> What keeps fit people going to the gym on a regular basis isn't wearing their running shoes to bed at night. It's discipline and accountability.
There is an alternative, less resistant path which I believe is more sustainable and better for the soul... find something you love that involves exercise, not much discipline is needed once you do, because you probably wont be able to stop yourself from doing it when it's something you look forward to - which in a way is "wearing your running shoes to bed", it's passion.
Something which is not exercise for the sake of exercise, i.e not "going to the gym", it must be more mentally rewarding and stimulating somehow. That doesn't mean team sports either, there is more to life, in fact I'd recommend avoiding team sports because then you are more likely to have more control over when and where you can do your activity. Examples: rock climbing, mountain biking, sailing, surfing, skating, skiing. You can do these types of activities with friends, and make friends too, and they can take you all over the world, or at least all over your country - so they are pretty good for the soul ;)
Discipline is a useful ability, but you can only apply it effectively so many places in your life, and you wont be able to keep it up forever. Save it for when you really need it to fix something - but health is not a fix, it's a lifestyle.
I know a number of older/retired people who are in good health into their 70s and 80s. None of them "do exercise" in the sense of going to the gym, but all of them do sports/activity of some form and keep moving. They all walk places rather than taking the car (they have the time) and they do things like biking long distances with friends or playing tennis or badminton. If you're like one I know (84) you walk two miles each way to play badminton with your friends.
Sure there are health benefits, but they all do these things because of the intrinsic enjoyment and satisfaction.
Once my health is good enough to start running again I'll get back to running 20-30km a week, not for the health benefits, but because I get enjoyment from running in the countyside with a podcast on. I run because I love running. I walk a lot because I love to walk and more.
I want to be fit so I can run and walk, rather than the other way round, and I think that's the best long-term way to stay fit an healthy.
>Examples: rock climbing, mountain biking, sailing, surfing, skating, skiing.
Doing those every day sounds both expensive and an organizational nightmare.
I love skiing and i do it every few years but I cant rely upon it for exercise.
I tried badminton / frisbee in the park but that still needs geographically close, willing partners who are willing to exert themselves with matching schedules and good weather.
In the end i solved the motivation/availability problem by being 25 seconds away from a reliable heavy HIIT cardio + anerobic workout - having a rowing machine at home. It's overall less fun than skiing perhaps but the barrier to entry being negligible makes all the difference.
:D thanks for the illustrative insight. I don't have much experience with that one, but can recommend rock climbing, which I've been doing for most of my life, it exercises pretty much everything. As something that demands good power to weight ratio you tend to drop the useless stuff.
This can be quite difficult to sustain over the long run for a variety of reasons. First, these kinds of hobbies are quite time-consuming. Going mountain biking or outdoor rock climbing is likely to consume an entire weekend at least every time you do it. It's difficult to just do an hour a day every day. Second, you need consistent access to the places where it can be done. Live in Los Angeles? Great, you can surf, ski, climb Joshua Tree, thru-hike the Pacific Crest trail, mountain bike in the San Gabriels, all within an hour's drive. Live in Kansas City, now what?
There's also long term wear and tear. I've been a very historically active person and did a lot of these things. Outdoor rock climbing, open water swimming, bicycling, thru hiking, summitting <18,000 ft mountains in one day. But I'm really not sure which of those things I can still do. I've got ten screws in my spine now. Carrying around a pack and getting stuck on a mountain is not good. Bicycling really hurts. I developed some kind of elbow bursitis that won't go away no matter what and 20 minutes on a rock wall and my arm is absolutely throbbing now, for days. There doesn't seem to be anything I can do to stop it.
Lifting, on the other hand, gives you near infinite options to isolate single joints in arbitrary planes of motion, in a controlled and micro-loadable manner, which makes it possible to work pretty much anything safely and work around just about any injury. I'd like to still do open-water swimming, which I don't think would hurt me, but I no longer live near any swimmable bodies of water. But I still have a garage and can put weights in it.
I've been managing to sustain climbing for over 20 years, i can fit a couple hours in at an indoor climbing wall in the winter, or go to various locations outdoors, local and far, depending on available time... yes sometimes I do weekend trips, sometimes week trips, but when you love it, you are happy to spend more time doing it because it's fun, you don't consider it time lost, you consider it time well spent and return home refreshed, satisfied, not merely "exercised".
It's true not each possible activity is going to be convenient or practical to everyone, but there will be enough that intersect your life circumstances that you can find something... but I feel on average, most people here are going to benefit from trying something a bit more adventurous and getting out into nature, if only for the life experience. Weights is very convenient but doesn't give you any of that.
> There's also long term wear and tear. I've been a very historically active person and did a lot of these things. Outdoor rock climbing, open water swimming, bicycling, thru hiking, summitting <18,000 ft mountains in one day. But I'm really not sure which of those things I can still do.
This is a real concern, once you become passionate about such a sport it's quite easy to over do it (and I have), but I'd argue climbing is one of many viable long term sports provided you take care of yourself. There are lots of "silver crimpers" in the climbing world which shows it can be done. Injury prevention in these more niche activities is also an emerging area, for climbing specifically i'd check out Dave McLeod excellent books... but this is only relevant when you are really pushing the activity, a lot of fun and good exercise can be had without risking injury from just rambling up some easy routes... That's what I aspire to in old age, to continue moving and having fun in new places. I think this probably transfers to most other actives too, so long as you find them intrinsically fun, you should be able to continue to do them without pushing yourself to the limit 100% of the time.
> I've got ten screws in my spine now. Carrying around a pack and getting stuck on a mountain is not good. Bicycling really hurts. I developed some kind of elbow bursitis that won't go away no matter what and 20 minutes on a rock wall and my arm is absolutely throbbing now, for days. There doesn't seem to be anything I can do to stop it.
By the way sorry i completely skipped over these problems in my sibling comment, i realise that probably came off as insensitive and dismissive. I'm really sorry you're in that position, I was too focused on the more general advice.
These kinds of chronic injuries are sometimes unavoidable, and sometimes they are avoidable but very difficult to spot or know about before it's too late.. I suppose it's a risk, and some people are simply luckier than others. However some chronic injuries can be remedied if the source of the issue is in how you approach your sport, rather than a more permanent issue.
Shoulder, elbow and finger injuries and pain are extremely common in long term climbers, and can usually be substantially improved or eliminated by improving your technique and form. I would highly recommend reading Dave McLeods book on injury prevention. It's the very opposite of a quick fix book and can be quite dense in places, but it's also enlightening and completely destroys the fallacy that these types of sports are only for the young - in short, you are always hurting your body in some way when doing exercise, you were just less aware of it when younger and had a larger sink before it became apparent, when some people reach the limit of that sink they give up, others find ways to continue. More generally If you can manage the rate of stress with the rate of recovery, then you can establish an equilibrium and it's possible to safely continue as you get older, I'm still learning this (will probably always be learning this) and trying to figure out how to be more aware of different aspects of my body and the hidden stresses it's putting up with.
Even if it's not climbing you are interested in continuing, there is a lot to learn about the deficiencies in more niche sports in general from this book and Dave's research.
> then you are more likely to have more control over when and where you can do your activity.
For me (also an unsporting nerd who came to exercise in midlife), having less control is actually a benefit: because I've got a booked timeslot with my PT, I have to go or it's embarrasing as well as a sunk cost. If I give myself control over when I go it's too easy for it to be mañana. Pre commitment is a real thing.
I would suggest that perhaps you have not found the thing you love to do yet?
