I’ve learned a little lesson this week at the gym: don’t forget my iphone & earbuds!

Up until recently, I was silently focused on every activity during my workouts, figuring out how to use every cardio and weight machine properly, etc. And watching the clock…tick tock…every exhausting minute that went by. As a gym “newbie”, it’s easy to just want to fit in and look like you know what you’re doing when it comes to the plethora of equipment all around you. But as it turns out, being too mindful wasn’t helping. What I really needed was to be distracted! I have been doing 15 minutes on the stationary bike each visit, keeping at about a steady 65 rpm, but this last time I opened up the “Pandora” app on my smartphone, did a search for the “Lady Gaga” station, and when my 15 minutes was up, I was so into the music that had me pumped up, I pushed myself to do 20 minutes. And when I remembered to look at what the rpm was, I was surprised to see I had amped that up also to 70+, not even realizing it. My body was doing the moving, it knew what to do, but my brain was all about the music. And in this case, a little distraction goes a long way to getting your workout done less painfully.

So throw that ipod into your gym bag! 🙂