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The Great Fitness Scam
Replies
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I think when people say they want a workout that's fun, what they really mean is that they want a workout that is varied and interesting. I prefer doing a variety of different things like battle ropes and medicine balls for cardio time, for example, rather than walking on a treadmill. I think there are a lot of people out there who don't know that there are more interesting ways to exercise besides the traditional repetitive tasks that so many people seem to default to. No one expects the gym to feel like a roller coaster at Disney World but it's pretty awesome to be able to workout in a way that doesn't become monotonous and boring. People are stuck in offices all day doing redundant crap and they need to be able to move around and shake things up with workouts in their free time to let off some steam.5
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"Find an exercise that you love" ... yeah I'd go for that... I like lifting weights and playing rugby.. hitting people (legally !!) on a rugby field and being part of a team or lifting that last rep makes me feel good... you can never discount the release of endorphins, dopamine and serotonin to lift your mood.
Every year, the great New Year fitness regime begins for thousands of people here in the UK and within weeks, it tapers off again to the long game gym users, the ones that put in the hard yards and are educated about fitness. The problem we have is that, as stated above in numerous posts, there is no "silver bullet" to getting that perfect beach body or whatever you're striving for... you HAVE to put the effort in and that's where the education comes into play. Im not sure how much the UK spends on fitness and fitness related activities but just buying a pair of trainers and going for a run or buying an elliptical machine for your spare room isn't going to cut it for the majority of people.3 -
Well, it was barely sub 200# and it was in the 1980s, but I was running 2 miles in 13:00 flat for the Army. At the time, my time for a 100% on the 2 mile run was 13:02.
I hovered between 190 and 195# and they were always on me to lose weight. But I was built like a 5'11" linebacker, and I'd max my APFT doing 70+ pushups 80+ situps and run my mile in about 13 flat.
I threw up almost every run, but I got a 300, which was the max you could get.
And no, it wasn't fun.magnusthenerd wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »magnusthenerd wrote: »Not sure how well one can get a buy in if people never find a way to actually enjoy the workout. Extrinsic motivation seems to be a rather weak motivator.
If I'm overgeneralizing and it is just we need to have people realistically accept some workouts are going to suck, but you might need to get through them anyway, sure.
I think part of the problem for fitness routines is with weight being such a problem, exercise and weight loss are interlinked, but weight loss adds a big component to the suck of any exercise. In a deficit, jogging for a mile can be a grinding chore. At maintenance, it can quickly become surprising how doable 10k, then 10mi becomes, with a certain bit of that runner's euphoria at the end - that part never seems to show up in deficits.
Not to mention that many forms of exercise feel easier or are more enjoyable when one is within a healthy weight range and at a decent level of fitness, at least in my experience.
Running at 155 pounds feels a lot different to me than running at 115.
When you're new to fitness, it's sometimes hard to understand that the specific way that it's hard won't be that way forever. When your body isn't used to moving a lot, it feels so awkward to move. Now that my body is used to moving, I still have hard workouts but they're not hard in the same way that getting basic fitness is hard.
I wouldn't know, if I ever ran at 155, it was before I was a teenager.
I do remember the worst run of my life was trying to get under a 10 minute mile and I was still around or over 200. I think I was 5-15 seconds off. I was sure I was going to puke in the bathroom at the store I went to after, and just barely kept it in.
In the 160s I didn't feel anything like that running a faster pace for 13 miles.
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I think when people say they want a workout that's fun, what they really mean is that they want a workout that is varied and interesting. I prefer doing a variety of different things like battle ropes and medicine balls for cardio time, for example, rather than walking on a treadmill. I think there are a lot of people out there who don't know that there are more interesting ways to exercise besides the traditional repetitive tasks that so many people seem to default to. No one expects the gym to feel like a roller coaster at Disney World but it's pretty awesome to be able to workout in a way that doesn't become monotonous and boring. People are stuck in offices all day doing redundant crap and they need to be able to move around and shake things up with workouts in their free time to let off some steam.
