Two Effective Strategies to Help Get You to The Gym

“...approximately 40% of Europeans agree with the statement: “Being physically active does not really interest me – I would rather do other things with my spare time” (9)

“Only 15% of adults met both physical activity and muscles strengthening guidelines...” (10)

As reflected in those two statistics, for many individuals it can be difficult to engage in the behaviours you know you ‘should’ be doing instead of the behaviours you ‘want’ to be doing.

For many, Physical activity (eg. Strength training 2-3x a week) classifies as a ‘should’ behaviour rather than a ‘want’.

Over time, choosing more ‘wants’ (eg. Watching you favourite TV show) instead of engaging in your ‘should’ (going to the gym/physical activity) can have a detrimental impact on many areas of your life. This can be applied to many health and fitness behaviours (such as your nutrition decisions).

Here are two strategies to help you engage in the ‘should’ behaviour (going to the gym):

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1. Temptation Bundling

The goal of temptation bundling is that it can be used as a strategy to get you to engage in more ‘shoulds’ (such as going to the gym) by leveraging your ‘wants’.

In other words, assuming going to the gym is a ‘should’ action for you, you’re pairing a ‘want’ action (eg. listening to an entertaining audiobook/podcast), with this ‘should’ action (going to the gym to workout).

It could look like the following rule for yourself: “I only get to listen to my favourite audiobook while I’m at the gym exercising”.

Does this work?

A field experiment (1) looked at whether giving gym-goers a free audiobook, along with a bit of education about temptation bundling, would increase their adherence to going to the gym.

- One group received education about temptation bundling along with the audiobook, while the other group received the audiobook alone. The group that was taught about temptation bundling had a small, long-term increase in how often they went to the gym. (1)

- A smaller study, also mentioned in this paper, involved denying people a tempting audiobook unless they went to the gym. The results were that they exercised more often. (2)

This lends to the idea that temptation bundling can be an effective strategy.

The entertaining audiobook, podcast, tv show etc. is handy for exercise modalities like walking on a treadmill/elliptical, riding the bike and so on.

When it comes to strength training, you may need more direct attention on what you’re doing and higher levels of intensity. This is where I think the following can be useful:

Pairing with caffeine/coffee

I’ve talked about the benefits of coffee/caffeine in one of my previous blog posts “Coffee, good or bad for health and fitness?”.

As a quick summary, it’s a performance- (and health-) enhancer. It helps you stay focused, alert and can help you feel great due to the chemicals that are released in your brain.

But why is it a good idea to pair it with your ‘should’ behaviour?

Two Advantages:

1. It improves your ‘should’ behaviour (performance at the gym).

2. When you drink coffee/caffeine, you get an increase in ‘dopamine receptors’. This means that you become more sensitive to dopamine. Being more sensitive to dopamine means you feel it’s effects more (greater levels of drive, focus, anticipation of reward etc.). When dopamine is enhanced, this is a powerful reinforcer of whatever behaviour you’re taking part in. (3) **This works in a different way to illegal drugs so it’s a healthier enhancement of dopamine.

So, you drink your strong coffee on the way to the gym.

You feel those great feelings of being alert, focused, feeling good and ready to go and with the help of caffeine you have a great workout.

You’re now reinforcing your behaviour of going to the gym, and will return to the gym with a coffee in hand to get those same feelings.

Sounds like an effective temptation bundle to me!

What If I don’t like the feelings I get from coffee/caffeine intake and I don’t get those effects?

You can get creative with your temptation bundle to see what works best for you. Maybe on the way to the gym you always pass your favourite bakery? If you’re on your way to the gym, the rule you may set for yourself could be that you get to stop off at your favourite bakery as a pre-workout snack!

Once you find a temptation bundle that works for you, it can be a useful strategy for getting you to engage in a ‘should’ behaviour.

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‍2. Getting a Training partner (or coach)‍

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There will be days where the last thing you want to do is go to the gym. But maybe you’ve got a training partner or coach who wants you there?