You could always dump your PT for a few weeks and spend the money on booking some taster activities to try to find something... the initial booking still forces an initial commitment to get you to try ;) even if you don't find something on the first round it's a good experience to try out different things and meet new people... I still do this occasionally even though I have a couple activities i'm pretty addicted to, one i've been doing for over 2 decades.
> There is an alternative, less resistant path which I believe is more sustainable and better for the soul... find something you love that involves exercise, not much discipline is needed once you do, because you probably wont be able to stop yourself from doing it when it's something you look forward to - which in a way is "wearing your running shoes to bed", it's passion.
Unfortunately, I don’t like going out and I don’t have any outdoor activities or sports I like. So the only thing I’ve got is ensuring I do some workout at home and keep the rings on my smartwatch closed. This is also a bit easier to find motivation for when you find external/other situations/experiences scary on the health side.
> Examples: rock climbing, mountain biking, sailing, surfing, skating, skiing.
I’d have to travel considerably far to even try any of these. :(
I did this with biking years ago and I don't regret any second of it. It relaxes me in the morning, it does the same in the evening. During warm months it's all pleasure, during colder months it's mostly the way to work and back (or an equivalent in the opposite direction when I WFH).
The only drawback is that although the muscles in the lower part of the body seem like made of steel, the upper part is definitely weaker, so a while ago I started to do pushups as a kind of game: can I ever do 100 pushups in one go? The first step was to make 50 pushups daily and to gradually increase it. I can now do ca. 20 pushups and I'm very proud of it (I could barely do 7 at the beginning).
I also do pushups to balance out climbing, because although climbing works all the muscles fairly well, it over develops the back slightly. Even though I'm pretty anti-gym, i think body weight exercises are great, because you can pretty much do them anywhere at any time and they tend to target a broader range of muscles unlike gym exercises.
The one thing I learned about push-ups recently is how we have a tendency to get tripped up by the measurement fallacy... i mean how else do you measure it other than how many right? The thing is that if you optimise for quantity you will actually end up with bad form and be cheating by using momentum. If you goal is to actually improve your body somehow then you start focusing on form and control, which can be a little bit demoralizing at first because you will no doubt be back squarely in the <10 range, but you will have abs of steel if you keep it up :P
Sounds like great progress. Friendly reminder to also train the back side of your body too. Otherwise, the office work and the pull ups will pull your shoulders forward which can cause problems in the long-run. Given that you got so far with the push ups, I’m sure you can also find a way to do some back work
Totally agree. Motivation is fickle so it really cannot be relied on. There are many ways to be active. Even if you do want to "go to the gym" there are ways to make it easier - so you need less motivation - and more enjoyable so it is a positive experience.
That being said, a trainer can help get you to a specific goal extremely well, and help you kick start the "get to a point of liking it" stage.
You'd be surprised how many introverted people do social dancing. And the bar is usually very low. So, not being a long time dancer, musically gifted, etc, is seldom a problem.
As someone who is pretty involved in social dance communities, I agree. The bar is pretty much: don't be a creep, don't injure anyone. Then if you're at least a little bit friendly you'll be welcomed.
The only downside (for some) is that scheduling can be inflexible, and it's usually an evening activity so not great for early birds.
Too much emphasis is put on organised exercise. I think it's an American thing, where nobody seems to walk anywhere.
Better advice is to build more functional "exercise" into your day-to-day life. This is where real lifestyle change happens without you really knowing it.
Take the stairs, walk to the shops, cycle to work (where possible), household chores that involve getting on your hands and knees and breaking a sweat, do DIY/gardening (why people pay to go to the gym and deadlift, then e.g. happily pay someone to move a load of soil around the backyard always confuses/amazes me).
All this "exercise" helps, especially if you are coming from a sedentary lifestyle but you also really need exercise where you will elevate your heartrate and be close to running out of breath. Also known as Zone 2 (or higher) cardio.
The real difference though is American cities blossomed with the same arc automobile came into fruition.
I just recently got back from Germany and the primary thing I noticed about their public transportation infrastructure is that most of it is using right of ways that have been in place for… hundreds of years.
Driving in America is an unfortunate necessity in the vast majority of places (The minority being the oldest coastal cities) and that annoys me greatly, but it’s the reality of it.
I do choose to live downtown so I can walk or bike. But those are my options :/
This is often repeated, but it misses the full story.
I myself used to believe that to be the case, but fairly recently learned that many European cities used to have significantly more car infrastructure and reversed course, while at the same time, many American cities had walkable infrastructure that was later bulldozed for cars.
There’s nothing inevitable about the way we build/built cities in America, it’s a matter of choice and priorities.
Organized exercise allows you to set a specific goal and do targeted exercise to accomplish that goal in the minimum amount of time with minimum risk of injury.
why people pay to go to the gym and deadlift, then e.g. happily pay someone to move a load of soil around the backyard always confuses/amazes me
It's math and risk. If I make $150 per hour and have unlimited capacity to work then it makes no sense for me to do manual labor that I can pay someone $15 per hour to do. And I'll get a much better workout with an hour in the gym than 3 hours moving a load of soil around. And as I stated earlier, my risk of injury doing controlled targeted movements is much lower than randomly twisting and turning and jerking loads of soil around.
I think it's worthwhile to highlight the psychical activity paradox in this discussion.
This paradox describes the contrast between the damaging impact that occupational exercise has on health against the beneficial impact that leisure exercise has on health. This difference is very well documented [1][2][3] (you can easily find dozens more studies with a quick google search).
There's a diversity of opinion about what causes the paradox, but I think it's reasonable to be concerned that spending significant amounts of time on DIY/Gardening/Chores could replicate the hazards of occupational exercise. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a study which looks at these directly.
Because in the gym the can progressively increase the wights they are lifting and get stronger and put on muscle.
Looking at most people doing manual labor jobs all day and they almost never look great and mostly have wear and tear from the jobs they are doing.
Personally, I’ve concluded that most housework isn’t anywhere close to proper exercise that raises heart rate a lot or stresses muscles a lot. Not that housework is useless, but it’s not going to offer the benefits of even an at home workout program.
I don’t need to move soil in my garden 5 times a week. As a matter of fact I have nothing heavy to move that often. I walk or cycle to most places and while it of course helps, it’s far from being sufficient to keep a good level of fitness.
absolutely. The Gym of Life is a great video on YouTube talking about this exact thing. Being in a walkable/bikeable location makes you accidentally kinda fit.
> I've also passed the threshold of exercise feeling like a chore. It's now something I enjoy and even look forward to. This took over a year to achieve but it does happen, I promise.
This was the most surprising part for me : I used to be the stereotypical anti sport nerd when I was young, and when I started training, even a bit, it was a proper chore and something that required motivation.
But after running regularly for a couple of years, now going for a run is something that I do for relaxation, and honestly look forward to especially after a stressful day.
I could not say when it happened, the change is pretty gradual, but it's definitely there : not only does it get easier after a while but it becomes something you deeply enjoy
It took me until the pandemic to find an exercise routine that worked for me. When it all started, I knew that I had to get a healthy routine put in place or the WFH was going to really wreck me. So, I googled around a bit, tried some exercise routines, and found a good one. I've been on it since and look forward to doing it about 3x a week. The key for me was pairing it with a favorite podcast. I can only listen to that podcast when I'm exercising.
The routine is called the 'Deck of Pain': Choose 4 exercises (push-ups, squats, etc). Shuffle a deck of cards and take one from the top. For each suit, you do one of the exercises chosen, the number of pips being the how many of that exercise you do. So, for say, a 2 of clubs, you do 2 push-ups. For a 9 of diamonds, you do 9 squats. Etc. You chose your own workouts. Face and Ace are whatever you'd like, I choose 1 as the Ace, and 10 as the Face cards. Go though as many cards as you can. Do you heard that? That's the sound of your soul leaving your body.