I finally got around to writing up my New Year resolutions. All but one are exercise related, all cardio: a bunch of hikes I want to do, some peaks to climb, mountain bike trails, etc. 😁3 -
I'm on a facebook group for an online workout programme. I don't do it at the moment as I manage to be constantly injured one way or another. I did in the past though. I'm considering leaving though because I'm so fed up with a large number of people there as this all seems to be about consuming for them: Trainer wears some noticeable clothes? Someone is bound to ask where to buy them. The programme offers a new fitness instrument, like resistance bands, now in a slightly different shade of pink, or something as stupid as a weighted vest, now in a new colour? Shout goes through group: oooooh, me need! It seems that in some communities you're only part of the whole if you consume, consume, consume, and then post photos of your sweaty self with the new gear.
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I think when people say they want a workout that's fun, what they really mean is that they want a workout that is varied and interesting. I prefer doing a variety of different things like battle ropes and medicine balls for cardio time, for example, rather than walking on a treadmill. I think there are a lot of people out there who don't know that there are more interesting ways to exercise besides the traditional repetitive tasks that so many people seem to default to. No one expects the gym to feel like a roller coaster at Disney World but it's pretty awesome to be able to workout in a way that doesn't become monotonous and boring. People are stuck in offices all day doing redundant crap and they need to be able to move around and shake things up with workouts in their free time to let off some steam.
This right here! I get bored easily and will slack off if I don't mix things up. Over the last 5 years, I have created exercise cards outlining exercises for each body part as well as compound movements, cardio options, etc. The day before my workouts, I will do a "mix and match" and plan my workout out in advance! That way, there is no hesitation in the gym trying to figure out what I am going to do. These cards were created due to investing in myself - spending money on a trainer for a while so I now know that there could be dozens of ways to work out my biceps, thighs, etc. I like trying new things so I am always on the lookout for variations.2 -
I think when people say they want a workout that's fun, what they really mean is that they want a workout that is varied and interesting. I prefer doing a variety of different things like battle ropes and medicine balls for cardio time, for example, rather than walking on a treadmill. I think there are a lot of people out there who don't know that there are more interesting ways to exercise besides the traditional repetitive tasks that so many people seem to default to. No one expects the gym to feel like a roller coaster at Disney World but it's pretty awesome to be able to workout in a way that doesn't become monotonous and boring. People are stuck in offices all day doing redundant crap and they need to be able to move around and shake things up with workouts in their free time to let off some steam.
The bolded is not exactly what makes my workouts fun, to me. Perhaps there's no universal definition of fun?
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My crummy perspective: People don't want to suffer. They look for "hacks" and "cheats" to get around it. Sorry, man. Life is pain. If it's worth it to take charge of your health, accept that some parts are gonna hurt and suck it up.2
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I think when people say they want a workout that's fun, what they really mean is that they want a workout that is varied and interesting. I prefer doing a variety of different things like battle ropes and medicine balls for cardio time, for example, rather than walking on a treadmill. I think there are a lot of people out there who don't know that there are more interesting ways to exercise besides the traditional repetitive tasks that so many people seem to default to. No one expects the gym to feel like a roller coaster at Disney World but it's pretty awesome to be able to workout in a way that doesn't become monotonous and boring. People are stuck in offices all day doing redundant crap and they need to be able to move around and shake things up with workouts in their free time to let off some steam.
The bolded is not exactly what makes my workouts fun, to me. Perhaps there's no universal definition of fun?
Yeah, to me varied workouts are pretty tedious. I don't like always thinking about how to change things up, it's mentally preoccupying and not in a good way.
I much prefer to do the same thing for longer periods of time, but with different visual inputs and degrees of difficulty. That's why running outside is such a perfect fit for me. And I'd still rather run inside on a treadmill than do a cardio workout that had a bunch of different moves, that's why things like Crossfit or step aerobics are so unfun for me. I feel like I never hit the "zone" that running provides, even when I'm working hard.5 -
My crummy perspective: People don't want to suffer. They look for "hacks" and "cheats" to get around it. Sorry, man. Life is pain. If it's worth it to take charge of your health, accept that some parts are gonna hurt and suck it up.
