A few weeks ago, I asked you: where are you feeling most stuck with your fitness right now?
Hundreds of you wrote back. Thoughtful, honest answers. Thank you.
I’m working my way through all of them.
And one theme jumped out at me IMMEDIATELY.
I know what to do. I can’t get myself to start.
One reader, let’s call her Supergirl, said it this way:
“I know what I should be doing, but for whatever reason, I can’t motivate myself to start. I was so disciplined for months, training 3 to 4 times a week, walking 5 days a week. Then I took a break that lasted for a year, and for some reason, I can’t find my way back.”
If you’ve ever had a great run (for a few days or a few years) and then couldn’t find your way back, this one’s for you, too.
From 0 to 70
I’ve heard this so many times in my coaching career. You were in a really good groove. Something knocked you off. And getting back on track feels incredibly difficult, and you don’t know why.
I’ve experienced this myself! I was in a groove with food logging. It felt easy. Then I took a break, and when I tried to start up again, I couldn’t get it going with any consistency for the life of me.
Here’s my take after nearly two decades of coaching: I doubt this is a motivation thing.
I think it’s an on-ramp thing.
You were cruising at 70 miles an hour. You made a pit stop, and now you’re trying to jump the car straight back to 70. Instantly.
Of course that’s going to feel rough!
The Rearview Mirror
Another reader put it really well in their message to me:
“I know how to start (again) but it feels like it’s not enough compared to where I’ve been before.”
After a break, it’s really easy to compare yourself to your previous routine. I should be training 3 to 4 times a week. Walking 5 days. The workouts should look like they did. I know what to do. I just need to do that thing.
That’s driving with your eyes on the rearview mirror. And it makes anything smaller feel like it doesn’t count.
But smaller is how you get back up to speed.
After multiple false starts with food logging, I realized I was falling into the same trap. And instead of forcing myself to weigh and measure anything, I gave myself a different on-ramp. Protein and veggies at each meal? Check. That allowed me to build back up again and find the groove that worked for me in this current phase of life.
Previous success can feel like a scorecard that you have to grade yourself against.
But what worked before might not work for you right now.
And it’s important to remember that most of us needed an on-ramp the first time, too. That part didn’t change after some time off.
“Shoulding” All Over Yourself
You know what you “should” be doing. Let’s put that aside for now.
Instead, let’s shrink down what our focus is. We don’t have to figure out the whole routine. Not the whole week. Let’s work on today.
Try this thought experiment with me: if you didn’t have any expectations of what this “should” look like, what is one thing that feels doable today?
Maybe it’s performing your warm-up routine. Or doing the first round of exercises in your workout.
Maybe it’s batch cooking some protein tonight, or running to the grocery store to stock up on some easy fruit and veggie options.
Try it out, and see how that feels. Is the resistance still there? If it isn’t, you’ve found the start of your on-ramp.
And if it still feels hard to start? That’s OK, too. We can choose a different entry point and try again.
—
If you’re in that camp of “I know what to do. I can’t get myself to start,” give yourself a different, smaller on-ramp.
Your on-ramp doesn’t have to be forever.
But it may be exactly what you need right now.
Shoot me a quick message and let me know what yours looks like.
The drill sergeant version of accountability (“why did you skip that? do you even want this?”) questions YOU instead of helping you. If being hard on yourself worked, it would have worked by now.
Real accountability is built on two things: forward momentum (get the next available win, then look ahead) and honest feedback (a neutral observer reading the evidence, not a judge handing out punishment).
You can run it on yourself: win first, plan the rest of the week, then look back at what’s working and what’s not.
Here’s what that looks like inside real coaching conversations.
When most people picture “accountability,” they picture a drill sergeant.
Someone standing over you going “What were you thinking? Why did you skip that? Do you even want this?“
(And if there’s no drill sergeant handy, we do a pretty good job of beating ourselves up all on our own.)
Here’s the thing: if being hard on yourself worked, it would have worked by now.
Great accountability isn’t built on being a hard-ass.
It’s built on forward momentum and honest feedback.
The drill sergeant questions YOU. Your motivation. How much you want it.
Real accountability helps you try again quickly.
Then helps you see what you’re doing well and what can improve.
Here’s what that looks like:
Forward momentum
A client of mine had a hectic week. Travel, out of their routine, workouts missed.
The drill sergeant move is “why didn’t you do your workouts?!” at the exact moment they were already struggling.
Here’s what I sent instead:
“Hey! I know this has been a hectic week. Let’s do some push-ups together. Do a set next chance you get and shoot me a . I’ll do one too.”
This got a and a “Thanks for the encouragement! This week has been so hectic my schedule got away from me.”
