This is a part of the Hot Topic podcast series from the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center on Exercise and Fitness After Spinal Cord Injury. Michael Boninger M.D, researcher, discusses Troubleshooting for a Better Exercise Routine.

If you start exercising and you stop, you have to figure out why you stopped. You have to look at what may make you start up, and you have to trouble shoot that. And I’d encourage you to you know, involve your doctors in that, involve your physical therapist, your occupational therapist in that discussion, and involve your significant other, because they probably should be exercising too.

And so, yes, if you stop exercising, maybe what you were doing wasn’t fun enough. Maybe you didn’t get into a good routine. I think that there are so many different possibilities out there that the worst thing is inertia. And inertia builds up in this field, which is you stop exercising, you feel bad, you eat a little bit more, and you’re on the couch feeling bad and eating a little bit more.

And you have to break that inertia up and make the inertia or make the activity be what you just do. And so don’t let one bad week, don’t let you know one bad month stop you from saying, “I can do this again,” and maybe when you go back to it the second time, do something a little bit different. Try to make it more fun. That might be the best thing to do. Make it routine and make it as fun as you can.

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