I totally agree.
People have to realize that they are not escaping pain by avoiding exercise, but are just delaying it. They can get usually get away with being sedentary into their late 30s and early 40s, but beyond that, they will start to feel a variety of pain that is far worse. Most middle-aged people who do not exercise and watch what they eat are experiencing all kinds of pain, mobility issues, energy issues, and need medical procedures and prescription drugs to get by. The pain of consistent exercise is trivial in comparison.5 -
Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »My crummy perspective: People don't want to suffer. They look for "hacks" and "cheats" to get around it. Sorry, man. Life is pain. If it's worth it to take charge of your health, accept that some parts are gonna hurt and suck it up.
I totally agree.
People have to realize that they are not escaping pain by avoiding exercise, but are just delaying it. They can get usually get away with being sedentary into their late 30s and early 40s, but beyond that, they will start to feel a variety of pain that is far worse. Most middle-aged people who do not exercise and watch what they eat are experiencing all kinds of pain, mobility issues, energy issues, and need medical procedures and prescription drugs to get by. The pain of consistent exercise is trivial in comparison.
Once again, I agree but disagree. :flowerforyou:
100%, 1000%, the price that my most inactive real-life age-mate (I'm 64) friends are paying for inactivity is a high price. There is physical pain, life limitations (limited walking/stairs-requiring entertainment like art fairs, music festivals, museums, stadiums for concerts or sports), expensive meds/doctors, needing to hire more services or depend on children/neighbors, poorer recovery from more frequent/common surgery, less hearty immune systems, more medications mean more side effects and unexpected consequences from combining, limitations on what they can eat/drink because of health conditions and meds, and more.
I still think that most people can get enough exercise to avoid that - or at least delay it significantly - without much suffering or actual pain, if they're smart about it.
I feel like some fitness enthusiasts find some motivation or reward in being tough enough to tolerate pain when they push themselves to their limits. That can be a fine thing, I don't oppose it; I get it, even. If nothing else, endorphins are fun; but I think there's more to that enjoyment of the extreme, psychologically, than just endorphins or other known neuro-chemical rewards. Repeating: That's not a personal criticism, it's just saying that I think there are individually different orientations to the question.
But I don't get the "people need to suffer" or what looks (to the casual observer) like pride about tolerating or even celebrating pain in the interests of fitness. I get that athletes, when we gather, have one-up conversations about the toughness of workouts and tests, how much we can tolerate, etc. Cool.
Feeling that pride and talking it up with workout buddies is one thing, celebrating it in general-population conversation is potentially adding discouragements to people who might consider being more active if we focused on the enjoyable aspects . . . especially in that, IMO, the true pain and suffereing is utterly optional.
To be more pointed: I also have age-mate friends who are routinely active, but frankly don't work all that hard. They're getting the overwhelming majority of the benefits that I see in active age-mate friends who do really push themselves to physically challenging and even painful points. Futher, there are friends my age who are long-term excellent athletes (former Div I NCAA athletes who stayed very active, for example) who are having negative consequences from all that lifelong hard-push working out. Are they better off than the inactive? Sure, absolutely. Better off than the sub-pain-threshold long-term active but not super hard-pushing group? I'm not too sure about that.11 -
My favorite line in the article - Eat food, not too much...
Thanks for posting OP!
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@AnnPT77 Your points match my thoughts so closely. I am very conscious about how I talk about running around non-active people. While my running friends may love to share stories about hitting the wall, chafing in intimate areas, extreme muscle pain, and close brushes with heat exhaustion, these things all make running sound . . . well, pretty terrible. And honestly, none of those are the things that got me into running, they all came to be "enjoyable" much, much later.
