One evening last week, I had planned to go for a run before dinner. But then, I got tied up answering an email, and before I knew it, my window to exercise had shrunk. Instead of just doing a shorter run, I decided to skip it altogether.
This all-or-nothing approach to exercise is common and keeps many people from meeting their fitness goals, said Michelle Segar, a behavioral scientist at the University of Michigan.
In a small recent study, Dr. Segar and her co-authors found that, when subjects weren’t able to work out in the exact way they wanted, they often did nothing instead. While having an all-or-nothing mind-set has been studied more extensively in other contexts, it hasn’t been formally studied much in relation to exercise until recently. But Dr. Segar argues that it can be a major barrier to forming an exercise habit. She calls it the “perfect workout trap.”
The trap can take different forms, she said. It can prevent people from getting started, if they’re waiting for the stars to align so they can exercise in one specific way, and it can also prevent them from maintaining a fitness routine. But for most, the key to starting a fitness habit — and sticking with it — isn’t more discipline, it’s more flexibility, she said.
People often blame themselves when they fall short of their exercise goals, she said, but this kind of all-or-nothing thinking is often baked into popular messaging around exercise.
Many fitness influencers and trainers promote a “no excuses” approach to fitness, and some popular challenges like 75 Hard and “streaking” stipulate that, if you miss one workout, you have to start from scratch. But for some people who struggle to exercise, the medical recommendation that adults do a minimum of 150 minutes of aerobic exercise and two strength training sessions a week can feel out of reach, and end up discouraging them, said Rick Richey, a master trainer for the National Academy of Sports Medicine who is based in New York. “People see that and they go, ‘Well, I can’t even get the minimum, then why do anything at all?’” he said.
“If you can’t bend, then it’s easy to break,” Dr. Richey said. By training yourself to view workout plans as adaptable, you can set yourself up to exercise more. Here’s how to make this mental shift.
Remember that something is better than nothing.
Maybe, in an ideal world, you would carve out extended windows of time to exercise in the exact way you’d like, several times a week. But life often intervenes, Dr. Segar said.
“I encourage an ‘all or something’ mind-set,” she said, in which any amount or intensity of physical activity is a win.
Even small doses of physical activity can benefit your health, and light intensity exercise such as walking or stretching can lower your risk of heart disease, manage blood sugar and improve mental health. Doing a single set of resistance exercises a few times a week can improve your muscle strength.
“If the goal is to be healthier and have greater well-being, it all counts,” said Darlene Marshall, a personal trainer in upstate New York who has also studied positive psychology. If you need an extra nudge to get going, she said, think about how you will feel after you’ve finished, say, dancing in your living room or doing a set of squats, versus doing nothing.
Have a backup plan.
When you plan your workouts, also plan for how you might adjust them if something unexpected gets in the way, said Dr. Edward Phillips, an associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School.
“It’s contingency planning,” he said. This can be as simple as deciding in advance that if you aren’t able to run you will walk, or if you aren’t able to go to the gym you will do body-weight exercises at home. You might even tell yourself that if you can’t make it to a workout class on time, you will go anyway and “give yourself the grace to show up 10 minutes late,” he said.
Dr. Segar recommended coming up with a “menu” of workouts of different lengths and intensities that you can turn to if your original plans fall through.
Focus on the long game.
Finally, if you have a tendency to let a missed workout — or even a stretch of inactivity — wreck your routine, remind yourself that staying active consistently, over the course of many years, is what matters for long-term health and well-being, Dr. Richey said.
“Life will always get in the way,” he added. “So just know that that’s going to happen, and acknowledge it.” The key is to avoid saying, “I missed a few days, I missed a few weeks, I guess I won’t come back,” he said. “You’ve got to come back.”
When you do, especially if it’s been a while, set yourself up for success by setting small goals, he added, and celebrating when you achieve them. “You don’t have to do the 150 minutes,” he said. “Just do something that you didn’t do yesterday.”
Shifting your mind-set to focus on what you can do, versus what you can’t, can also motivate you to keep going, Ms. Marshall said.
Ultimately, Dr. Phillips added, any physical activity “is a gift you’re giving to yourself.”