How To Experience More Enjoyable Strength Training

Other than the obvious benefits of more enjoyable strength training sessions, the generation of positive emotions during these sessions can have far-reaching positive effects on many areas of your health and fitness. I’ve discussed some of these benefits before:

• For better being able to adhere to your health and fitness programs ("Why Can’t I Stick To A Health And Fitness Behaviour?”)

• For improved recovery (“Fatigued? Try These To Speed Up Your Recovery”)

• For getting into a ‘positive loop’ and encouraging you to seek out/engage in health and fitness behaviours (“Want To Train More Consistently? The Role Of Positive Emotions (And Play)”)

• For improved performance (“Must-Do Exercises!”)

• For improving your mental health (“Strength Training: a Meditation Tool”)

It’s evident that enjoyment, and the positive emotions that stem from it are going to play a major role in your health and fitness pursuits.

So how can you make your strength training sessions more enjoyable?

1. Power of choice

Even if you’re following someone else’s program or are training under the guidance of a coach, you should always have some power of choice as opposed to just training a certain way because you were told to (if you prefer this – that’s fine too!).

If it feels like a bad of way training to you, there’s most likely an alternative way that will feel better. *This is different from it being difficult, don’t run away from that great opportunity!

How does having more choice help?

• Immediate positive emotions are generated: Because your ‘immediate beliefs and thoughts’ will influence how you view the activity (‘cognitive appraisal hypothesis’), if you’ve chosen an exercise, or a way of training that you believe to be more pleasant, it’ll trigger positive emotions and result in a more enjoyable session (1).

• Overall session improvement: In the paper titled “A comparison between predetermined and self-selected approaches in resistance training: effects on power performance and psychological outcomes among elite youth athletes” (2020), the researchers didn’t find an effect on performance, but they did discuss research showing that when it comes to your strength training program, having the freedom to make choices can improve motor learning, motivation to perform, perceived well-being and better program adherence (2). An improvement in these areas would contribute to more enjoyable sessions!

• Autonomy and competence: These are two of the three ‘basic psychological needs’ talked about in ‘self determination theory’ (there’s also ‘social interaction’ – discussed later). If these basic psychological needs are met, then you experience increased feelings of vitality and well-being (both relevant to feeling enjoyment and the generation of positive emotions). By having a choice in how your session goes, you get feelings of autonomy (not feeling controlled/having choice), and you’re likely to feel more competent as you’ve chosen a way of exercising that works better for you! (3)

There’s overlap between these, but by giving yourself some choice in your strength training program, it can be a powerful psychological tool for experiencing more enjoyment and eliciting those beneficial positive emotions.

What would this look like? You could do something as simple as choosing the way you would like to load a certain movement pattern, order of exercises, how much weight you would like to use, and so on.

2. Music

You probably don’t need much convincing for the role that music plays in making your sessions more enjoyable, nearly everyone instinctively integrates it into their workouts!

However, the paper by Maddigan et al., (2019) discussed why they thought high tempo music increased exercise duration and sped up post-exercise heart rate recovery in their study. They mentioned the following:

• Helps you disassociate to help enjoyment and performance;

• Distraction from, and reduction of the sensation of fatigue;

• Greater arousal (stimulant) and positive affect;

• Rhythmical elements help synchronisation of tempo and movement, making it more ‘harmonious’ and ‘less stressful’.

(4)

You could also use slow music at the completion of your session to improve your post-exercise recovery time. (5)

So, if you find training sessions very stressful or you don’t do well with the discomfort, including music in your sessions may help make them more enjoyable (and improve your performance/recovery)!

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3. Other Factors

What else can lead to an enjoyable strength training session that creates positive emotions?

A paper by Wienke and Jekauc (2016) sought to find the situations/aspects within sport and exercise that lead to positive emotional reactions. There were four main factors discussed:

• Competence (as discussed earlier – a major one!), think performing well and mastering challenges.

• Social interaction (communicating, socialising, positive motivation from others)

• Novelty Experience (focusing on something other than the usual stressors, new experience, curiosity/variety)

• Physical exertion (burning off energy, soreness, “runner’s high”, “hurt so good”)

(6)

How can you apply these factors to your strength training sessions?

Competence: Include session goals that are realistic, challenging enough, and that you feel you’re pretty good at.

For example, you could choose an exercise that feels good and that you’re confident you can improve at quickly. Then, when performing that exercise, you could set yourself a ‘challenge set’ each week with the goal to beat the number of reps (or weight) you performed the week before. This is an important part of progressing, but it’s also a good way to ensure you’re feeling a sense of competence.

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Social Interaction: Being alone can still trigger positive emotions (due to cognitive rest or relaxation), but experiencing social bonds during a strength training session is a powerful way of creating positive affect. This could come from a training partner, or even a coach/trainer.  

For example, if you have a partner or coach who expresses positive emotions towards the training session, this can help your attitude towards it (so be selective with your coach or training partner/s!)

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Novelty Experience: Strength training in itself is a useful way to focus on something new other than your usual day-to-day stressors. Including some variation with your strength training sessions may also be helpful for creating this ‘novelty experience’.

For example, you could structure your program in a way where you include exercise variations on a consistent basis. This doesn’t mean doing a completely different movement, but you could perform the same movement pattern (eg. a squat), but alternate the way you perform it occasionally (eg. One week a barbell front squat and the next week a zercher squat).

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Week 1 squat pattern:

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Weel 2 squat pattern:

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It's the same movement pattern, but by loading it differently, it's a good way to introduce a small amount of novelty into your training sessions.

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Physical Exertion: This one will work differently depending on the individual. You may love and chase the exhaustion and pain (“hurt so good”), you may experience the “rebound effect” (you get both positive and negative emotions during the session, but once the negative emotions (the physical exertion) go away, you’re left with the positive ones. Or, you may get the “feel-better-effect”, where you don’t experience positive emotions during the session, but once it’s over you get the feeling of relief. Whichever you experience, there’s benefit to including a certain level of physical exertion.

This one is straightforward, but you need to push yourself relatively hard more often than not!

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The Takeaway

The value of enjoyable strength training sessions goes far beyond its face value. Implementing strategies such as greater choice in how your session goes, music, and ensuring you experience competence, social interaction, novelty and physical exertion are great ways to encourage enjoyment and the generation of positive emotions. This will work wonders for your adherence, recovery, performance, mental health and overall health and fitness pursuits.

References

1) Szabo, Attila. “Acute psychological benefits of exercise performed at self-selected workloads: implications for theory and practice.” Journal of sports science & medicine vol. 2,3 77-87. 1 Sep. 2003

2) Watson, Kevin et al. “A comparison between predetermined and self-selected approaches in resistance training: effects on power performance and psychological outcomes among elite youth athletes.” PeerJ vol. 8 e10361. 12 Nov. 2020, doi:10.7717/peerj.10361

3) Teixeira, Pedro J et al. “Exercise, physical activity, and self-determination theory: a systematic review.” The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity vol. 9 78. 22 Jun. 2012, doi:10.1186/1479-5868-9-78

4) Maddigan, Meaghan E et al. “High tempo music prolongs high intensity exercise.” PeerJ vol. 6 e6164. 8 Jan. 2019, doi:10.7717/peerj.6164

5) Savitha, D et al. “Effect of different musical tempo on post-exercise recovery in young adults.” Indian journal of physiology and pharmacology vol. 54,1 (2010): 32-6.

6) Wienke, Benjamin, and Darko Jekauc. “A Qualitative Analysis of Emotional Facilitators in Exercise.” Frontiers in psychology vol. 7 1296. 29 Aug. 2016, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01296

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