Did you ever notice that when you miss a day or two of exercise, it suddenly gets even harder to get back at it in the following days? This is why consistency is the one key thing to meeting your fitness goals.
Keeping a regular schedule when it comes to exercise matters because when you end up skipping many days in a row, the health benefits start to fade away. At first, there may be only a decrease in the positive metabolic aspects, but skipping exercise eventually affects motivation, endurance, and can even increase your odds of an injury.
Studies have shown that building momentum can be one of the primary reasons that people continue to exercise. People reported that they felt healthier and more physically aware after exercise or the exertions of the day before and desire to relive that sensation. Longer periods between exercise sessions could potentially dull that enthusiasm.
When your mind continually thinks it is starting over at square one after many days (or weeks/months) of skipping workouts, motivation will drop off.
The truth is that no matter what we do in life it will be hard to achieve the success we want unless we work at it day after day over the course of months and years. This is no different when it comes to your exercise programs. Even if you have the best trainer and fitness tools in the world, and the best diet to follow, but if you do not stick with it consistently, you may end up spinning your wheels.
Consistency is vital for the beneficial changes of exercise to occur in your body. When you keep at an activity, you perfect your form, build endurance and become better each time.
According to the Mayo Clinic of Sports Medicine, regular, consistent exercise stimulates the growth of new capillaries to bring blood to your muscles. It also takes weeks of strength training to grow muscle fibers. If you are hit or miss in your exercise routine, these physiologic changes will take longer to occur, and these changes will not be as powerful.
It takes 4 weeks for YOU to see your body changing.
It takes 8 weeks for YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY to see your body changing.
It takes 12 weeks for THE REST OF THE WORLD to see your body changing.
Remember, effort and intensity are nothing without consistency!
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