What initially got me into running: the opportunity to spend time deeply appreciating the outdoors, the relative affordability/flexibility of the activity, the community found in local running groups, the fun of setting goals based on my own current ability and meeting them. If someone asks me about running, these are the things that I talk about and it's what I try to model about the sport. When people know I've run a race and I get asked about it, I'm the one talking about the beauty of the course, the enthusiasm of the crowds, the fun of the travel, how happy I was with my time, etc.6 -
Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »My crummy perspective: People don't want to suffer. They look for "hacks" and "cheats" to get around it. Sorry, man. Life is pain. If it's worth it to take charge of your health, accept that some parts are gonna hurt and suck it up.
I totally agree.
People have to realize that they are not escaping pain by avoiding exercise, but are just delaying it. They can get usually get away with being sedentary into their late 30s and early 40s, but beyond that, they will start to feel a variety of pain that is far worse. Most middle-aged people who do not exercise and watch what they eat are experiencing all kinds of pain, mobility issues, energy issues, and need medical procedures and prescription drugs to get by. The pain of consistent exercise is trivial in comparison.
Once again, I agree but disagree. :flowerforyou:
100%, 1000%, the price that my most inactive real-life age-mate (I'm 64) friends are paying for inactivity is a high price. There is physical pain, life limitations (limited walking/stairs-requiring entertainment like art fairs, music festivals, museums, stadiums for concerts or sports), expensive meds/doctors, needing to hire more services or depend on children/neighbors, poorer recovery from more frequent/common surgery, less hearty immune systems, more medications mean more side effects and unexpected consequences from combining, limitations on what they can eat/drink because of health conditions and meds, and more.
I still think that most people can get enough exercise to avoid that - or at least delay it significantly - without much suffering or actual pain, if they're smart about it.
I feel like some fitness enthusiasts find some motivation or reward in being tough enough to tolerate pain when they push themselves to their limits. That can be a fine thing, I don't oppose it; I get it, even. If nothing else, endorphins are fun; but I think there's more to that enjoyment of the extreme, psychologically, than just endorphins or other known neuro-chemical rewards. Repeating: That's not a personal criticism, it's just saying that I think there are individually different orientations to the question.
But I don't get the "people need to suffer" or what looks (to the casual observer) like pride about tolerating or even celebrating pain in the interests of fitness. I get that athletes, when we gather, have one-up conversations about the toughness of workouts and tests, how much we can tolerate, etc. Cool.
Feeling that pride and talking it up with workout buddies is one thing, celebrating it in general-population conversation is potentially adding discouragements to people who might consider being more active if we focused on the enjoyable aspects . . . especially in that, IMO, the true pain and suffereing is utterly optional.
To be more pointed: I also have age-mate friends who are routinely active, but frankly don't work all that hard. They're getting the overwhelming majority of the benefits that I see in active age-mate friends who do really push themselves to physically challenging and even painful points. Futher, there are friends my age who are long-term excellent athletes (former Div I NCAA athletes who stayed very active, for example) who are having negative consequences from all that lifelong hard-push working out. Are they better off than the inactive? Sure, absolutely. Better off than the sub-pain-threshold long-term active but not super hard-pushing group? I'm not too sure about that.
I don't define "pain" as necessarily "OMG, I am suffering immensely every time I work out!", but more the discomfort of exertion from exercising. I would lump fatigue and boredom in with that. The grind of consistently exercising is painful/uncomfortable on a lot of levels.
And yeah, there is a whole class of people who are former athletes who sacrificed their future health to perform at a high level in their youth. A lot of high school and college athletes I know ended up with bad knees, backs, and shoulders and have limited their mobility permanently.0 -
Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »My crummy perspective: People don't want to suffer. They look for "hacks" and "cheats" to get around it. Sorry, man. Life is pain. If it's worth it to take charge of your health, accept that some parts are gonna hurt and suck it up.
I totally agree.
