Hi, listeners, old and new, Coach Kevin Donne here with another weekly injection of fitness facts.

This week I wanted to talk about motivation in the gym and what to do when you feel like you're just spinning your wheels.

Now, as someone who's trained in some form since four or five years old in multiple different sports,

as well as the adjunct training to support those sports,

training had always been something that came naturally for me and I never called it into

question. I was always happy to wake up early, fuel myself, go to the gym and do some strength

and conditioning work, and then continue with more sports-specific training later on in the day.

That is, until March 23rd, 2020,

when Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a national lockdown.

When it was announced, I was actually in the local sports centre

swimming in the pool.

Suddenly, the pool attendance announced that the centre was closing immediately

and turned the lights off

the rules in Scotland were very strict only allowed to travel within a five-mile radius of our homes

we could only be outdoors for 30 minutes for exercise alone and of course gyms were closed

and fines were handed out to people who were alone in a kayak on a lake

or alone up a mountain. So basically all fitness had to stop. Now at the beginning, I thought,

okay, no problem. I'll borrow a barbell and get some rocks from the local river. I'll train that

way for a few weeks. A few weeks became a few months. A few months turned into over a year. My motivation

plummeted and I just couldn't do it anymore. Eventually, gyms did reopen. When I went back,

it had been so long, I didn't really know why I was there anymore. Found it hard to accept how

physically diminished I had become. I also realized that perhaps social aspects of

...