Some people love exercise, some people hate exercise, but the commonality between the two is that all people need exercise. Whether they enjoy it or not is a different story.
I have a decent number of readers, audience members, and others who say that they hate exercise, so I have to come up with creative solutions to get them to take their medicine.
In this article, Ill show you how to exercise when you hate it. Well go through a number of different strategies.
In no particular order:
Idea #1: Find Something You Like
Is there any physical activity you enjoyed when you were younger? Did you dance? Play basketball? Soccer? Even play tag or cops and robbers when you were a kid? Chances are it would be just as fun for you now, as an adult. Case in point, I used to run the fitness program for the staff of the Richmond Hill Chamber of Commerce. The CEO at the time, Leslie Whidden, who was 52 years old said that when she was a kid, she enjoyed skipping rope, and playing double Dutch. So she gathered a bunch of friends in her neighbourhood (all around the same age), and started playing double Dutch with them.
If you want to find an activity you like, just Google [NAME OF ACTIVITY] [YOUR CITY]. For instance, if you like playing tennis, and you live in Toronto, type in Tennis Toronto. Although you might not find double Dutch in your city
Alternatively, if you werent a particularly active kid, maybe this is the time to go exploring. Try different physical activities, but give them a fair shot: 1-4 weeks each. Never played basketball before? Join a basketball team for beginning adults. This way, the other people on the team are of the same skill level as you, and same age as you. Or, get a friend who likes that sport to teach you one on one.
Gave basketball a fair shot for a few weeks, and still dont like it? No problem. Move on to something else. Maybe soccer. Maybe tennis. Maybe hiking, or something else.
In my mind two of the best activities to do for adults are rock climbing and some kind of wrestling (like jiu jitsu, for instance). The reason that those two stand out in my mind is that theyre the only two that can truly be considered to strengthen you. The others may be fun, but they dont build strength. Endurance, yes. Strength, no. Basketball, tennis, and soccer dont make you stronger. Rock climbing and wrestling (like jiu jitsu, or similar styles) build both endurance and strength. And if you think Im too old for that, think again.
I go to the occasional rock climbing gym, and its not uncommon to see people in their 50s climbing. And its not like they started in their 20s, either. Just an activity they went to as part of a friends group, or with their kids, enjoyed it, and stuck with it.
Same with jiu jitsu. Both men and women who are 50+ regularly attend these classes, and grapple with others their age. The instructors are particularly attentive to the older folks, to prevent injuries. They have a very strong vested interest in keeping their 50+ members injury-free. Because an injured member doesnt attend classes, and revenue drops.
Suspend your disbelief, and try these activities.
Idea #2: Have a Goal
I distinguish working out from training. Working out is aimlessly moving around, looking to break a sweat. Training, on the other hand is purposeful exercise that is intended to help you reach a certain goal.
Personally, I hate fitness classes and bootcamps (I see the value in them professionally, but I personally dont enjoy them), because theyre just workouts. Theyre not training sessions. Theres no goal, you dont really chase progress. You just show up, move around, sweat, and go home. Whether you got stronger, gained endurance, became more flexible is irrelevant.
But when you have a goal, training becomes fun. Seeing yourself change, improve and get stronger is motivating. Working hard with no goal, and no progress is quite de-motivating.
Your goals are totally personal. For instance, one of our clients started training with us at 59, and for her 60th birthday, she wanted to deadlift 115 pounds. Awesome! Was she motivated? Yep. Did she do it? Yes.
Another one of our clients, Lynn, started working with us when she was 69. For her 70th birthday, her goal was to do a 70km hike with a 35-pound backpack. She did it.
Another one of our clients, Cliff, was already a former Boston marathoner, but wanted to get a lot stronger. I asked him how much do you want to deadlift? His answer: 5 pounds more than you. Jerk Im not sure if he realized that I was already deadlifting over 400 pounds at that time.
Designer: Roni Shae.
Idea #3: Short Workouts
If the idea of doing hour-long workouts is dreadful to you, try doing 5-10-minute workouts. Look at it like brushing your teeth nobody wakes up in the morning, excited to brush their teeth. But they do it anyway (I hope). Same with exercise. You might not like it, but its necessary for good health. Whats not essential is the time it doesnt have to be an hour.
A 5-10-minute workout is better than a 0-minute workout.
What can you do in 5-10 minutes? Plenty!
Theres an entire system of exercise called Tabata, thats literally 4 minutes. You do an exercise as much as you can for 20 seconds. Then you rest 10 seconds. And repeat 7 more times.
You can also just pick just 1-2 exercises (like squats, pushups, etc.) per day, and see how many times you can do it in 5-10 minutes. Try to beat that next time.
So get rid of the all or none mentality of I either do a 1-hour workout, or its not worth it. The irony of all or none is that despite striving for all, more often than not, you get none.
But if your goal is only 5-10 minutes, youll hit that goal way more often than if your goal is 1 hour.
Idea #4: Bodyweight Workouts
If your gripe with exercise is that you dont like lifting weights, no biggie. There are other ways to get stronger besides lifting weights. One example is bodyweight training (or whats often called calisthenics.). Personally, after having done powerlifting for 12 years (5 competitively, and 7 not competitively), after my last powerlifting competition (in November 2017), I havent lifted any weights. None. Zero. Zilch. I just got sick of lifting weights.
But I still wanted to get stronger. So I switched my entire routine to bodyweight training. Right now, Im enjoying that more than I did lifting weights. Its fun for me working on skills like planches, front levers, human flags, and others. Likewise, some of our clients who dont like lifting weights do quite enjoy attaining mastery over their own body with bodyweight exercises. Its just cool, fun, rewarding and motivating to see yourself doing things you could never do before.
Idea #5: Hire a Personal Trainer
Come on, you knew I had to throw that one in there. Obviously its my career and my business, so I make a living doing it, and Im VERY biased. However, having done this for 14 years so far, Ive seen way too many people who previously hated exercise, and are now actually enjoying the process of it. Not because of some end goal like weight loss or muscle gain, but they enjoy exercise in and of itself.
A good trainer will ask targeted questions to figure out what motivates you and what you find enjoyable, and will tailor your program based on that, and foster in you a feeling of progress and accomplishment. After all, theres more than 1 way to achieve a goal. Unfortunately, a bad trainer will insist that their way is the only way to achieve a goal, and this type of trainer turns off more people from exercise than they help.
To put it simply, a good trainer makes their programs client-centric. A bad trainer makes their clients program-centric.
Fortunately, having worked with enough people who at first didnt enjoy exercise, and saw it as a chore, and figuring out how to gently instill in them a love of exercise, without imposing our own biases on them, weve been able to nurture them into a lifestyle that incorporate more movement. If youd like to chat about the possibility of this for you, just email me with the words I Hate Exercise in the subject line, and lets see if we can work together.
