HELP! ST bores the snot out of me!

What I do is keep my sessions short - 20 to 30 minutes. Hard to be bored when your doing a full body routine in that time period.

What are you currently doing?  I know a lot of people who find doing Crossfit at an actual Crossfit gym fun because it's competing with others.

I love strenght training with weights.  I stopped while I focues on losing weight and adding volume for the tri season but I'm going to put it back on the schedule starting October 4th. 

To keep it interesting, I keep the program focused.  I love a 3 day on, 1 day off routine myself.  I do chest, tri's and shoulders on day 1, quads, calves, hamstrings and abs on day 2, and day 3 is back and biceps.  I keep a spreadsheet to track weight and reps and I train to failure on each set.  That makes each set mean more to me.  If I did 100lbs at 8 reps the last time, I'm either doing 105 for x or I will do 100 at >8.  It's all based on the target of weight x X# of reps.  If the target rep for that set is 8 and I can hit 8 at a particular weight then it's time to go up. 

Never allow yourself to plateau.  Many times people claim to plateau but it's in their head.  I have written down 7.5 reps if I knew I moved the bar that much.  At least I knew I was pushing it to the limit and was not accepting that 7 again.

Oh.. and rock music.

Good luck

After years of powerlifting, I understand that strength training gets old sometimes. It's all about switching things up. Get in the big movements when you can, but don't be afraid to throw in bodyweight, medicine ball and kettlebell exercises. Mix up your reps and use circuits. Use finishers or challenges in place of some workouts to keep things interesting (texas pushup challenge, ultimate warrior challenge, etc). As much as I dislike crossfit, they come up with some pretty interesting workouts.

You can get away with swapping your exercises every few weeks, so take advantage of it!

Edited by apachhe 2010-09-21 4:51 PM

Thank you all for your advice.  Last night I did 25 minutes which wasn't too bad, and am going to look for more info on crossfit and kettleball routines as suggested.  Not quite sure what crossfit is, but I'm sure there's tons of info online.

Have a wonderful day!
ADR

I superset near everything.  I find the "rest" between sets is what bores me.  So supersetting takes care of that, your always doing something.  And like everyone else said, change it up.  And you can get a good workout in quickly when supersetting so your done before you know it. 

Agreed.  Circuits are good, too.  Another little thing I've done in the past is to drop and do 20 crunches between every set of every workout.  Takes care of part of your core work without leaving you those couple of minutes to sit around and get bored while your muscles recover.

Circuits are great if you work out in a non traditional gym or at a really slow time.  Taking up 3+ stations will tick a lot of gym goers off.  There are a ton of high paced routines out there that will get you in and out in 45 minutes.

I've read this is a FANTASTIC way to get your metabolism going at a steady roar, too.

I joined a local bootcamp group. It is outdoors, it is fun, it rocks! I am feeling stroger than ever, I am working out smarter and my times on the run, bike and swim have improved tremendously.

Strength training at a gym bores the snot out of me unless I'm working with a partner or a trainer.  I hate doing it on my own.  Ick.

Do you have access to free weights at home?  If so, I would highly recommend Cathe workouts - she'll kick your tail in short order and there is very little opportunity for boredom!  The 'Hardcore' series gym style workouts are great as are the 4-day split workouts.  Her cardio is intense as well, but not really necessary if you are still SBR over the winter.

I recently went on trifuel.com website and found some very interesting ST circuits and how to make them up to get all muscle groups. I also ran across some combo exercises on this website: http://www./triathlonvideos.php/>
I am setting up about 5-6 different circuits to do during the offseason to keep me going. Both sources actually say that ST workouts should only have to be 30 minutes tops and to work on non-specific exercises to work on any muscle imbalances that you have to cut down on injuries.

Another option that I am particularly fond of is attending bootcamps.  They are a great way to mix in both strength and cardio.