This can be a huge advantage, and becomes a very useful strategy for helping you get to the gym (and to also train pretty hard).

How does a training partner or coach actually help?

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1. A vocalised pre-commitment and/or financial commitment: Telling people you’re going to do something, and/or adding a financial incentive/commitment are both strategies that help you commit and adhere to something. By vocally pre-committing to your training partner or coach, the effort involved in having to explain yourself, come up with an excuse, or simply the feeling of letting someone else down can be greater than the effort required to just turn up and get your training session in. This can be further reinforced if you’re paying a coach and you’ll physically lose something  (your hard earned cash) if you don’t turn up.

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2. Social Support: As discussed in my blog post “Why can't I stick to a health and fitness behaviour?”, social support is a huge contributor when it comes to adhering to a behaviour. Here are the facts:

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• A good relationship with your coach (or your training partner) can increase the levels of adherence to further health and fitness advice. (4)

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• Rates of weight loss were improved when there was a ‘social support contract’ between coach and client (as it creates stronger commitment). (5)

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• Supervised programs are associated with adherence. (4)

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So, with a training partner/coach you’re more likely to turn up to your training session.

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To further add to the benefits, you’ll likely perform better and train harder too!:

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• Having a training partner/coach = increased amount of exercise, even more so when that partner is emotionally supportive. (6)

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• When a spotter is present (your training partner/coach) bench press performance improved, self-efficacy increased and more work was done. (7

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• You push yourself harder and for longer during exercise when someone is present. (8)
  
  

We can conclude that having a training partner (or coach) is very beneficial when it comes to finding strategies that will not only help you get to your training session in the first place, but also stick with it and exert more effort.

The Takeaway

If you find it tough to get yourself to train, consider using either (or both) of the strategies discussed.

If you’re able to follow rules that you set for yourself, temptation bundling can be an effective way to get your ‘shoulds’ done each day.

If you struggle with sticking to these rules, finding a training partner or coach may be the difference between some training or none at all!

Hope it helps!

REFERENCES

1) Erika L. Kirgios et al. “Teaching temptation bundling to boost exercise: A field experiment”. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. Volume 161, Supplement, 2020, Pages 20-35, ISSN 0749-5978,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.09.003.

2) K.L. Milkman et al. “Holding the Hunger Games hostage at the gym: An evaluation of temptation bundling”. Management Science, 60 (2) (2014), pp. 283-299, 10.1287/mnsc.2013.1784

3) Volkow, N D et al. “Caffeine increases striatal dopamine D2/D3 receptor availability in the human brain.” Translational psychiatry vol. 5,4 e549. 14 Apr. 2015, doi:10.1038/tp.2015.46

4) Rivera-Torres, Solymar et al. “Adherence to Exercise Programs in Older Adults: Informative Report.” Gerontology & geriatric medicine vol. 5 2333721418823604. 22 Jan. 2019, doi:10.1177/2333721418823604

5) Lemstra, Mark et al. “Weight loss intervention adherence and factors promoting adherence: a meta-analysis.” Patient preference and adherence vol. 10 1547-59. 12 Aug. 2016, doi:10.2147/PPA.S103649

6) Rackow, Pamela et al. “Received social support and exercising: An intervention study to test the enabling hypothesis.” British journal of health psychology vol. 20,4 (2015): 763-76. doi:10.1111/bjhp.12139

7) Sheridan, Andrew et al. “Presence of Spotters Improves Bench Press Performance: A Deception Study.” Journal of strength and conditioning research vol. 33,7 (2019): 1755-1761. doi:10.1519/JSC.0000000000002285

8) Irwin, Brandon C et al. “Aerobic exercise is promoted when individual performance affects the group: a test of the Kohler motivation gain effect.” Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine vol. 44,2 (2012): 151-9. doi:10.1007/s12160-012-9367-4

9) 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

10) Insufficient physical activity . Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 20 October 2020, https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/risk-factors/insufficient-physical-activity

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