It's real hard at first. I'd only start with a quarter deck and be wasted. It took me ~9 months to be able to get through all 54 cards. After ~2.25 years of it, I can get through a deck in about 45 minutes.
This sounds interesting and intriguing. Which exercise do you have for each suit? Do you also cycle through different exercise assignments (say, in different months or weeks)?
Although I never hated sports I had the same experience.
A few points for those who think about getting into running:
* make sure you are doing training units of at least 30 mins regularily. Going shorter than that is not really useful to get you actually trained.
* If you try to get better endurance most of your training should be aerobic (instead of anaerobic), this means it should be easy for you to do. Doing anaerobic training (so going to the max) is also useful, but it should not be the only thing you do
* regularily doing a little is always better than occasionally doing a lot. Set yourself some distance targets (e.g. 12 km a week). If it helps get yourself one of those sports tracker apps, or watches (Garmin, Polar, ...)
* with the right clothes weather does not matter at all (except maybe: too much heat/sun and not drinking enough)
* the most important thing are the fitting shoes (to avoid pain in the joints). Retailers will often offer a analysis of your running style and offer you the fitting shoes. Those should then be changed every 600 to 800 km.
* for certain people with bad joints or other related issues cycling or swimming might be better choices
Not an expert, but I don't think what you say represent the current state of knowledge. As far as I know...
> make sure you are doing training units of at least 30 mins regularily. Going shorter than that is not really useful to get you actually trained.
That's not true. Less time can be effective as well, given that the intensity is high enough.
> If you try to get better endurance most of your training should be aerobic (instead of anaerobic)
It's actually the opposite and interval training (mixed aerobic and anaerobic) seems to be more effective.
> the most important thing are the fitting shoes (to avoid pain in the joints). Retailers will often offer a analysis of your running style and offer you the fitting shoes. Those should then be changed every 600 to 800 km.
Running without shoes (or barefoot-shoes) is probably even better once you have adapted to it.
> for certain people with bad joints or other related issues cycling or swimming might be better choices
Even rope jumping is considered much better than jogging since the force is always distributed across both legs at the same time.
Great point! I am 40 and when I look at pictures of myself 10 years ago, I look and feel much much better now. One day in my early thirties I started running and going to the gym. But I had phases of extreme motivation following phases of zero motivation. A personal trainer might have helped, but is expensive.
What really brought a turning point was when I discovered a sport I always wanted to do, but did not know it exists in that form. Historical fencing (HEMA). - There I found good friends and sport. Sometimes when I have no energy, I still go to training to meet them. Also this sport is very competitive, be it in sparring with friends or tournaments. If you do not stay in shape and train, your performance will visibly look bad and people start asking you what's wrong and how they can help.
So that's my advice. If a personal trainer is nothing for you, take a look at competitive sports, even if you are too old for world ranking and such. Try to find the gym or group where the people, including the trainers, are interesting to you and you feel welcome. - This way motivation will become totally positively intristic. Actually you will be sad if you miss a training or event. =)
This sounds really good, I find the best exercise is done when you're focusing on something else (just got back from building/striking a festival in the desert and lost about 5kg, for instance). Have found a historical fencing club in London and emailed them.
> Having a trainer has a better set of incentives. Firstly there's the loss-aversion of having already paid for the session. Humans are irrationally motivated by loss-aversion and regualrly succumb to the sunk-cost fallacy.
I disagree. "Having paid for it" is a bad motivation and sparingly works. I know several folks who bought expensive cameras, bicycles, and guitars which only gather dust. The bicycle I rode almost daily for a year was one of the cheapest I had ever bought. Yes, there's a regret if when not utilizing something expensive, but the regret is more like, "I shouldn't have bought it" vs "I have already paid for it so better utilize it".
In fact, I would advice quite the opposite. Get something no-so-expensive. See if you can build a habit around it. Buy the premium thing only if you see yourself plateuing or seriously needing it.
> > Having a trainer has a better set of incentives. Firstly there's the loss-aversion of having already paid for the session. Humans are irrationally motivated by loss-aversion and regualrly succumb to the sunk-cost fallacy.
> I disagree. "Having paid for it" is a bad motivation and sparingly works. I know several folks who bought expensive cameras, bicycles, and guitars which only gather dust.
Yup, I’ve seen the same behavior in myself and others for years. Paying a sum of money, however large it is, doesn’t motivate people to get some value out of it. And gyms thrive on this. What I’ve seen happen is people swearing off gyms after losing money once and probably going back to almost no exercise.
Gyms finance themselves by the people who are paying and not coming.
My advice on building a sports habbit is:
Get enough stuff to get yourself motivated. If you are running, getting good (!= expensive) shoes and some sports clothes is a good starter. If it helps to have one of those fitness watches go for it, but there are free phone apps that can do basic things as well. Gear is never an excuse in running. There are people who run marathons barefoot.
Having good shoes and clothes helps you not to stop because of some excuse tho. Clothes are important, because with good clothes you can run also when it is raining, windy and it has single digit Celsius temperatures. Shoes the same: with good shoes the pain point will come later.
Although I loved sports in my youth, I didn't exercise for more than 20 years. I felt miserable, fat, had low energy and started having various health issues. A relationship of 25 years broke apart.
48 was my turning point. I started eating differently, started doing pull ups and invested some money on a personal tennis trainer.
One of the best decisions in my life.
Now I'm 50 and relatively fit again. Life is good and I'm having fun again.
I just wish I would have gotten off my lower back a lot sooner.
That's cool! I like running even though not the best sport for me.
Is tennis still your main/only exercise? How old do you feel like you can play?
I'm a bit younger than you but always fall on this fallacy of having to find a "long term sport"...
Look for a trainer who looks like how you want to look in 5 years.
But seriously, most gyms allow you to book single sessions with various individual trainers. Try a few and see if you're compatible with one. It's such an individual thing that no else can tell you exactly what to look for.
Not quite a personal trainer but a few months ago I found an Olympic lifting gym where we work in small (<10 people) classes with at least one proper qualified coach in each session. I think this is the ideal arrangement as you get the attention of someone who knows what they're doing along with the social encouragement which pushes you on but is also a great thing in itself.
Side note: doing my first competition in August, something unimaginable for me at the start of this year.
I have to agree - finding a good trainer has made an incredible difference. Years ago I tried a random trainer at my local gym who spent most of his time alternating between weird exercises and incredulously asking about how I possibly came to be so out of shape. I lost some weight and gained some muscle but it wasn’t worth it.
Years later an independent trainer was recommended to me, much more expensive, but I gave it a shot. This trainer didn’t make me feel bad, didn’t make outlandish promises, just made me lift weights and do some HIIT. It mostly the same 20 exercises or so in different combinations, focusing on different parts of the body each time.
And it worked - I’ve doubled my bench press, my squat, and my deadlift, and I’ve got better core stability and balance. My sporadic shoulder and knee problems have largely gone away. Even losing ground during 2020/2021, I’m in much better shape than I started.
I could probably technically maintain my current fitness now - I certainly could recreate many of the exercise loops we do- but the commitment and consistency is the key part that I get, along with getting help with what to do when my back is a little sore, or I pulled a muscle over the weekend.
The pandemic forced many boutique personal training businesses to go virtual. Discover Strength out of Minneapolis is a leader in high-intensity personal training, and they have organized the Resistance Exercise Conference (REC) for more than ten years now. You can hear what a Discover Strength virtual session is like on a recent podcast[0]. They have a free introductory virtual session, and after that sessions are about $41/half hour. No matter where you live, you can sample a personal trainer for free, and compare the professionalism of their trainers with what you have locally. I attended the REC last year, though I train in my local physical gym (LA Fitness with pretty good Nautilus machines).