That win got them back on the routine.
Then we build off of that by looking ahead to the next few days.
“How’s the rest of this week looking for strength training? I went ahead and put together a few variations in case you’re short on time.”
When you’re already struggling, the question isn’t “hey, why didn’t you do that?”
Then looking ahead to what’s coming up after that.
Honest feedback
But forward momentum is only the first part of the equation.
The second step is giving honest feedback on both the wins AND the challenges.
That’s my job as a coach.
To be a neutral observer. To point out what’s going well, what’s not, and suggest how we can improve it moving forward.
Based on the actual human in front of me: their unique goals, motivations, and whatever flavor of chaos they have going on in their own life (work, family, travel, illness, injury, etc.)
Here’s a recent example:
“Hey! I reviewed the strength workout on Friday. Solid work all around here. I can see from your form check video that you’re doing a better job staying balanced across your whole foot on the squat.
I also noticed that the middle of the week has been tougher to get consistent workouts in. You’ve hit 2 out of the last 4 midweek workouts. I know work has been crazy with the project deadline you have coming up, so my guess is you’re getting buried and it makes it hard to get to the gym. Am I on the right track? I have some ideas for how we tackle that next week that I’ll drop down below in a video for you.”
This is the honest part. It didn’t go anywhere!
But instead of berating you for missing a workout, the goal is to look at all the evidence and suggest next steps.
Including if the evidence says that something BIG needs to change. It’s all on the table.
Accountability isn’t punishment for what you didn’t do.
It’s helping you decide what you do next.
Here’s how you can try it on your own
If your week went haywire, before you beat yourself up, take this approach:
First, get your next win. A set of push-ups. A 10-minute walk. The short version of your workout. Give yourself the . Then ask “how’s the rest of the week looking?” Plan ahead instead of fixating on what you missed.
Then, once you’ve collected some data, look back like a neutral observer. What’s working? What’s not? Not “I’m a piece of crap for missing my workout.” Instead, “I had a really hard time getting my workout in when the kids have after school activities.” That’s something we can work with.
For the Rebellion!
-Matt
This is one piece of how our coaches do accountability. Here are a few more ideas for you:
There is no “perfect” workout plan. Nobody can know what perfect looks like in advance. If you’re too afraid to start and make a mistake, it will keep you stuck at the starting line.
Build an action plan instead: 1 or 2 small actions this week, and everything else blocked out for now.
Action is what teaches you. Three weeks of imperfect reps will tell you more about what fits your life than three months of research ever could.
Do you ever feel like you’re stuck at the starting line?
You want to improve your health and fitness. But there’s so. much. going. on.
Every time you try to make a plan, you get 1,000 opinions on the “perfect” workout. The “perfect” diet. The “perfect” routine.
You’re not sure where to start or what to do.
So you freeze.
I hear this story so often that I gave it a name. And a face.
Boss: Major Overload. Primary attack: Analysis Paralysis. Effect: Stunned for 2 turn cycles.
(h/t to Leo, our awesome illustrator who makes these images for us from scratch! )
Meet Major Overload.
He’s every fitness voice on the internet at once.
Do this. Never do that. Fasted cardio. Never fasted cardio. Carbs are fine. Carbs are the enemy.
The Major loves it when you have 100 tabs open on your browser, but haven’t done a workout yet.
He wants to keep you plugged in to The Matrix. He feeds off of you staying stuck in planning mode while he drains your batteries.
My client Eric ran into him a few months ago.
He’d spent weeks searching for “best at-home workouts to lose fat”.
In his words:
“There’s just an overwhelming amount of information out there, and I’m not sure how to sort through it all or where to even start.”
A million different opinions on how to do it. Hours spent researching. And weeks later, I still hadn’t filmed an actual video yet.
I was firmly stuck in analysis paralysis.
What if I didn’t do it “right” from the start?
What if I spent all my time and energy, and it didn’t even matter?
Same boss battle as Eric. Different rabbit hole.
What got me unstuck was the same thing that helped Eric.
It wasn’t finding the “perfect” strategy or plan.
It was two decisions.
1) Follow one plan and block out everything else for now.
2) Commit to taking some small action, most days of the week.
The first one turned Major Overload’s volume down.
I didn’t need every voice. I needed a simple starting point. One that didn’t have a gajillion hoops to jump through.
The second one is where the learning actually happened.
I didn’t have to be perfect. I had to commit to imperfect reps.
I’ve learned more from a couple of weeks of posting than from all the agonizing I did beforehand.
Here’s what I told Eric, and what I’d tell you, too:
There is no “perfect” plan
Unless you’re Doctor Strange, scrubbing through 14 million possible futures to find the one where everything works out, you can’t know what perfect looks like. Neither can I. Nor anyone on the internet, no matter how loud they get.
