Poll Results - What is the biggest obstacle you face when it comes to working out

OK, its time once again to review our poll results and this time the question asked was “What is the biggest obstacle you face when it comes to working out”. There were a myriad of options to choose from, and I hope I managed to cover the most common answers people were looking for. I really couldn’t think of any others when I did this, so I hope the answer you were looking for was available.
So lets do a quick review of each answer.

1) No time, too busy
Now I honestly thought this answer would win hands down but I was wrong. After all, I keep hearing this all the time how people never have time for anything in their lives. Well only 20% of the respondents felt that way. To me, time management comes down to prioritizing whats important to you. If something is important to you, believe me, you will find time to do it. Taking a shower is important, so no matter how late you finish work or how busy you are, I am sure you would still take a shower before heading to bed right? Well the same thing goes for working out as well. If you place enough importance on it, then you will find a way to do it.

2) No money for gym membership
About 14% of respondents chose this. I understand that gym memberships can be expensive, but there are always options like Gym Rakyat which is a government sponsored gym. I am not sure how much they charge now, but when I first started working out, I paid RM 2 per entry. If you just want to stay healthy, you can always do running outside or just do calisthenic exercises – which are exercises that use your body weight as resistance. Eg. Push ups, Chin ups, dips etc.

3) I don’t have a clue on where to start
OK, not many people chose this. Only 5 %. The thing is, we live in the information age and its so easy to get information. Just search the web and voila, you should be able to easily get a full workout for yourself. Try it, and if you don’t like it, look for something else. You can also make friends with other fitness buffs and share tips and ideas with each other. There are just so many ways to get information easily these days, so if you felt this was a real obstacle, here is how you can overcome it.

4) None of my friends are into fitness
1 person chose this and I know this can sometimes be the biggest obstacle. Here is what you can do. Be the motivator and motivate your friends to become fitness buffs as well. Don’t wait for others to change before you approach them or worse still, wait for people to approach you. In fact, its always more fun doing stuff when you have friends who are doing it with you. Alternatively, again, you can look for some new friends who are into fitness and then work out with them. So, don’t let this be an obstacle for you.

5) I can’t be that consistent all the time
And the number 1 winner with over 55% of people choosing it is - being consistent. Unfortunately, being consistent is also one of the most important factors to have when workign out, so it does count a lot. When you are not consistent, you won’t see your desired results. When you don’t see your desired results, you get fed up of working out and you will drag your feet every time you have to workout, which probably is also another reason why it becomes more and more inconsistent. Like I mentioned earlier, if you place enough importance on it, then you will find away to be consistent. Do you go in to work everyday consistently? Because its important to you, you make it a point to be consistent… so again, why not do the same for your workouts? Its just a matter of how much importance you choose to place on it.

I’m too old & I hate dealing with post workout pain received no votes at all. So I will not get into that as its obviously not a concern for most people. What was your vote and your reason for choosing it. I hope I gave you some suggestions on how to overcome it and hopefully, this won’t be an obstacle anymore for you. Me? Actually this time I stayed away from the votes as none of the answers seemed to suit me properly, so I thought I better stay out and see what happens. As usual, look forward to hearing your conmments on this.