My Personal Health Behavior Change Journey

Over the course of the past few weeks, I have been working to try and change the amount of times per week that I have been working out. Not too terribly long ago, I was fully indulged in health and fitness. I was eating clean, going to the gym regularly, following a great workout routine, and overall enjoying every aspect of it. As of recent, I have been slacking off a bit. Ever since COVID happened, I really haven’t been able to get back into the swing of things as far as being consistent with my training regimen. The gyms were closed down for a very long time and I have never really been a fan of doing body weight workouts or even running for that matter, so COVID really took a toll on my willingness to stay in shape. Now that things are beginning to go back to normal, I have slowly started to get back into the gym and following a workout plan, but the consistency still hasn’t been there. Starting my senior year, it has been challenging for me to find the sweet spot for  my school/life balance, So this assignment has been exactly what I have needed to whip me back into shape. For this assignment, I had chosen to increase the amount of times throughout the week that I have been going to the gym while simultaneously following a workout plan that I have built for myself. Over the past few weeks I have really pushed myself to get back to the old me and get to the gym between 5-6 times per week. This was a really important goal for me because I have really been wanting to find that passion for fitness that I used to have. 

App Being Used

The app that I chose to use for this assignment was called the Strong App. This app is a wonderful tool to not only track your workouts but also to build custom workout plans. The Strong App allows you to begin a workout and while you are working out, it allows you to input specifically what exercise you have done along with how many sets and reps you completed. This app was also a great tool for me when I was trying to think of an exercise to do because it has an entire exercise encyclopedia that tells you exactly how to perform the exercise and what muscle group the exercise targets. I would highly recommend this application for anyone who struggles to put together a cohesive workout plan or anyone who is trying to get into working out but has no idea where to start. The app also provides preset workouts for people who do not know where to begin.

picture was found at: https://www.shapescale.com/blog/fit-tech/best-weightlifting-apps/

The Good

This app was incredible at the very beginning to help me get back into the gym at a consistent rate because it gave me the opportunity to build a workout regimen to follow rather than mindlessly going into the gym and selecting random workouts to do. I am a firm believer that if you want to be successful with your goals, you must plan. I came into this assignment knowing that if I did not have a workout plan that I would fall off the wagon immediately. This app allowed me to create structured workouts that were easy to follow and when I completed them, I would seamlessly be able to move onto the next one.

The Bad

Although the app was great for creating workouts, I really do not think that it helped too much with getting me in the gym and working out. There were no reminders as far as completing workouts throughout the week and the workouts were only as specialized as you could make them. For people who are relatively advanced when it comes to working out and performing work outs, this app is useful, but it is not the best app when it comes to really having a strenuous workout designed for you. Yes, the app allows you to create workouts and begin to plan your attack on the gym, but it really does not do much other than that. There really are no accountability features that could have helped keep me consistent. This was one huge piece missing that would have made this app incredible.

How The App Made Me Feel

At first, the app was the gold standard for me as far as being able to create and document my workouts. It was an incredible feeling to not only be able to create diverse and challenging workouts but to actually get in the gym and complete them. There is no better feeling than to know what you are about to do is going to be a challenge but you stick it out and push as hard as you can to ultimately conquer the challenge. For this particular circumstance, the application made me feel like a beast and I had been needing that feeling in my life again to help push me to get back to my old self. On the other hand, outside of completing workouts, the app really forced me to be on top of my game when it came to physically going to the gym. Without any accountability features, it was completely on me to remember to carve out time during the day to go to the gym and to remember to document my workouts while I was at the gym. This app also made me appreciate structure so much more. The main way I would use the Strong App was by creating my workout right before I decided to go to the gym and then implementing that workout while I was there. Before using this app, I was never really the biggest planner in the world when it came to my workouts. Yes, I had specific days for workouts and base my workouts off of those days like back/biceps, chest/triceps, and legs/shoulders. But other than that, I would go into the gym, and complete four random exercises of one muscle group, and four random exercises of the other muscle group. Before the app, I would spend two hours in the gym trying to complete freestyle workouts, but now that I have the app, I am able to follow a structured workout routine in as little as 45 to an hour.

Changes I Would Make To The App

As I had stated above, a big downfall of the app was that there were zero accountability features involved with it. There were to reminders for me to go to the gym or that I had not completed my workout for the day and there was really no motivation involved in the application either. So a big change that I would make to the app would be to implement a survey for all of the users that would document their goals so that the app could help people achieve their goals rather than leaving the users to fend for themselves. If accountability features were included in the application, It would have been much easier to achieve my health behavior change goal of going to the gym 5-6 times per week and completing structured workouts. The app itself only held up the structured workout portion. I, on the other hand, had to hold myself accountable in making sure that I got to the gym and completed those workouts.

Expectations

My expectations going into this assignment were that time management was going to need to play a huge factor and overall will power. Since we had started this assignment so early in the semester, trying to navigate my class schedule and assignment due dates was a bit of a struggle for me at the beginning. After finally getting settled into my class schedule, I was able to navigate specific times throughout the week to reach my goal of going to the gym and completing a structured workout plan. Another issue I ran into during the duration of this assignment was determining gym hours. I go to the YMCA here in Bloomington and due to COVID, on certain days, the gym closes earlier than normal. I learned this the hard way when I walked into the gym on a Saturday and one of the workers spoke over the intercom saying, “ALL MEMBERS. THEY Y WILL BE CLOSING IN 15 MINUTES.”. In terms of will power playing a huge factor, throughout this assignment, there were many days where I would have to force myself to get up and go to the gym. When you haven’t been going to the gym consistently for a while, it is really difficult to get back into it. Many factors go into why someone might not want to go to the gym such as being sore or tired but during this assignment, I found that the biggest reason as to why on some days I did not feel like going to the gym was mainly due to weather. If it was raining outside or overall, just a gross day, I really had no interest in going to the gym. All I wanted to do was sit inside and play video games. So yes, my expectations of will power playing a key role in success definitely aligned with my experience.

Platform Similarities 

The only other application that I have used to track a health behavior change has been MyFitnessPal. When I first started lifting weights and trying to “Get Big”, I would just lift as heavy as I possibly could and then go home and drink a bunch of protein shakes. Initially, this worked for me because I was starting with a smaller frame and gaining weight was the overall goal. As time went on and I began to gain weight I started to gather more information on diet and exercise and realized that this method was not the best option for me. MyFitnessPal was a huge game changer for me because it allowed me to track my calories in a very simple and easy way so that I did not need to track my macros to a tee by weighing out all of my foods. When comparing the two applications, I would say that MyFitnessPal takes the cake for being the more useful application because it provided me with reminders to document the foods I had eaten for the day whereas the Strong App does not provide any sort of reminders on tracking your workouts. For the most part, I saw myself forgetting to document my workouts during the workout and then having to go back afterwards to input the specific exercises along with reps and sets.

Synopsis

Over the past few weeks, trying to achieve my goal of going to the gym 5-6 times per week and following a structured workout has had its ups and downs. The beginning definitely was an uphill battle with not only finding the time to go the gym but also trying to find the motivation, as well. Some weeks, depending on the curveballs life had thrown at me, I would only be able to get to the gym around 3-4 times. But for the most part, I was in the gym Monday through Friday as soon as my classes were finished for the day and Saturday as soon as I woke up. If I had to choose a stage of the transtheoretical model that I am currently in, I would say that I am in the middle of the Action and Maintenance stage but leaning more towards maintenance. I have been seeing great improvements in not only my body composition but also my overall mood. Being back in the gym at a consistent rate has made me feel much more productive and I hope to carry on with this lifestyle change for as long as I possibly can.