The advice I would give to my 20 years old self is to stop considering sleep as a waste of time. Good sleep is the best productivity boost, it is also a canary for your overall well-being.
Good sleep is something that is worth investing into, bed, noise, temperature, light, and many other factors.
The second advice would be to learn to cook your own meals.
after years of sleeping in subpar beds, i finally got us a king-sized Purple Hybrid Premier 4 with Purple pillows. Cost ~$4,500 for the whole thing (thank goodness for 0% apr credit card offers! paid it off within a year), but this stack has CHANGED THE GAME COMPLETELY for sleeping.
we get good sleep much more frequently now than before. and it has definitely shown in increased energy throughout the day!
as for cooking our own meals, my wife subscribed us to every plate last year, and it's been amazing. it solved the single biggest problem I had with cooking: every one of their meals can be done in less than 45 minutes from zero to plated _with zero waste_! (we don't have kids, and sizes at grocery stores assume larger family sizes).
i still prefer eating out, but cooking is much less of a chore mow.
I have chronic fatigue, but what can go a long way, and what I am doing, is 1. a good diet on the low calorie side of things, 2. a little body-weight strength training each day, 3. do some walking. All of which has the advantage of not taking too much time. But it does require habit building which is tricky.
Maybe find a sport you really like? I didn't do any sports until 18 when I found bouldering. Good sport to do alone, although you still can talk with people. And a lot of eccentric, free thinking people if that's your crowd.
Oh and you'll get to go outside aswell, which is nice. Sometimes a hike to the rocks.
So essentially, the best investment one can make is to be rich, so they can afford having hired help to solve basic day to day problems that regular people must deal with on their own.
That's because if you are a statistically average person paying half their income on housing, another quarter on basic necessities, and saving another 10%, you can't really afford to spend almost your entire disposable income paying 3 hours of wages + taxes for another average employee, every week.
Sort-of like the stereotypical upper-middle-rich-white lamentations that "these days you can no longer find any good babysitter/cook/help/valet", as if living a life of privilege is a birth right.
The tone and content of this thread is quite a trip into the the entitlement culture of contemporary techies.
I have personally found that other individuals who happen to go to the gym at the same time as me to be my “accountability partners”.
While you build the discipline when doing anything enough, I think the better conceptual model for building that discipline is B. J. Fogg’s model.
His model is B=MAP.
Behavior = Motivation X Ability X Prompt.
You can have little motivation but high ability and go to the gym. You can also do the opposite. So long as there is a prompt of some sort.
Using the idea that motivation is transient, that’s where much of James Clear work in focusing on the systems comes into play. To make the ability and prompt easy, visible, etc.
A personal trainer is much of that combined into one.
If you don't want to try a personal trainer, train yourself. Start small: find a thing you want to improve. Plan out several ways you can practice that only take 30-60 seconds. Set a timer to go off multiple times a day. By practicing for a very short period of time, many times a day, it's easier to practice, and you build up slowly over time. You can also vary the intensity of these practice sessions, starting very light and building up.
If this sounds familiar, it's also called Grease the Groove by Pavel Tsatsouline.
We've build a house last year in CH. I've asked the architect if he can dig one part of the cellar just 1.50m deeper. So I have a cellar with a 380cm ceiling height. It is now a fully equipped Crossfit gym. Even better than my local CF "box". Saves so much time. Also following an online programming.
But still once a week I hit the local box just to catch up and socialize with others.
like everything in the world of fitness...it depends.
gym time == me time. i don't want to socialize or talk to anyone. i learned the big three from reading Starting Strength and a really nice coworker but learned very quickly that i can't stand talking to people while at the gym because i'm already stressed about my lack of free time. PTs would not work for me. i use books + reddit when i need help with programming.
my wife, on the other hand, really loves the social component of working out. she didn't work out with any regularity until she discovered spin classes. she's gone once, sometimes twice, per day, almost every day, for months now. she has favorite instructors for sure.
others i've known have found great success with a trainer.
just gotta experiment. incorporating fitness and a healthy lifestyle takes lots of trial and error, but feels amazing once you get there.
> Humans are irrationally motivated by loss-aversion and regualrly succumb to the sunk-cost fallacy.
This is not irrational and it's not a fallacy. As you have proved to yourself. It's a mental heuristic that works. You spent money to get something valuable, it would be foolish to let that go to waste. What about that exactly is irrational?
The money is already gone. Now you have some thing that you must evaluate the worth of on its own. If you muddy that evaluation with "but it cost so much" that's the sunk cost fallacy: clinging onto a thing because it was so hard to get even though it's subpar.
When I was PTing it was effective and results were visible.
Another commenter already said though: you can really only apply discipline in a few areas of your life effectively. The amount you can depends on your workload in other areas. Choose wisely…
That being said, your 0hysical Health is foundational.
Personal trainers get expensive quickly; OrangeTheory is a good alternative, its coach-guided group rowing, running/power-walking, and bodyweight hiit, its very gamified and fun.
Tangent: does anyone know of any online platforms or apps where I can find an online personal trainer? Someone that helps make exercise plans and does regular check-ins?
I am biased, but I would highly recommend CoPilot coaching. They have a pretty solid experience. You'll have an onboarding call/consultation where the coach can learn about you. They have an app that the trainer sends you workouts in and the app guides you through them. The coach will message you in the app often and you'll have checkin calls with them. 6-10x less expensive than an in person trainer, but it's a lot more than a workout app (cause you get a real person), $99/mo. Here's my referral link https://go.mycopilot.com/-iRHbl7_0I , it gives us both a free month.
There are a lot. Where are you at in your current training and do you have any goals? Without knowing anything about you a suggestion would just be "I had a good experience with these people" but it might not be the appropriate level/match for you.
Possibly because it works for more people than Cryptonic?
I could say exactly the same thing with different details (walking and some martial art for me). The most difficult thing is dragging your butt to practice regularly.
> What keeps fit people going to the gym on a regular basis isn't wearing their running shoes to bed at night. It's discipline and accountability.
There is an alternative, less resistant path which I believe is more sustainable and better for the soul... find something you love that involves exercise, not much discipline is needed once you do, because you probably wont be able to stop yourself from doing it when it's something you look forward to - which in a way is "wearing your running shoes to bed", it's passion.
Something which is not exercise for the sake of exercise, i.e not "going to the gym", it must be more mentally rewarding and stimulating somehow. That doesn't mean team sports either, there is more to life, in fact I'd recommend avoiding team sports because then you are more likely to have more control over when and where you can do your activity. Examples: rock climbing, mountain biking, sailing, surfing, skating, skiing. You can do these types of activities with friends, and make friends too, and they can take you all over the world, or at least all over your country - so they are pretty good for the soul ;)
Discipline is a useful ability, but you can only apply it effectively so many places in your life, and you wont be able to keep it up forever. Save it for when you really need it to fix something - but health is not a fix, it's a lifestyle.
I did it that way.
I was a couch potato until 30 or so.
Then I stopped using public transport and biked everywhere. I lived on a hill, so every time I got back I had to get back up again.
After a few years, I added swimming, because it cools you in the summer. Full body excercise and you don't even notice the sweat.
Later, I added lifting. Got me a home gym and went 2-3 times a week. Not having to leave the house for a dedicated workout really helped.
Couldn't agree more.
