I hate the gym

jseams1234 wrote: »

wunderkindking wrote: »

jseams1234 wrote: »

I hate the gym too... but you know what I hated more? Being out of shape, weak, and skinny. I'm not any of those things anymore and I'll keep doing what I need to do to keep it that way. Yeah, part of it vanity - but at least I'm honest about that part.

I'm going to say something really unpopular now, but IMO - anybody who says they enjoy the gym and the act of lifting weights isn't putting enough effort into it to matter. It's uncomfortable (often painful) on may levels and if it's not - if you don't have to mentally prepare for each set, if you can just coast through a session and go home feeling refreshed - well, you are probably wasting your time, will see zero results, and end up quitting for that reason. However, if you do it right it can be incredibly rewarding. That "reward" is what keeps me going back.

You. You do realize there are people who love things because they're hard and challenging and even physically painful, and the feeling of euphoria in aftermath of doing hard things is kind of addictive, right?

I don't enjoy lifting weights in particular but I DO enjoy other physically uncomfortable, difficult, mentally taxing things that even scare me. Because living through it feels FANTASTIC. Or the activity itself is just that fun for me anyway and the euphoria "BUT I DIDN"T DIE" thing just adds to it.

You do realize you are in the "Bodybuilding" section of the forums and that OP has expressed a desire to reveal his genetic "jacked" self? He's not going to get that by playing disc golf or muddying about randomly lifting 5# DB's in the gym and ignoring his diet. It's going to be hard and it's likely to be unpleasant.

I also did say that my opinion would be unpopular, particularly on MFP.

https://youtu.be/9rntl-L8HWc

Chieflrg wrote: »

jseams1234 wrote: »

I hate the gym too... but you know what I hated more? Being out of shape, weak, and skinny. I'm not any of those things anymore and I'll keep doing what I need to do to keep it that way. Yeah, part of it vanity - but at least I'm honest about that part.

I'm going to say something really unpopular now, but IMO - anybody who says they enjoy the gym and the act of lifting weights isn't putting enough effort into it to matter. It's uncomfortable (often painful) on may levels and if it's not - if you don't have to mentally prepare for each set, if you can just coast through a session and go home feeling refreshed - well, you are probably wasting your time, will see zero results, and end up quitting for that reason. However, if you do it right it can be incredibly rewarding. That "reward" is what keeps me going back.

No. Why I agree one shouldn't precisely coast 100%, one also does not to need to destroy themselves. There is established evidence showing benefits with both resistance training and cardio at a lower scale of intensity and exertion that what you are staking as needed for results. One can perform LISS style cardio and obtain great benefits. One can perform and gain both hypertrophy and strength with much much lower intensity than once thought.

One of the biggest blocks some of my lifters have to overcome is to the realization there is a better way to get results than walking out the door feeling they had to be uncomfortable, in pain at some point, posting hashtags RIP back with how much sweat was visualized or they didn't accomplish anything and won't see results and as you claim "probably wasting your time". Where in that a all or nothing style of training will yield some results, they are far in between optimal without proper load management and a ever increasing risk for injury which makes adherence lower and as well as results on average.

I'm not saying what you are doing for you is wrong, I'm saying it's not ideal for the majority of people and the evidence shows quite clearly we can benefit greatly under lesser conditions for short term and long term.

There is a sweet spot of useful stress that doesn't require you to dislike the challenge of training. I do realize not everyone enjoys or prefers to...I do feel with proper guidance and education many of those people could if more options revealed instead of the all or nothing mentality.

I will also add many people enjoy cardio or resistance training even if coasting because they have different goals than you possibly. Such as relieving anxiety, stress, depression, chronic pain, etc...all of these reasons are also why I personally enjoyed training for over 40 years. Training gave me a better quality of life than if I didn't regardless how hard I pushed.

I hope my words don't come off harsh but perhaps bringing some light to other people's points of view.

Have a nice day!