronger) at. For example, one training day could focus on a big lower body movement and the other a big upper body movement. Rest for long enough between sets so you’re not fatigued and use this rest as an opportunity to do some stretching/mobility.
3. Choose three other movement patterns that you can perform after your ‘big movement’. Each of these exercises should primarily work different muscle groups/movement patterns. Perform them in a circuit fashion (back-to-back-to-back) with little rest.
Here’s an example using the above guidelines:
Day One:
Warm up:
- Bear Crawl
- Side Plank
- Tall-Kneeling Med Ball Slams
‘Big Movement’ (Deadlift):
- 3 to 4 sets (rounds) of 3-8 repetitions
- Rest for 3-5mins in between the sets (where you can stretch or perform some mobility movements)
- Try to add reps each week (once you can hit 8 reps, add weight!)
Other Movements:
- Perform back-to-back-to-back and then rest at the end of them for 2-3 minutes. Go through them two to three times (2-3 sets). Try to hit anywhere from 8 to 25 repetitions and add reps each week. Once you’re getting up to the 20+ rep range, add weight to the movements.
-Single-Arm Dumbbell Overhead Press
-Bulgarian Split Squat
-Single-Arm Dumbbell Row
Day Two:
Warm up:
- Deadbug
- Banded Woodchop
- Mcgill curl-up/Sit-Up
‘Big Movement’ (Push-up):
- 3 to 4 sets (rounds) of 3-8 repetitions
- Rest for 3-5mins in between the sets (where you can stretch or perform some mobility movements)
- Try to add reps each week (once you can hit 8 reps, add weight!)
Other Movements:
-Perform back-to-back-to-back and then rest at the end of them for 2-3 minutes. Go through them two to three times (2-3 sets). Try to hit anywhere from 8 to 25 repetitions and add reps each week. Once you’re getting up to the 20+ rep range, add weight to the movements.
-Goblet Squat
-Pull-Up
-Single-leg Hip Thrust
What’s important (80/20 rule)?
• Eating foods that benefit you (primarily whole foods).
• Creating a calorie surplus if you’re trying to gain weight or a calorie deficit if you’re trying to lose weight.
How do we simplify?
1. Set up your environment in a way where it’s very easy to make good food choices (eg. have pre-prepared meals in the fridge and healthy snacks like nuts, greek yoghurt, fruit, beef jerkey etc in the pantry) and very difficult to make poor food choices ( eg. have to go to the shops because there is none in the house or reinstall a food delivery app).
2. Choose one or two strategies that you’re confident you can adhere to. When you stop moving in the right direction, add/remove strategies and reassess. For example:
Losing weight: Higher protein intake, higher fiber intake and slower eating.
Gaining weight: More liquid calories and choosing foods that are more palatable and calorie dense.
What’s important (80/20 rule)?
• Positive emotions, feeling relaxed and getting good sleep.
How do we simplify?
1. Combine behaviours that help you recover. For example, a walk in nature with someone you enjoy being around will give you some sunlight (blood flow, endorphins, vit D, circadian rhythm benefits etc.), some movement (the walk), stress relief (the nature), social interaction (the person accompanying you) and overall positive emotions (assuming you enjoy your walk/conversation).
2. Choose and experiment with various sleep strategies that will improve the quality of your sleep and you think you could easily implement. You can find some ideas here.
If you do a few of these really well, you’ll see more results than you ever would chasing the latest diets, new exercise variations, training protocols, and buying expensive recovery devices and acupuncture sessions.
So much energy can be wasted on making unnecessary decisions and getting caught up in the many distractions that pull you away from essential behaviours. You have limited mental (and physical) resources, so simplifying your health and fitness approach allows you to effectively use your remaining energy and direct your efforts into a few behaviours that will deliver most of your results.
1) Pignatiello, Grant A et al. “Decision fatigue: A conceptual analysis.” Journal of health psychology vol. 25,1 (2020): 123-135. doi:10.1177/1359105318763510
2) Yuan, Rui et al. “The effects of mental fatigue on sport-specific motor performance among team sport athletes: A systematic scoping review.” Frontiers in psychology vol. 14 1143618. 11 Apr. 2023, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1143618
3) Brown, Denver M Y, and Steven R Bray. “Effects of Mental Fatigue on Exercise Intentions and Behavior.” Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine vol. 53,5 (2019): 405-414. doi:10.1093/abm/kay052
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