I know a number of older/retired people who are in good health into their 70s and 80s. None of them "do exercise" in the sense of going to the gym, but all of them do sports/activity of some form and keep moving. They all walk places rather than taking the car (they have the time) and they do things like biking long distances with friends or playing tennis or badminton. If you're like one I know (84) you walk two miles each way to play badminton with your friends.
Sure there are health benefits, but they all do these things because of the intrinsic enjoyment and satisfaction.
Once my health is good enough to start running again I'll get back to running 20-30km a week, not for the health benefits, but because I get enjoyment from running in the countyside with a podcast on. I run because I love running. I walk a lot because I love to walk and more.
I want to be fit so I can run and walk, rather than the other way round, and I think that's the best long-term way to stay fit an healthy.
>Examples: rock climbing, mountain biking, sailing, surfing, skating, skiing.
Doing those every day sounds both expensive and an organizational nightmare.
I love skiing and i do it every few years but I cant rely upon it for exercise.
I tried badminton / frisbee in the park but that still needs geographically close, willing partners who are willing to exert themselves with matching schedules and good weather.
In the end i solved the motivation/availability problem by being 25 seconds away from a reliable heavy HIIT cardio + anerobic workout - having a rowing machine at home. It's overall less fun than skiing perhaps but the barrier to entry being negligible makes all the difference.
A lot of these are lifestyle sports that come with the benefit of a built in community.
Sailing - boat club
Climbing - gym
Surfing - the other folks at the spot
Skiing - lift/lodge people (also if you really care about skiing all the time you probably move to SLC or somewhere that can accommodate that)
Once you have that community, the "willing partners" part kind of solves itself.
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For me that’s mountain biking. But I look like a Greek statue on the bottom and a bit of a melting ice cream cone on top.
I have a tip for that, get a road bike to build fitness for the mtb.
Also, on a road bike you'll also go at much faster speeds, which I have found to translate to better confidence bombing down trails on my mtb.
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:D thanks for the illustrative insight. I don't have much experience with that one, but can recommend rock climbing, which I've been doing for most of my life, it exercises pretty much everything. As something that demands good power to weight ratio you tend to drop the useless stuff.
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This can be quite difficult to sustain over the long run for a variety of reasons. First, these kinds of hobbies are quite time-consuming. Going mountain biking or outdoor rock climbing is likely to consume an entire weekend at least every time you do it. It's difficult to just do an hour a day every day. Second, you need consistent access to the places where it can be done. Live in Los Angeles? Great, you can surf, ski, climb Joshua Tree, thru-hike the Pacific Crest trail, mountain bike in the San Gabriels, all within an hour's drive. Live in Kansas City, now what?
There's also long term wear and tear. I've been a very historically active person and did a lot of these things. Outdoor rock climbing, open water swimming, bicycling, thru hiking, summitting <18,000 ft mountains in one day. But I'm really not sure which of those things I can still do. I've got ten screws in my spine now. Carrying around a pack and getting stuck on a mountain is not good. Bicycling really hurts. I developed some kind of elbow bursitis that won't go away no matter what and 20 minutes on a rock wall and my arm is absolutely throbbing now, for days. There doesn't seem to be anything I can do to stop it.
Lifting, on the other hand, gives you near infinite options to isolate single joints in arbitrary planes of motion, in a controlled and micro-loadable manner, which makes it possible to work pretty much anything safely and work around just about any injury. I'd like to still do open-water swimming, which I don't think would hurt me, but I no longer live near any swimmable bodies of water. But I still have a garage and can put weights in it.
I've been managing to sustain climbing for over 20 years, i can fit a couple hours in at an indoor climbing wall in the winter, or go to various locations outdoors, local and far, depending on available time... yes sometimes I do weekend trips, sometimes week trips, but when you love it, you are happy to spend more time doing it because it's fun, you don't consider it time lost, you consider it time well spent and return home refreshed, satisfied, not merely "exercised".
It's true not each possible activity is going to be convenient or practical to everyone, but there will be enough that intersect your life circumstances that you can find something... but I feel on average, most people here are going to benefit from trying something a bit more adventurous and getting out into nature, if only for the life experience. Weights is very convenient but doesn't give you any of that.
> There's also long term wear and tear. I've been a very historically active person and did a lot of these things. Outdoor rock climbing, open water swimming, bicycling, thru hiking, summitting <18,000 ft mountains in one day. But I'm really not sure which of those things I can still do.
This is a real concern, once you become passionate about such a sport it's quite easy to over do it (and I have), but I'd argue climbing is one of many viable long term sports provided you take care of yourself. There are lots of "silver crimpers" in the climbing world which shows it can be done. Injury prevention in these more niche activities is also an emerging area, for climbing specifically i'd check out Dave McLeod excellent books... but this is only relevant when you are really pushing the activity, a lot of fun and good exercise can be had without risking injury from just rambling up some easy routes... That's what I aspire to in old age, to continue moving and having fun in new places. I think this probably transfers to most other actives too, so long as you find them intrinsically fun, you should be able to continue to do them without pushing yourself to the limit 100% of the time.
> I've got ten screws in my spine now. Carrying around a pack and getting stuck on a mountain is not good. Bicycling really hurts. I developed some kind of elbow bursitis that won't go away no matter what and 20 minutes on a rock wall and my arm is absolutely throbbing now, for days. There doesn't seem to be anything I can do to stop it.
By the way sorry i completely skipped over these problems in my sibling comment, i realise that probably came off as insensitive and dismissive. I'm really sorry you're in that position, I was too focused on the more general advice.
These kinds of chronic injuries are sometimes unavoidable, and sometimes they are avoidable but very difficult to spot or know about before it's too late.. I suppose it's a risk, and some people are simply luckier than others. However some chronic injuries can be remedied if the source of the issue is in how you approach your sport, rather than a more permanent issue.
Shoulder, elbow and finger injuries and pain are extremely common in long term climbers, and can usually be substantially improved or eliminated by improving your technique and form. I would highly recommend reading Dave McLeods book on injury prevention. It's the very opposite of a quick fix book and can be quite dense in places, but it's also enlightening and completely destroys the fallacy that these types of sports are only for the young - in short, you are always hurting your body in some way when doing exercise, you were just less aware of it when younger and had a larger sink before it became apparent, when some people reach the limit of that sink they give up, others find ways to continue. More generally If you can manage the rate of stress with the rate of recovery, then you can establish an equilibrium and it's possible to safely continue as you get older, I'm still learning this (will probably always be learning this) and trying to figure out how to be more aware of different aspects of my body and the hidden stresses it's putting up with.
Even if it's not climbing you are interested in continuing, there is a lot to learn about the deficiencies in more niche sports in general from this book and Dave's research.
> then you are more likely to have more control over when and where you can do your activity.
For me (also an unsporting nerd who came to exercise in midlife), having less control is actually a benefit: because I've got a booked timeslot with my PT, I have to go or it's embarrasing as well as a sunk cost. If I give myself control over when I go it's too easy for it to be mañana. Pre commitment is a real thing.
I would suggest that perhaps you have not found the thing you love to do yet?
You could always dump your PT for a few weeks and spend the money on booking some taster activities to try to find something... the initial booking still forces an initial commitment to get you to try ;) even if you don't find something on the first round it's a good experience to try out different things and meet new people... I still do this occasionally even though I have a couple activities i'm pretty addicted to, one i've been doing for over 2 decades.
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> There is an alternative, less resistant path which I believe is more sustainable and better for the soul... find something you love that involves exercise, not much discipline is needed once you do, because you probably wont be able to stop yourself from doing it when it's something you look forward to - which in a way is "wearing your running shoes to bed", it's passion.