People have to realize that they are not escaping pain by avoiding exercise, but are just delaying it. They can get usually get away with being sedentary into their late 30s and early 40s, but beyond that, they will start to feel a variety of pain that is far worse. Most middle-aged people who do not exercise and watch what they eat are experiencing all kinds of pain, mobility issues, energy issues, and need medical procedures and prescription drugs to get by. The pain of consistent exercise is trivial in comparison.
Once again, I agree but disagree. :flowerforyou:
100%, 1000%, the price that my most inactive real-life age-mate (I'm 64) friends are paying for inactivity is a high price. There is physical pain, life limitations (limited walking/stairs-requiring entertainment like art fairs, music festivals, museums, stadiums for concerts or sports), expensive meds/doctors, needing to hire more services or depend on children/neighbors, poorer recovery from more frequent/common surgery, less hearty immune systems, more medications mean more side effects and unexpected consequences from combining, limitations on what they can eat/drink because of health conditions and meds, and more.
I still think that most people can get enough exercise to avoid that - or at least delay it significantly - without much suffering or actual pain, if they're smart about it.
I feel like some fitness enthusiasts find some motivation or reward in being tough enough to tolerate pain when they push themselves to their limits. That can be a fine thing, I don't oppose it; I get it, even. If nothing else, endorphins are fun; but I think there's more to that enjoyment of the extreme, psychologically, than just endorphins or other known neuro-chemical rewards. Repeating: That's not a personal criticism, it's just saying that I think there are individually different orientations to the question.
But I don't get the "people need to suffer" or what looks (to the casual observer) like pride about tolerating or even celebrating pain in the interests of fitness. I get that athletes, when we gather, have one-up conversations about the toughness of workouts and tests, how much we can tolerate, etc. Cool.
Feeling that pride and talking it up with workout buddies is one thing, celebrating it in general-population conversation is potentially adding discouragements to people who might consider being more active if we focused on the enjoyable aspects . . . especially in that, IMO, the true pain and suffereing is utterly optional.
To be more pointed: I also have age-mate friends who are routinely active, but frankly don't work all that hard. They're getting the overwhelming majority of the benefits that I see in active age-mate friends who do really push themselves to physically challenging and even painful points. Futher, there are friends my age who are long-term excellent athletes (former Div I NCAA athletes who stayed very active, for example) who are having negative consequences from all that lifelong hard-push working out. Are they better off than the inactive? Sure, absolutely. Better off than the sub-pain-threshold long-term active but not super hard-pushing group? I'm not too sure about that.
I don't define "pain" as necessarily "OMG, I am suffering immensely every time I work out!", but more the discomfort of exertion from exercising. I would lump fatigue and boredom in with that. The grind of consistently exercising is painful/uncomfortable on a lot of levels.
And yeah, there is a whole class of people who are former athletes who sacrificed their future health to perform at a high level in their youth. A lot of high school and college athletes I know ended up with bad knees, backs, and shoulders and have limited their mobility permanently.
IMO, looking at function and health in older age, people can get like 99% of the benefits from 1% of the discomfort, fatigue, boredom. At most 1%, IMO.
DIscomfort/fatigue/boredom (let alone actual pain) is mostly optional, maybe entirely optional. When I think about exercise, I don't generally think about discomfort, fatigue or boredom. I think about feeling strong, energized, revitalized, stimulated, intellectually engaged - it feels like succeeding, in some ineffable way that I find really wonderful. I think about enjoying the outdoors, my rowing buddies, hearing the birds on the bike trail, feeling my heart beat in my chest and my lungs working (OhSoGood from my perspective as a cancer survivor - that's what alive feels like). This not posing; it's what I think of, when I think of exercise.
I find the exertion of exercising exhilarating . . . including working right up to HRmax (tested, not age estimated
) and seeing how long I can hold it. (I admit I describe that extreme as something like "exhausting, but oddly exhilarating" under most circumstances, not just as "exhilarating". ).