Luckily, you don’t need a perfect plan.
You need an action plan.
Enough structure to get out there and do the thing. Not so convoluted that you never get started.
That’s exactly what we did with Eric.
We mapped out his first few action steps. Things that fit his life, and he felt confident doing.
And now? He’s 4-months in and training consistently. Not perfectly. Consistently.
And that’s made all the difference for him.
One more thing about Eric’s story I want to leave you with. He also shared this with me as part of our conversation:
“I feel bad that I need to ask for help, but I’m really struggling to do this on my own.”
That’s something else I hear all the time. And it’s nothing to be ashamed of!
Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is to ask for help when you need it.
That’s the whole reason we’re here.
When you’re stuck at step one, overwhelmed by information and not sure what’s worth your time, that’s exactly where a coach can help.
We build a program around you: your schedule, your equipment, your starting point. And then we help you run it and adjust as you learn.
If that sounds like what you’ve been looking for, here’s my invitation:
Fill out this short form. Someone from our team will reach out to have a real conversation about whether NF Coaching is a good fit for you.
And if it’s not a fit? We’ll tell you that too, and point you in the right direction.
Either way, the goal is to get you out of analysis paralysis and moving forward.
Take that, Major Overload!
-Matt
TLDR: Build an action plan, not a “perfect” plan. Commit to something simple to start. Learn and build from there. And if you want guidance from a coach who’s been through it all before, here’s how to work with us.
Expecting yourself to stick to the same fitness routine, no matter what, is why it fails.
Because the only predictable thing about life is that it’s unpredictable.
A kid gets sick. Sleep falls apart. The to-do list explodes.
You can’t know which one is coming or when, but you can know something is, and you can build your routine to expect it.
That’s the whole trick: take two minutes and decide, in advance, exactly what you’ll do the next time life goes sideways.
Here’s the coaching conversation that shows how it works.
I want to let you in on one of my biggest lessons from the last 15 years of coaching.
Once you know it, it will feel like you can see the future.
On a live Q&A, George (not his real name) told me about a pattern he kept running into.
He’d start strong. A few good weeks.
Then a kiddo would get sick, or some other responsibility would pop up, sleep would fall apart for a bit, and the whole routine would go with it.
So I asked:
“Have we ever planned EXACTLY what to do the next time something like this happens? A version of your plan that you can commit to when you’re running on four hours of sleep and have a sick kid to take care of?”
And he got this look like “Oooooohhhhhhhh…no. No I haven’t.”
He’d been treating the sick kid as something that happens to the plan.
Not as a predictable part of the plan.
So we talked through it right there. Here’s what we came up with:
“Next time my routine is thrown off, I’m going to do this 10-minute light workout that I enjoy and will keep me moving without destroying me when I’m already running on fumes.”
Now, he wasn’t just reacting in the moment, trying to “gut it out.”
He knew exactly what to do and it fit what he needed.
Here’s the thing: these moments don’t come out of the blue. They are predictable.
A kid is going to get sick.
Your sleep is going to get messed up.
You’ll have WAY too much on your to-do list.
You’ll forget your gym bag at home.
Your motivation will come and go.
I don’t know which one, or when exactly, but I do know that it’s inevitable.
And that’s great news!
Once we accept that the only predictable thing is that life is unpredictable, we can use that to our advantage.
Take two minutes right now and finish this sentence:
“The next time ___ happens, I’m going to ___.”
First blank: the thing that knocked you off track the last time you were trying to get into a fitness routine.
Second blank: the best version of your plan you can still commit to on one of THOSE days.
You won’t always get it right.
Sometimes, life will throw something at you that you REALLY didn’t see coming.
But the more of these you’ve been through, the clearer the crystal ball becomes.
And the better you get at navigating it.
Hit reply and send me your crystal ball plan. I read every one, and I’ll tell you if I’d tweak it.
-Matt
P.S. This is exactly the type of stuff we work on in our coaching program. My job as your coach is to look into my crystal ball, and help you plan ahead so you don’t get blindsided. Learn more about how coaching works [HERE].
Soreness is not an indicator of a good workout, and not being sore doesn’t mean your workout didn’t count.
That day-after ache (DOMS) mostly tells you that you did something new, not something effective.
Progress is more reliably measured in your training log: more weight, more reps, more control over time, sore or not.
Rachael (a reader and all-around amazing person) sent me a question about this so well-organized it came with multiple choice answers.
Is severe soreness in the following day or two [after a workout]:
A) A sign that I did a really great workout, good job pushing myself to the limit?