Unfortunately, I don’t like going out and I don’t have any outdoor activities or sports I like. So the only thing I’ve got is ensuring I do some workout at home and keep the rings on my smartwatch closed. This is also a bit easier to find motivation for when you find external/other situations/experiences scary on the health side.
> Examples: rock climbing, mountain biking, sailing, surfing, skating, skiing.
I’d have to travel considerably far to even try any of these. :(
If you are city bound without access to travel i'm sure there are more suitable activities.
Someone else mentioned dancing. Also pretty sure you can do skating in a city.
I did this with biking years ago and I don't regret any second of it. It relaxes me in the morning, it does the same in the evening. During warm months it's all pleasure, during colder months it's mostly the way to work and back (or an equivalent in the opposite direction when I WFH).
The only drawback is that although the muscles in the lower part of the body seem like made of steel, the upper part is definitely weaker, so a while ago I started to do pushups as a kind of game: can I ever do 100 pushups in one go? The first step was to make 50 pushups daily and to gradually increase it. I can now do ca. 20 pushups and I'm very proud of it (I could barely do 7 at the beginning).
I also do pushups to balance out climbing, because although climbing works all the muscles fairly well, it over develops the back slightly. Even though I'm pretty anti-gym, i think body weight exercises are great, because you can pretty much do them anywhere at any time and they tend to target a broader range of muscles unlike gym exercises.
The one thing I learned about push-ups recently is how we have a tendency to get tripped up by the measurement fallacy... i mean how else do you measure it other than how many right? The thing is that if you optimise for quantity you will actually end up with bad form and be cheating by using momentum. If you goal is to actually improve your body somehow then you start focusing on form and control, which can be a little bit demoralizing at first because you will no doubt be back squarely in the <10 range, but you will have abs of steel if you keep it up :P
Sounds like great progress. Friendly reminder to also train the back side of your body too. Otherwise, the office work and the pull ups will pull your shoulders forward which can cause problems in the long-run. Given that you got so far with the push ups, I’m sure you can also find a way to do some back work
Totally agree. Motivation is fickle so it really cannot be relied on. There are many ways to be active. Even if you do want to "go to the gym" there are ways to make it easier - so you need less motivation - and more enjoyable so it is a positive experience. That being said, a trainer can help get you to a specific goal extremely well, and help you kick start the "get to a point of liking it" stage.
I'd throw in a suggestion of: dancing.
You'd be surprised how many introverted people do social dancing. And the bar is usually very low. So, not being a long time dancer, musically gifted, etc, is seldom a problem.
As someone who is pretty involved in social dance communities, I agree. The bar is pretty much: don't be a creep, don't injure anyone. Then if you're at least a little bit friendly you'll be welcomed.
The only downside (for some) is that scheduling can be inflexible, and it's usually an evening activity so not great for early birds.
much MUCH easier said than done, but i generally agree
Too much emphasis is put on organised exercise. I think it's an American thing, where nobody seems to walk anywhere.
Better advice is to build more functional "exercise" into your day-to-day life. This is where real lifestyle change happens without you really knowing it.
Take the stairs, walk to the shops, cycle to work (where possible), household chores that involve getting on your hands and knees and breaking a sweat, do DIY/gardening (why people pay to go to the gym and deadlift, then e.g. happily pay someone to move a load of soil around the backyard always confuses/amazes me).
All this "exercise" helps, especially if you are coming from a sedentary lifestyle but you also really need exercise where you will elevate your heartrate and be close to running out of breath. Also known as Zone 2 (or higher) cardio.
The real difference though is American cities blossomed with the same arc automobile came into fruition.
I just recently got back from Germany and the primary thing I noticed about their public transportation infrastructure is that most of it is using right of ways that have been in place for… hundreds of years.
Driving in America is an unfortunate necessity in the vast majority of places (The minority being the oldest coastal cities) and that annoys me greatly, but it’s the reality of it.
I do choose to live downtown so I can walk or bike. But those are my options :/
This is often repeated, but it misses the full story.
I myself used to believe that to be the case, but fairly recently learned that many European cities used to have significantly more car infrastructure and reversed course, while at the same time, many American cities had walkable infrastructure that was later bulldozed for cars.
There’s nothing inevitable about the way we build/built cities in America, it’s a matter of choice and priorities.
Too much emphasis is put on organised exercise.
Organized exercise allows you to set a specific goal and do targeted exercise to accomplish that goal in the minimum amount of time with minimum risk of injury.
why people pay to go to the gym and deadlift, then e.g. happily pay someone to move a load of soil around the backyard always confuses/amazes me
It's math and risk. If I make $150 per hour and have unlimited capacity to work then it makes no sense for me to do manual labor that I can pay someone $15 per hour to do. And I'll get a much better workout with an hour in the gym than 3 hours moving a load of soil around. And as I stated earlier, my risk of injury doing controlled targeted movements is much lower than randomly twisting and turning and jerking loads of soil around.
Gotta love some good ol' post hoc rationalising.
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I think it's worthwhile to highlight the psychical activity paradox in this discussion.
This paradox describes the contrast between the damaging impact that occupational exercise has on health against the beneficial impact that leisure exercise has on health. This difference is very well documented [1][2][3] (you can easily find dozens more studies with a quick google search).
There's a diversity of opinion about what causes the paradox, but I think it's reasonable to be concerned that spending significant amounts of time on DIY/Gardening/Chores could replicate the hazards of occupational exercise. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find a study which looks at these directly.
[1] https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/42/15/1499/621377... [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28798040/ [3] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanwpc/article/PIIS2666-6...
Because in the gym the can progressively increase the wights they are lifting and get stronger and put on muscle. Looking at most people doing manual labor jobs all day and they almost never look great and mostly have wear and tear from the jobs they are doing.
>(why people pay to go to the gym and deadlift, then e.g. happily pay someone to move a load of soil around the backyard always confuses/amazes me).
Are you nuts? Do you lift 100Kg or more in the garden very often?
Personally, I’ve concluded that most housework isn’t anywhere close to proper exercise that raises heart rate a lot or stresses muscles a lot. Not that housework is useless, but it’s not going to offer the benefits of even an at home workout program.
I don’t need to move soil in my garden 5 times a week. As a matter of fact I have nothing heavy to move that often. I walk or cycle to most places and while it of course helps, it’s far from being sufficient to keep a good level of fitness.
> (why people pay to go to the gym and deadlift, then e.g. happily pay someone to move a load of soil around the backyard always confuses/amazes me).
I tell people I only lift weights, not boxes or bags of soil.
absolutely. The Gym of Life is a great video on YouTube talking about this exact thing. Being in a walkable/bikeable location makes you accidentally kinda fit.
> I've also passed the threshold of exercise feeling like a chore. It's now something I enjoy and even look forward to. This took over a year to achieve but it does happen, I promise.
This was the most surprising part for me : I used to be the stereotypical anti sport nerd when I was young, and when I started training, even a bit, it was a proper chore and something that required motivation.
But after running regularly for a couple of years, now going for a run is something that I do for relaxation, and honestly look forward to especially after a stressful day.
I could not say when it happened, the change is pretty gradual, but it's definitely there : not only does it get easier after a while but it becomes something you deeply enjoy
It took me until the pandemic to find an exercise routine that worked for me. When it all started, I knew that I had to get a healthy routine put in place or the WFH was going to really wreck me. So, I googled around a bit, tried some exercise routines, and found a good one. I've been on it since and look forward to doing it about 3x a week. The key for me was pairing it with a favorite podcast. I can only listen to that podcast when I'm exercising.
