Sail through long sessions with tips from treadmill experts. It’s to easy to start your session with a nice 10 min stretch, hit the cross trainer for 15 mins and then jump on the treadmill not even to make it to 20 mins because of those nasty demons.. beat the boredom with these tips and stay focussed and locked in your training mind frame.

1 – Picture your prize

Why are you training?

• Weight loss
• Want to get fit
• Stress
• Stay in shape
• Gain Muscle
• Fun

Whatever your reasons for you being on that treadmill – keep that at the front of your mind at ALL times. So if you want to get married – keep that picture of your partner at the front of your mind ALL through your session.

You should also go over your motivations – say if you were doing it for charity and you were clocking miles – you suddenly get a stomach upset for a few days. Get back to training as your motivation for training was for charity – good motivations and sticking to them get quality results.

2 Be a DJ

Listening to music can help you take your mind off training. So make up detailed play lists on your MP3 player for each training session. If you are planning to run get a running playlist – if your planning to walk – get a walking playlist in. Your mood can pick up with a favourite song and can keep you going way past your struggle points. Personally if I was running at full pace for 5 mins and wanted to stop I would put music on and realise I can go way past my “mind limited zone”. Go over things to do in your training and think about some healthy food – talk to your friends – do anything that will keep your mind off training.

3 Focus on Success

Think about how you made it through other times and you’ll find it’s great way of convincing yourself that you can get through it. I thought regularly about time without a job, hanging with the bad crowd, problems at home and at college.. and only to come out on top of all those.. and when I think about that – it really helps.

Arm Bar

Everyone always asks about ways to keep your body in shape. Here’s three ways you can keep both your mind and body in top shape.

There’s now yet another reason to keep yourself in shape – you become smarter. The University of California (UC) conducted a research study that found people who had higher body mass had smaller brains. This included memory and planning areas of the brain.

I want to show three quick and simple ways to boost your brain, let’s face the music – if you spend 45 minutes on a treadmill four times a week, for the next 6 months – that is an average of 180mins a week which is 720mins a month which is 4320 mins half a year, which is 8640 mins of running a year. That is a 144 hours and about 6 days of running non-stop. The amount of calories you can burn, the amount of endorphins you can release is incredible. Being fit means thinking fit – I know that makes no sense, but here is a statement someone said to me at the gym: “If you look good, you feel good”.

1) Do Puzzles – Sudoku

Playing mind games, filling crosswords and continuing to challenge yourself whilst your on a train for example – is a great way to train your mind to cancel out everything around you – keep at it and you can really build a tolerance of working under pressure.

There are countless studies that have shown doing puzzles or learning a language can build neural networks in the brain. This helps you stay sharper for longer.

2) Eat oily fish

Oily fish is great food. Oily fish are heavy in Omega-3 which transports nutrients to your brain.

Oily fish are high Omega-3 fatty acids. They are vital for healthy nerve cells and help transport nutrients into brain cells. Eggs, flaxseed and kiwis are other good sources too. A monthly dosage of oily fish can help restore dead brains cells too.

• Includes fish such as salmon, mackerel, sardines, trout and herring.
• Omega-3 rich – which also means it prevents you getting heart disease.
• Good source of vitamins A and D (did you know that?!)

3) Get breathless

Working out for at least 30 minutes three times a week will not only fight fat, it will also improve circulation to your brain, flooding it with oxygen and nutrients to keep it working effectively.

These days it’s so easy to loose yourself thinking about something. Did you know that eating food that you enjoy and have eaten before brings back those happy memories of that food? How about that sneaky chip muffin when you skipped your school lunch break to avoid school dinners?

Running is a great way to loose weight and amongst other things. We will leave the benefits of running within a different post for a different time. We want to focus on why people jump on a treadmill so eager to start running in a pool of their own sweat – only to stop and give up trying again for a long time. I think the commercials are to blame here, people think it is easy to start running a 45 minute treadmill session on level 9 and a gradient of 5% – well, it’s not. And here are some ways to make it easy for you and to motivate you to continue to run.

1. Play music – listen to sermons, talks life speeches.. keep your mind busy other than thinking about your running (this can apply to all exercise)
2. Keep picturing your prize, your new look – whatever your prize is – what your reasons are and make it a must..
3. Focus on success – think positive, surely you have done mistakes, surely you have had difficult times in the past..

Focus on winning, focus on success.

Thinking about how you made it through all the other difficult times is a fantastic way to convince yourself that you can get through this. There have been people who have mentioned about thinking positive – but they always fail to mention what to think about – some people need that. If you are having a bad time with your Miss/Mrs or are going through a rough patch at work – whatever – knowing that you have emerged out from other times better and stronger will resolve you to keep digging and keep the miles ticking over.

If your not planning for success, your planning for failure. Seriously, do we think that deep? Just repeat that slowly in your mind a few times and think what you define as success. If you are not planning (and working) for this that what are you doing?

Picture your prize

1. Why are you training?
2. What inspires you?
3. What does success me to you and how do you think you can get it?

All the reasons you have about why your training – put them in front of you. Literally try this: With your hands (we have to write pretend here in case someone does this and hurts themselves) take your thoughts all out of your head, just grab them out and them throw them on a table in front of you (imagine the table too), do this when you’re at the gym about to turn the treadmill on, tell the on lookers to go to Arm-Bar.co.uk J – now you can picture them much better. Focus on some of the goals in front of you and your reasons – maybe you want to feel confident and ultimate try to improve your career – focus on that for the first 5 mins and go on to something else.

You may be doing it for a charity – again, going over your motivations get you through the tougher moments.

One word. iTunes

All actions are judged by their intentions. It would be easy for Arm-Bar to give you affiliate link to iTunes. But were nice like that.

We all know that listening to music can take your mind off the training. In fact, I have many play lists on my MP3 player (iPod 5th Generation with video), lasting anywhere between two to six hours. They mostly correspond to my mood, my training routine for the day, things that motivate me, famous talks about inspirational leaders – my list is complex like that and I like it when I train, that I have the comfort of knowing that I can listen to a 45 minute speech – here’s the gold you have been waiting for – listening to a 45 minute talk whilst going on level 6 (medium paced jog) on a 5% incline brought out 400 calories – and brought out a big smile on my face.

Nike+iPod running gear is something that I am considering. There is a power song – it only plays from what I know when you are hitting your reset goals – so if your running well you can get Rocky Eye of the Tiger to come on – anything that keeps you motivated in different ways and keeps your mind away from the training will be a great start.

Lastly. Steadfastness is the foundations to keeping successful. If your not steadfast in anything then your not going to be a good at anything (continuous), and be patient too.