We each have our paradigms for this stuff. Yours is different from mine. I'm not arguing that you should feel differently, not at all, let along approach fitness any differently. That "triumphing over difficulty" paradigm is a good one, and can be really motivating. It can help a person feel stronger mentally as well as be stronger physically. It's good. And, as I've said before, I'm pretty sure you're fitter than I. Serious fitness is a good thing, a great accomplishment, takes strength of character.
But I think it's not the only way to conceptualize being active. . . and I think the pain paradigm is kind of unhelpful, when it comes to encouraging others to become more active. Which is not your job, or my job, not at all. I'm just making an observation.
And back at observing my friends: Some of my friends in their 60s and 70s go to classes at the Y (spin, "stronger longer", yoga, barre, whatever), ride their bikes with the grandkids in summer, take walks in nice weather with their friends, swim once a week or so . . . fairly consistently, and some of them don't ever really work very hard at all at those things. They keep going, but stay pretty comfy. They're not as fit as the hard-core athletes, but they're pretty close to as capable at doing the things that all of us want to be able to do in day to day life (and they're no more impaired than the former top-level folks, on average, though the specific impairments may differ).6 -
interesting points in last few posts
I agree that presenting excercise as non stop super fun is unrealistic and counterproductive but so is the opposite extreme of everything having to be a sort of extreme no pain no gain thing.
The Australian guidelines recomend getting some regular excercise, which they define as 30 minutes low impact.
eg walking - 5 days out of 7 IRRC
They then point out it doesnt have to be continuous - ie 2 x 15 minute walks will do just as well.
Most people can do that without hitting any walls, pushing to the limit etc.
It wont turn you into a super fit athlete - but it will give you cardiovascular and orthopaedic benifits.
and of course most people are far more likely to do that on an ongoing basis than train for any marathons - especially if the excercise is made fun, and accountable, - ie by walking a dog, joining a walking group etc.
The Heart Foundation has a network of walking groups for exactly this reason.6 -
I have a bad knee, so when I overdo activity, there is often discomfort. (It's only overdoing due to my knee. I'm no Cheryl Strayed in "Wild," lol.) But I tolerate the discomfort due to the exhilaration I get from hiking in the woods.0
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More than anything, it is the lack of discipline and will or passion that even after buying expensive gym memberships, joining boutique classes, or purchasing home gym or a bike people re reluctant to exercise.
Will can be enhanced by as already discussed, choosing a workout that excites you, you have fun to do and want to get every morning with the passion to start the day by it. Set a routine, get a grooving and motivating music, buy new workout shoes that may inspire you and hit it. Do not think it as a way to shred weights, just do it for active day, to be fresh. Workout released endorphins then will make you happy, make you positive and within few weeks your body will show the signs of getting healthy.
Discipline is a long term goal, really difficult to achieve. This happens with me. I start out with complete passion, will and dedication but then after may be about 9-10 months, it just starts getting boring. That is the most difficult phase to overcome and once it is achieved no one can ever stop you to exercise. I guess marketers and gyms are working on many techniques and technology to help go on like gym management software help show yearly improvement that motivates us, wearables like i watch, garmin, fitbit to track your progress and make you fitness conscious. Online fitness trends are also a good help to get change but continue to exercise in various forms and fitness technique.
So just find the right combination of discipline and passion, and be fit healthy and happy
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i think everyone is different in their approach to "exercise" whats fun for some is torture for others... ultimately the Fitness industry is making a killing off convincing overweight out of shape people, that in 3 short weeks you can look like them, just do this just buy this supplement and/or exercise plan bla bla we've all heard it and seen it.
I thought the gym membership thing was pretty spot on - most gyms have way more yearly memberships than people that actually go, because its easy to buy a yearly membership, go for a week and then decide its crap because without structure the gym can be rough.
Personally i dont think most people care about exercising or their health, but they feel pressured and then tricked by easy solutions and thats the worst part about the fitness industry - the dishonesty and guilt trips...1
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