Find Your Soulmate (Perfect) Workout

Are you curious to know, “What is a soul-mate workout?”  

It is that perfect fit for you workout. The one that you love and always want to do.  The one that wins over all the other choices because it makes you feel the best.  

Finding your soul-mate workout may be difficult with so many options available to you.

Don’t stress over this. Yes, you want to find the perfect workout that makes you say, “YES! I am looking forward to my workout.” However, you don’t need to stress over it.

I will walk you through the two simple steps you need to complete in order to find your soul-mate workout.

Step one: Answer the “this or that” questions below. Answering them will give you great insight into your “perfect fit” workout.

Get a notepad or your journal to write your answers down.

As you go through, I will share with you how I chose my workout. As you make your “this or that” decision, jot a few notes as to why made your choice. Your responses will help you with step two.

When you get to step two, I will share with you how I picked my workouts and how you can pick yours too.

INDOORS or OUTDOORS = I love to be outdoors, but if I can do the workout indoors the likely hood of me actually completing it is much higher.

GROUP or SOLO = Group settings give me more accountability and make me work harder, part of it is to prove to others that I can do it and the other part just gives me that extra push because I do not want to let others down.  Group settings can cause me to lose focus on my exercises because I love helping others. However, solo workouts allow me to be with myself and my thoughts as I workout. I can truly focus on what it is I am trying to accomplish and have a better outcome.

TEAM or INDIVIDUAL= Same as above, however, in a team setting I am likely to revert to my “no one can do it as well as I can, so why even bother having others help” attitude.  Doing something as an individual means that I can be the perfectionist that I am without someone else interfering.

COMPETITIVE or NONCOMPETITIVE = I am competitive by nature. I strive to be the best at everything I do. This is why the two above (group and team) work for me at times. But because I get so competitive, I sometimes lose out on what my true goals are. Working out by myself allows me to focus on becoming better at my own times, my own amounts of weight, and my own endurance levels instead of that of others.

DANCE or ATHLETIC= I love the competitive of athletics, but I love the rhythm, music and flow of grace and coordination in dancing.

SLOW AND STEADY or FAST AND FURIOUS = DUH!!! for me on this one.  It has to be fast and furious otherwise I get bored and do not want to continue.

HIGH-IMPACT, or LOW-IMPACT, or NO IMPACT = I like to have continuous movement, fluidity, and rhythm.  I find I try my hardest to avoid workouts that involve a lot of jumping or pounding and sitting still or repetitive.

MUSIC or SILENCE = Music keeps me focused on the music instead of my workout. I do prefer to workout in silence so I can zone in and “listen” to the muscle I’m working on. I am also able to listen to my breathing and heart rate, which also helps keep me relaxed. When I’m working at a high intensity, I love the sound of my heart beating rapidly and breathing coming out in tough, rhythmic bursts of air.

VERY COORDINATED, SOMEWHAT COORDINATED, or TWO LEFT FEET = I am an extremely coordinated person, can keep rhythm, and I have great balance.

Summary of activities I may like based on above responses:
I love interactive exercises that allow me to use my rhythm.  I love fast dancing, pilates and some aerobics; I have tried all of these in the past and enjoy them.  Softball and ice skating would be great outdoor sports for me when I want to be outside.  These all let me listen to fun, moving music and complete the activities with motivation and support from others, plus I am able to accomplish them on my own when I feel like doing something by myself.

Based on my characteristics of indoor, group, team, dance, competitive, fast & furious, low-impact music, and very coordinated these workouts come to mind:

• Pilates, dancing
• aerobics
• hip hop
• jazz
• ice skating
• softball
• gymnastics
• kickboxing

Wow!  That really narrowed it down for me.  I am going to check with my local video stores to see if they have any dvd’s for those workouts and see if I can find cheap ones to buy online so I can try them out.

Trying out different workouts is the best way to determine which ones fit you the best.