A look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs and how it relates to fitness.
Sometimes going to the gym can feel like a real grind. What can we do to keep motivation high? Coach Kevin Don takes a look.
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Hi listeners, old and new, Coach Kevin Don 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 are just spinning your wheels.
As someone who has trained in some form since 4 or 5 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 happy to wake up early, fuel myself, and go to the gym to do some strength and conditioning, and then continue with sport-specific training later 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 attendants announced the centre was closing and turned the lights off. The rules in Scotland were very strict. We were only allowed to travel within a 5-mile radius of our homes and could only be outdoors for 30 minutes of exercise, alone, each day. Of course, all gyms were closed and fines were handed out to people who were alone in a kayak on a lake or up a mountain. So, all fitness basically stopped.
At the beginning, I thought, ok no problem. I’ll borrow a barbell and I’ll get some rocks from a local river and I’ll just train that way for a few weeks. A few weeks became a few months and a few months turned into over a year. My motivation plummeted and I just couldn’t do it anymore. Eventually, gyms reopened and when I went back, it had been so long that I didn’t know why I was there anymore. I found it hard to accept how physically diminished I had become. I also realized that maybe social aspects of training had been more important to me than I wanted to admit and, with people acting super cagey after lockdowns and people unwilling to share a barbell or chat to strangers, I found it tough going.
So, I decided that to solve the problem, I would have a deeper look at what was really going on, which, of course, was something psychological and emotional. In the absence of injury, if you are choosing not to train, we can probably say that in most cases (outside of the economic ones) that it's psychological, and understanding what’s going on inside your head could be the difference between improving your health and sitting on the sofa reaching for another Twinkie.
Feelings, attitudes, and their connection with mental health are related to Abraham Maslow's theory of motivation. Maslow was an American psychologist, most famous for creating a “hierarchy of needs.” This hierarchy states that there is a pyramid-like structure to human needs, with the bottom layers of the hierarchy needing to be in place and being met before the next, higher layer of needs can be built. Self-fulfillment needs are closer to the top of the pyramid and must be built upon psychological needs, which, in turn, are built upon basic needs.
You probably know the basic needs:
And then there are the psychological needs, which can only be met when basic needs are fulfilled:
Self-fulfillment needs, such as unlocking your full potential and creative and recreational activities, are only able to be built upon the others.
So when I looked at the previous two years in and out of lockdowns, I realized physiological needs were not being met. I had been forced into moving home to the UK, and I work in the fitness industry, so with gyms closed I had no sense of safety and security. Above that, we were unable to participate in sports or meet friends, so my psychological needs were also not being met. So, according to Maslow, it would be impossible for me to have that sense of accomplishment, to be able to go to work on my maximum human potential, because none of the parts and pieces below that were in place anymore.
So, I developed a plan to work on putting the lower levels of the hierarchy in place first. Maslow’s hierarchy makes sense to me, because how can you possibly expend energy on training (a stress) if you already have significant stressors acting upon you?
That sense of dissatisfaction we feel when we cannot work on self-actualization was further reinforced by the eminent psychologist, Frederick Herzberg, who noted that individuals are not content with the satisfaction of fulfilling lower-order needs and that people look to the gratification of the higher-order needs of achievement and advancement. He also noted that satisfaction on a continuum did not increase as needs decreased. That is to say, that fulfilling all basic needs did not provide the same satisfaction as having the self-actualization of achieving goals.
Whilst only advancement and achievement provide satisfaction, it’s important to bear in mind that one can only attain advancement when the basic needs are met.
Which parallels what I often talk about here on Get-Fit Guy. An advanced handstand push-up might provide satisfaction because it’s an achievement, but you won't be able to do one if you can’t do a basic push-up or hold a tight core to an extremity position. You may want the advanced achievement of running a marathon, but you are unlikely to express that without first building volume at shorter distances. The list goes on and on—without the fundamentals, you won’t have anything to build on, and you won’t be able to achieve your goals.
The same goes for life. If you don't have shelter, sleep, nutrition, hydration, job security, and healthy relationships with friends, family, and loved ones, then you might not be able to even sustain going to the gym to develop those fundamentals in the first place.
So, to summarise, if you feel dissatisfied or demotivated at the gym, I would track back as far as possible through the hierarchy of needs to see if anything is missing in terms of basic physiological and psychological needs before I looked to blame a lack of motivation or try to switch things up. It might be that basic needs would be a more admirable way to direct your energy now and this will allow greater actualization of goals down the line.
Remember, if you have any questions for me, email me on getfitguy@quickanddirtytips.com and I will do my best to get a reply to you or answer your question on the show!