The Great Fitness Scam

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'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.

RGILLESP1 wrote: »

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?

AnnPT77 wrote: »

RGILLESP1 wrote: »

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.

Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »

gothchiq 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.

@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.

Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »

gothchiq 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).