Why You Should Give Yourself ‘Crappy’ Rewards for Your Fitness Goals

When you think about rewarding yourself for hitting a fitness milestone, your mind probably jumps to something extravagant: a new wardrobe, a spa day, or maybe a fancy dinner. But what if I told you that the most effective rewards for maintaining your exercise habits might be far less glamorous—and that’s precisely why they work?

The fitness industry has long promoted extrinsic rewards as motivation boosters. Win a competition, earn a prize, get recognized on a leaderboard. These external incentives can certainly spark initial enthusiasm, but research reveals a troubling pattern: they often backfire in the long term[2][3]. Understanding why “crappy” rewards—simple, intrinsic ones—might actually serve your fitness journey better requires looking at what science tells us about motivation and habit formation.

The Undermining Effect: When Rewards Work Against You

One of the most counterintuitive discoveries in behavioral psychology is the undermining effect, which shows that extrinsic rewards can sometimes undermine intrinsic motivation[3]. When you focus primarily on external incentives—cash prizes, trophies, or high-end rewards—something unexpected happens: your genuine enjoyment of the activity itself diminishes.

Consider this scenario: Your gym launches a monthly challenge with free workout clothes as the prize. You’re pumped. You show up five times a week, crushing every workout. But when the challenge ends and you didn’t win? Your motivation evaporates[2]. The problem wasn’t the challenge itself—it was that your motivation was entirely external. Once the external reward disappeared, so did your drive.

A 2010 neuroimaging study demonstrated this phenomenon at the brain level, finding less activation in the brain’s reward network when participants received monetary rewards based on performance[3]. Your brain literally responds less enthusiastically to activities when external rewards dominate the picture. This is the opposite of what we’d intuitively expect, yet it’s consistently demonstrated across research.

The Overjustification Effect: Too Much of a Good Thing

Related to the undermining effect is the overjustification effect, which describes our tendency to become less intrinsically motivated to partake in an activity that we used to enjoy when offered an external incentive[4]. Essentially, when you over-justify your exercise behavior with external rewards, your brain reinterprets why you’re actually exercising. Instead of “I do this because I enjoy it,” your mind shifts to “I do this because I want the reward.”

This cognitive reframing is subtle but powerful. Once your brain makes that shift, removing the external reward removes your primary motivation. You’ve essentially trained yourself to exercise for the wrong reasons.

Why ‘Crappy’ Rewards Actually Work Better

So what makes a reward “crappy”—and why is that good? The most effective rewards for fitness are often intrinsic: they’re simple, immediately connected to the activity itself, and rooted in genuine enjoyment rather than external status or material gain.

Positive intrinsic rewards—like enjoyment and satisfaction from physical activity itself—are more strongly associated with PA habit strength over time[1]. When your reward system is built around how the exercise makes you feel rather than what you can win, you’re tapping into sustainable motivation.

Examples of “crappy” rewards might include:
– A satisfying post-workout smoothie you genuinely enjoy
– Ten minutes of guilt-free relaxation
– The simple pleasure of checking off a workout on your calendar
– A relaxing bath or shower
– Time doing something you love that isn’t fitness-related

These rewards aren’t impressive. They won’t impress your friends. But they work because they’re intrinsically rewarding and directly tied to your wellbeing, not to external validation.

The Science of Habit Formation

The foundation of lasting fitness success isn’t willpower or impressive rewards—it’s habit. The key to creating an exercise habit lies in combining a conditioned cue and intrinsic reward[6]. When you pair a consistent trigger (like your morning alarm or arriving at the gym) with a simple, genuinely pleasurable reward, your brain begins to automate the behavior.

Research also suggests that the degree of experiencing both positive and negative intrinsic rewards from PA will be positively associated with subsequent PA habit strength and PA frequency[1]. In other words, rewards work best when they’re intrinsic—when they come from within the activity itself or from immediate, simple pleasures connected to it.

The Bottom Line

The fitness industry profits from selling you the dream of impressive external rewards. But your brain doesn’t work that way. It responds better to simple, intrinsic rewards that reinforce your genuine enjoyment of movement and the immediate positive feelings exercise creates.

This January, as you set fitness goals, resist the urge to promise yourself something flashy. Instead, identify the small, simple rewards that genuinely make you happy—the “crappy” ones that cost nothing and feel authentically satisfying. Pair these with consistent cues, focus on how exercise makes you feel, and watch as your fitness habits transform from something you force yourself to do into something you actually want to maintain.

The most powerful reward isn’t the one everyone sees. It’s the one that keeps you coming back.

Original source: Lifehacker – Why You Should Give Yourself ‘Crappy’ Rewards for Your Fitness Goals