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How to Stick to a New Training Plan

By Brad Stulberg, Outside, 12/11/19, 2:45PM PST

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These useful practices will help you stick to your new training plan.

Just the other day, in between brutal sets of squats at my local gym, I had an epiphany: training hard is really hard. You may be thinking, Yeah, that’s not rocket science. But there’s a difference between knowing something intellectually and knowing it in your bones. 

Marketing has conditioned us to believe in body hacking and quick fixes, and the very fact that workouts hurt gets in the way of many people starting and sticking with exercise programs. Unfortunately, there’s no silver bullet that makes a hard workout easy. But the following tips and practices will help you stick to a tough training plan, through low-motivation days and low-energy workouts, to get the results you want—no magic pill or program required.