The routine is called the 'Deck of Pain': Choose 4 exercises (push-ups, squats, etc). Shuffle a deck of cards and take one from the top. For each suit, you do one of the exercises chosen, the number of pips being the how many of that exercise you do. So, for say, a 2 of clubs, you do 2 push-ups. For a 9 of diamonds, you do 9 squats. Etc. You chose your own workouts. Face and Ace are whatever you'd like, I choose 1 as the Ace, and 10 as the Face cards. Go though as many cards as you can. Do you heard that? That's the sound of your soul leaving your body.
It's real hard at first. I'd only start with a quarter deck and be wasted. It took me ~9 months to be able to get through all 54 cards. After ~2.25 years of it, I can get through a deck in about 45 minutes.
This sounds interesting and intriguing. Which exercise do you have for each suit? Do you also cycle through different exercise assignments (say, in different months or weeks)?
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Although I never hated sports I had the same experience.
A few points for those who think about getting into running:
* make sure you are doing training units of at least 30 mins regularily. Going shorter than that is not really useful to get you actually trained.
* If you try to get better endurance most of your training should be aerobic (instead of anaerobic), this means it should be easy for you to do. Doing anaerobic training (so going to the max) is also useful, but it should not be the only thing you do
* regularily doing a little is always better than occasionally doing a lot. Set yourself some distance targets (e.g. 12 km a week). If it helps get yourself one of those sports tracker apps, or watches (Garmin, Polar, ...)
* with the right clothes weather does not matter at all (except maybe: too much heat/sun and not drinking enough)
* the most important thing are the fitting shoes (to avoid pain in the joints). Retailers will often offer a analysis of your running style and offer you the fitting shoes. Those should then be changed every 600 to 800 km.
* for certain people with bad joints or other related issues cycling or swimming might be better choices
Not an expert, but I don't think what you say represent the current state of knowledge. As far as I know...
> make sure you are doing training units of at least 30 mins regularily. Going shorter than that is not really useful to get you actually trained.
That's not true. Less time can be effective as well, given that the intensity is high enough.
> If you try to get better endurance most of your training should be aerobic (instead of anaerobic)
It's actually the opposite and interval training (mixed aerobic and anaerobic) seems to be more effective.
> the most important thing are the fitting shoes (to avoid pain in the joints). Retailers will often offer a analysis of your running style and offer you the fitting shoes. Those should then be changed every 600 to 800 km.
Running without shoes (or barefoot-shoes) is probably even better once you have adapted to it.
> for certain people with bad joints or other related issues cycling or swimming might be better choices
Even rope jumping is considered much better than jogging since the force is always distributed across both legs at the same time.
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Great point! I am 40 and when I look at pictures of myself 10 years ago, I look and feel much much better now. One day in my early thirties I started running and going to the gym. But I had phases of extreme motivation following phases of zero motivation. A personal trainer might have helped, but is expensive.
What really brought a turning point was when I discovered a sport I always wanted to do, but did not know it exists in that form. Historical fencing (HEMA). - There I found good friends and sport. Sometimes when I have no energy, I still go to training to meet them. Also this sport is very competitive, be it in sparring with friends or tournaments. If you do not stay in shape and train, your performance will visibly look bad and people start asking you what's wrong and how they can help.
So that's my advice. If a personal trainer is nothing for you, take a look at competitive sports, even if you are too old for world ranking and such. Try to find the gym or group where the people, including the trainers, are interesting to you and you feel welcome. - This way motivation will become totally positively intristic. Actually you will be sad if you miss a training or event. =)
One great thing about HEMA is that just walking around in full gear constitutes exercise.
I was part of a group presenting as the Teutonic Order because there was a dearth of baddies in the community.
But the absolutely best thing about this sport is that there's an easy solution to every conflict or misunderstanding - combat!
This sounds really good, I find the best exercise is done when you're focusing on something else (just got back from building/striking a festival in the desert and lost about 5kg, for instance). Have found a historical fencing club in London and emailed them.
> Having a trainer has a better set of incentives. Firstly there's the loss-aversion of having already paid for the session. Humans are irrationally motivated by loss-aversion and regualrly succumb to the sunk-cost fallacy.
I disagree. "Having paid for it" is a bad motivation and sparingly works. I know several folks who bought expensive cameras, bicycles, and guitars which only gather dust. The bicycle I rode almost daily for a year was one of the cheapest I had ever bought. Yes, there's a regret if when not utilizing something expensive, but the regret is more like, "I shouldn't have bought it" vs "I have already paid for it so better utilize it".
In fact, I would advice quite the opposite. Get something no-so-expensive. See if you can build a habit around it. Buy the premium thing only if you see yourself plateuing or seriously needing it.
> > Having a trainer has a better set of incentives. Firstly there's the loss-aversion of having already paid for the session. Humans are irrationally motivated by loss-aversion and regualrly succumb to the sunk-cost fallacy.
> I disagree. "Having paid for it" is a bad motivation and sparingly works. I know several folks who bought expensive cameras, bicycles, and guitars which only gather dust.
Yup, I’ve seen the same behavior in myself and others for years. Paying a sum of money, however large it is, doesn’t motivate people to get some value out of it. And gyms thrive on this. What I’ve seen happen is people swearing off gyms after losing money once and probably going back to almost no exercise.
Gyms finance themselves by the people who are paying and not coming.
My advice on building a sports habbit is: Get enough stuff to get yourself motivated. If you are running, getting good (!= expensive) shoes and some sports clothes is a good starter. If it helps to have one of those fitness watches go for it, but there are free phone apps that can do basic things as well. Gear is never an excuse in running. There are people who run marathons barefoot.
Having good shoes and clothes helps you not to stop because of some excuse tho. Clothes are important, because with good clothes you can run also when it is raining, windy and it has single digit Celsius temperatures. Shoes the same: with good shoes the pain point will come later.
I think having a personal trainer creates incentive more around anxiety, rather than sunken cost. It's different than gear.
Real hackers sit in a dark basement filled with pizza boxes and Jolt Cola cans. The only thing they should be working on is their Unix beard.
I hope satire but made me laugh!
Although I loved sports in my youth, I didn't exercise for more than 20 years. I felt miserable, fat, had low energy and started having various health issues. A relationship of 25 years broke apart.
48 was my turning point. I started eating differently, started doing pull ups and invested some money on a personal tennis trainer.
One of the best decisions in my life.
Now I'm 50 and relatively fit again. Life is good and I'm having fun again. I just wish I would have gotten off my lower back a lot sooner.
That's cool! I like running even though not the best sport for me.
Is tennis still your main/only exercise? How old do you feel like you can play? I'm a bit younger than you but always fall on this fallacy of having to find a "long term sport"...
Congratulations! Having tried a personal trainer who I ended up disliking, I’m curious: what do you look for when trying to find a good match?
Look for a trainer who looks like how you want to look in 5 years.
But seriously, most gyms allow you to book single sessions with various individual trainers. Try a few and see if you're compatible with one. It's such an individual thing that no else can tell you exactly what to look for.
Not quite a personal trainer but a few months ago I found an Olympic lifting gym where we work in small (<10 people) classes with at least one proper qualified coach in each session. I think this is the ideal arrangement as you get the attention of someone who knows what they're doing along with the social encouragement which pushes you on but is also a great thing in itself.
Side note: doing my first competition in August, something unimaginable for me at the start of this year.
I have to agree - finding a good trainer has made an incredible difference. Years ago I tried a random trainer at my local gym who spent most of his time alternating between weird exercises and incredulously asking about how I possibly came to be so out of shape. I lost some weight and gained some muscle but it wasn’t worth it.
