I’ve been really disappointed with my fitness regiment. I’m at the point where creating and maintaining a habit despite moving countries and travel isn’t that much of a problem. But despite this, I really don’t have a good training habit. Which is extremely frustrating.

My bodyweight training regiment progressed - I was able to do more and more exercises that I haven’t been a able to do before or never could do (typewriter pushups, full bridges). And I do want to continue that, but not before I lose my belly. Which means cardio.

I’ve toyed around with doing things like kettlebell swings in the past, as well as bodyweight HIITs, like my burpee habit. I liked those because I could do those anywhere, which comes especially in handy while traveling. But those weren’t really ….satisfying, and I finally realized why.

I can’t really step down easily and do LISS cardio with these. And since I am in one place for a long time, why not take advantage of that to at least lower my fat ratio before transitioning to bodyweight training?

I wanted a machine that worked out my entire body and had ease of transitioning between HIITs and LISS - and that was a rower (I’ve done HIITs on stationary bikes and don’t really like it - plus it’s only lower body). Crossfit gyms usually have a rower for conditioning, and what ever you think about Crossfit they do emphasize total body exercises, so that’s a plus in my mind.

After researching online, I went ahead and went with the more expensive gold standard - the concept 2D rower

And it arrived last week! It was easy to put together, and stores really well. I’m collapsing my bodyweight training and starting a rowing habit. So I’m setting the implementation intention and Tiny Habit as “rowing 5 minutes as soon as I get up.”

Part of my mental contrasting is what to do if I do travel, but I think I’ll just do stretching, or burpees.

I foresee several “shelfs” - 1) 5 minutes of rowing per day 2) gradual extension to 30 minutes 3) interspersing 2 HIIT workouts per week on it 4) Extension of LISS rowing times.

I’ve only gotten on the machine twice, but so far it feels good. Let’s see how it goes.