What do you think about while you exercise?

TheMagicOneMikeD

- I focus on the muscle I'm trying to hit.
- I wonder if I'll be able to get out the last few reps without stopping for a second first when I'm really burning.
- On the last rep I'm thinking, "just a couple more."

Faebert

While working out this morning I thought about this mfp thread and then started thinking about what I was thinking about - too much thinking so early in the morning!!

Ninkasi

While doing yoga, all I think about is breath, focus, grounding and getting into the pose.

On the bike, it's a different story. Mostly I think about work and home and everything that needs to get done. A selection from this morning's ride:
-The ICP-MS service guy is coming next Fri--oh crap, order argon on Monday
-Grant meeting Wednesday, am I supposed to bring donuts?
-The cat needs to be clipped, his fur is getting tangled (super long haired cat)
-Georgia humidity is killing me, I need to move back out west
-Change the AC filter
-I wonder if the butcher has more of that jalapeno cheese bratwurst?
And then suddenly I'm sucking wind halfway up a long hill because I forgot to shift gears.

ashleyrebekah392

I shut out the world and think about my form, how great the burn feels, I picture what I hope my body will look like in a month if I just keep working this hard. Normally fitness related. When I run I have my music going and I honestly picture when I'm running up the hill at my house a hoard of walkers behind me and trying to outrun them and that Rick and Daryl from walking dead are waiting at the top lmao motivates me every time and I push so much harder. Or if I'm angry I just run. Don't think about anything besides me running as fast and hard as I can.

fishgutzy

Mostly stroke count. It becomes a meditation.
Sometimes, during this, a solution to a design issue will sneak through.

jenilla1

flippy1234 wrote: »

I think about what I am doing. If it's weights, I focus on my muscles and the movement. If I'm doing HIIT, I think about my strength and how to keep going. I think you get more of a workout when you focus on what you are doing...

Yes, I'm very "in the moment" as well. I'm paying attention to all the sensations, focusing on movements, etc. I'm very self-aware, so it's easy for me to know when to push and when to back off a little. Sometimes I get distracted by outside thoughts, but that's usually only when I'm doing something that isn't challenging, like a light jog or a walk. If I'm working hard (running, mountain biking, weight training) my mind is too busy managing my body to wander off, so I'm usually in the zone. I'm one of those sick freaks who really enjoys challenging physical activity, especially the really grueling stuff. I get "runner's high" as well, so maybe I'm just a junkie.

tk2222

FL_Hiker wrote: »

I'm a biologist so I often look at plants that we run by, today I noticed a ripe creeping cucumber among american beauty berry and muscadine grape vines. Not something you would want to eat ripened unless you dreamt of intestinal distress but perfectly edible apparently when green. I also run with my big crazy puppy so I'm always on the look out for obstacles we need to dodge, like little kids, other dogs, cyclists, walkers, etc. My mind is definitely active while running, I prefer to zone out if I could but it just isn't safe...

I'm a little like this but with cities, lol - I'm an urban planner, and whether that's what pushed me into the profession or that's what I get out of it, I can spend hours walking around a city and never be bored, so I've never found those 10k steps difficult to get in if I can make the time to go flaneur (the space, the people, the way people interact with the space, safety, pedestrian access, sense of street life, architecture, density, class, barely silent judgement of that parking-lot fronted 1.5 story 8 meter setback on a commercial-front street...)

On the other hand, I find being in the gym for weights a little tough, and its one exercise I just have to tell myself to get on with because I know its important to balance out muscle loss during calorie defecit, but find difficult to enjoy mentally, though I do like the physicality of it (unlike, say, running, which I don't enjoy physically or mentally.) I listen to podcasts while I swim. Yoga I usually manage to actually be mostly engaged with the form and focused on tracking whats going on with my body, but it does flee sometimes. I suck at focusing.

suibhan6

Back in the day when I swam at the Y, I could ultimately get into the ZONE and not think about anything at all. When I could use my treadmill for fast paced walking, I'd look at the old scenic calendar photos I'd posted in front of it, and envision myself hiking in those places... That was on the good days. On the bad days I'd be resentful of the high speed drivers who prevented me from using my own narrow street to walk on safely.

A lot of my preferred exercising was (and I still want it to be) gardening or lawn work. I mean, a gym if you have a yard should not always be a necessity - although now it will be for me due to physical issues. For two years I actually used a manual (truly manual, rotary) lawn mower. I just kept thinking, how I loved being out of doors! How I loved getting out at 7 am and no one was going to complain! Unfortunately that second year, it rained and rained every time I had the TIME to be out and doing this, and so I had to get a lawn service the third year and so on. BTW, it wasn't a small yard, and it had ups and downs slope-wise. I kept thinking how my garden and yard would be great, and enjoying physical exertion that yielded great things on other levels as well.

I'd be thinking about how great I felt, and that my yard and garden were going to be enjoyable as well!