B) A sign that I really overdid it and should have stopped earlier?
C) Neither, just a matter of personal preference. If it bothers me, I can try to avoid it next time. If it doesn’t bother me, grin and bear it, but no extra fitness points for getting to a point of soreness?
I LOVE this question, because almost everyone who’s getting started (or starting again) wonders the same thing:
“If I’m not sore the next day, did that workout even count?”
What soreness actually tells you
Quick definition first. That achy, stiff, “why does it hurt to sit on the toilet” feeling that shows up a day or two after a workout has a name: DOMS, or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.
It usually peaks somewhere around 24-72 hours after you train.
Meet General DOMs. We made him a boss in our bodyweight workout series. He’s a jerk.
Severe sorenessis NOT an indicator of a good workout.
It’s a sign that you did something new that your body isn’t used to yet:
a new exercise program
a bigger range of motion than you’re used to
coming back after time off (that’s when I personally get the MOST sore)
more emphasis on the eccentric portion of a lift (the down phase, which is known to produce more soreness)
So it’s not something you need to chase.
But it’s also not something to be afraid of, especially if you switch up your routine and are mildly sore for a day or two.
Your body is adapting quickly! And as you adjust to the new exercises, you’ll be less and less sore from it.
Are there any benefits to soreness?
So when is soreness helpful, if ever?
Soreness can give us a useful signal that we worked a muscle we were trying to target and hadn’t felt before.
But if you’re SUPER sore? Like, can’t get out of bed the next day and have to waddle around like a newborn giraffe sore? That’s a sign the jump was bigger than your body needed.
And the real cost (beyond the discomfort) is that it gets in the way of your next couple of workouts. Either because your technique gets sloppy because everything hurts, or you’re so wrecked that you don’t want to show up at all.
The best way to lower your odds of severe DOMS is to ease into a new program slowly.
Start with fewer sets and lighter weights than you think you need, and build from there.
Wait, don’t I have to push myself?
Yes! You DO need to push yourself over time in order to make progress:
lift a little more weight
do another rep or set
run a little faster or a little longer
That’s the law of progressive overload, and there’s no getting around it.
Sometimes adding that extra bit will make you sore. Other times, it won’t.
But it’s the underlying principle that matters: are you asking a little more of yourself over time? Not: did it hurt afterward?
The Minty Toothpaste Effect
So why do we care so much about soreness?
Here’s what I think we’ve fallen into with fitness in general.
We as humans operate really well with feedback. If we touch a hot stove, we get burned and know not to do that again.
The same goes for fitness.
We want to know, immediately after doing something, whether it worked or it didn’t.
And with strength training, you don’t feel stronger the next day. It takes time to build up.
So we reach for proxies that close that feedback loop.
“Did I get sore? OK, I did something.”
“Am I really sweaty? Great, that counted.”
It’s exactly like the story of minty toothpaste.
As the story goes, toothpaste manufacturers had a hard time selling their product until they added mint.
Suddenly, there was a tingly clean feeling you could latch onto. “Oh, this IS working.”
The mint doesn’t clean your teeth. But it’s associated with the thing that does, and it gave people something to feel.
That’s where soreness sits for me.
It’s not the REASON you’re getting stronger.
But it can be associated with the work you do, especially as a beginner who is new to exercise, so we’ve learned to chase the tingle.
What to measure instead
Measure your output:
How much weight, how many reps, how many sets are you doing?
Is it going up over time?
Do you feel more stable and controlled with the exercise than you did last month?
Then great! It’s working. Doesn’t matter if you never get sore.
And if you do end up super sore after trying something new, it’s not that you “failed”.
Just take it as a cue to introduce things more gently next time.
So, back to Rachael’s multiple choice question.
C is really close. But I’ll add an fourth option:
D) Soreness tells you what was NEW. Your training log tells you what’s WORKING.
No extra fitness points for being sore. No points off if you do end up sore, either.
All the points gently ramping things up over time, and showing up again next time.
-Matt
Quick recap
Is it bad if I’m never sore? No. If your weights, reps, or control are improving over time, your training is working, sore or not.
How long does DOMS last? It usually peaks 24 to 72 hours after the workout and fades over a few days. If you’re regularly wrecked for longer, ease the jumps in your program.
Should I work out while sore? Mild soreness is fine to train through, and easy movement often helps. If you’re severely sore, target a different part of the body, scale down, or take another rest day; what we don’t want to do is have sloppy technique because we’re SO sore we can’t perform the exercise normally.
From 0 to 70
The Rearview Mirror
“Shoulding” All Over Yourself
Forward momentum
. I’ll do one too.”
Honest feedback
How much weight, how many reps, how many sets are you doing?