Years later an independent trainer was recommended to me, much more expensive, but I gave it a shot. This trainer didn’t make me feel bad, didn’t make outlandish promises, just made me lift weights and do some HIIT. It mostly the same 20 exercises or so in different combinations, focusing on different parts of the body each time.
And it worked - I’ve doubled my bench press, my squat, and my deadlift, and I’ve got better core stability and balance. My sporadic shoulder and knee problems have largely gone away. Even losing ground during 2020/2021, I’m in much better shape than I started.
I could probably technically maintain my current fitness now - I certainly could recreate many of the exercise loops we do- but the commitment and consistency is the key part that I get, along with getting help with what to do when my back is a little sore, or I pulled a muscle over the weekend.
The pandemic forced many boutique personal training businesses to go virtual. Discover Strength out of Minneapolis is a leader in high-intensity personal training, and they have organized the Resistance Exercise Conference (REC) for more than ten years now. You can hear what a Discover Strength virtual session is like on a recent podcast[0]. They have a free introductory virtual session, and after that sessions are about $41/half hour. No matter where you live, you can sample a personal trainer for free, and compare the professionalism of their trainers with what you have locally. I attended the REC last year, though I train in my local physical gym (LA Fitness with pretty good Nautilus machines).
0: Luke Carlson – How to Design, Assess, and Optimise Your Virtual Personal Training Service https://highintensitybusiness.com/300-luke-carlson-how-to-de...
The advice I would give to my 20 years old self is to stop considering sleep as a waste of time. Good sleep is the best productivity boost, it is also a canary for your overall well-being.
Good sleep is something that is worth investing into, bed, noise, temperature, light, and many other factors.
The second advice would be to learn to cook your own meals.
hell yes to both.
after years of sleeping in subpar beds, i finally got us a king-sized Purple Hybrid Premier 4 with Purple pillows. Cost ~$4,500 for the whole thing (thank goodness for 0% apr credit card offers! paid it off within a year), but this stack has CHANGED THE GAME COMPLETELY for sleeping.
we get good sleep much more frequently now than before. and it has definitely shown in increased energy throughout the day!
as for cooking our own meals, my wife subscribed us to every plate last year, and it's been amazing. it solved the single biggest problem I had with cooking: every one of their meals can be done in less than 45 minutes from zero to plated _with zero waste_! (we don't have kids, and sizes at grocery stores assume larger family sizes).
i still prefer eating out, but cooking is much less of a chore mow.
I have chronic fatigue, but what can go a long way, and what I am doing, is 1. a good diet on the low calorie side of things, 2. a little body-weight strength training each day, 3. do some walking. All of which has the advantage of not taking too much time. But it does require habit building which is tricky.
Maybe find a sport you really like? I didn't do any sports until 18 when I found bouldering. Good sport to do alone, although you still can talk with people. And a lot of eccentric, free thinking people if that's your crowd.
Oh and you'll get to go outside aswell, which is nice. Sometimes a hike to the rocks.
So essentially, the best investment one can make is to be rich, so they can afford having hired help to solve basic day to day problems that regular people must deal with on their own.
That's because if you are a statistically average person paying half their income on housing, another quarter on basic necessities, and saving another 10%, you can't really afford to spend almost your entire disposable income paying 3 hours of wages + taxes for another average employee, every week.
Sort-of like the stereotypical upper-middle-rich-white lamentations that "these days you can no longer find any good babysitter/cook/help/valet", as if living a life of privilege is a birth right.
The tone and content of this thread is quite a trip into the the entitlement culture of contemporary techies.
I have personally found that other individuals who happen to go to the gym at the same time as me to be my “accountability partners”.
While you build the discipline when doing anything enough, I think the better conceptual model for building that discipline is B. J. Fogg’s model.
His model is B=MAP.
Behavior = Motivation X Ability X Prompt.
You can have little motivation but high ability and go to the gym. You can also do the opposite. So long as there is a prompt of some sort.
Using the idea that motivation is transient, that’s where much of James Clear work in focusing on the systems comes into play. To make the ability and prompt easy, visible, etc.
A personal trainer is much of that combined into one.
If you don't want to try a personal trainer, train yourself. Start small: find a thing you want to improve. Plan out several ways you can practice that only take 30-60 seconds. Set a timer to go off multiple times a day. By practicing for a very short period of time, many times a day, it's easier to practice, and you build up slowly over time. You can also vary the intensity of these practice sessions, starting very light and building up.
If this sounds familiar, it's also called Grease the Groove by Pavel Tsatsouline.
We've build a house last year in CH. I've asked the architect if he can dig one part of the cellar just 1.50m deeper. So I have a cellar with a 380cm ceiling height. It is now a fully equipped Crossfit gym. Even better than my local CF "box". Saves so much time. Also following an online programming. But still once a week I hit the local box just to catch up and socialize with others.
That is actually a pretty awesome idea!
like everything in the world of fitness...it depends.
gym time == me time. i don't want to socialize or talk to anyone. i learned the big three from reading Starting Strength and a really nice coworker but learned very quickly that i can't stand talking to people while at the gym because i'm already stressed about my lack of free time. PTs would not work for me. i use books + reddit when i need help with programming.
my wife, on the other hand, really loves the social component of working out. she didn't work out with any regularity until she discovered spin classes. she's gone once, sometimes twice, per day, almost every day, for months now. she has favorite instructors for sure.
others i've known have found great success with a trainer.
just gotta experiment. incorporating fitness and a healthy lifestyle takes lots of trial and error, but feels amazing once you get there.
> Humans are irrationally motivated by loss-aversion and regualrly succumb to the sunk-cost fallacy.
This is not irrational and it's not a fallacy. As you have proved to yourself. It's a mental heuristic that works. You spent money to get something valuable, it would be foolish to let that go to waste. What about that exactly is irrational?
The money is already gone. Now you have some thing that you must evaluate the worth of on its own. If you muddy that evaluation with "but it cost so much" that's the sunk cost fallacy: clinging onto a thing because it was so hard to get even though it's subpar.
When I was PTing it was effective and results were visible.
Another commenter already said though: you can really only apply discipline in a few areas of your life effectively. The amount you can depends on your workload in other areas. Choose wisely…
That being said, your 0hysical Health is foundational.
Personal trainers get expensive quickly; OrangeTheory is a good alternative, its coach-guided group rowing, running/power-walking, and bodyweight hiit, its very gamified and fun.
Joining a nearby Crossfit gym had the same effect for me: just find a time, check-in and go there.
Nothing else to think about. Once you are there you will do some/most of the training.
Tangent: does anyone know of any online platforms or apps where I can find an online personal trainer? Someone that helps make exercise plans and does regular check-ins?
I am biased, but I would highly recommend CoPilot coaching. They have a pretty solid experience. You'll have an onboarding call/consultation where the coach can learn about you. They have an app that the trainer sends you workouts in and the app guides you through them. The coach will message you in the app often and you'll have checkin calls with them. 6-10x less expensive than an in person trainer, but it's a lot more than a workout app (cause you get a real person), $99/mo. Here's my referral link https://go.mycopilot.com/-iRHbl7_0I , it gives us both a free month.
There are a lot. Where are you at in your current training and do you have any goals? Without knowing anything about you a suggestion would just be "I had a good experience with these people" but it might not be the appropriate level/match for you.
If you are interested in lifting weights: I have been a happy customer of barbell logic online coaching and recommend them.
A gym buddy is free and works just as well.
Why is this titled "Advice for New Developers"? The actual blog post is called "The best investment".
A proper title for HN, imo, would be "A personal fitness trainer is the best investment".
I wouldn't have clicked on that one and saved myself from reading an article that is irrelevant to me.
Pure plagiarism of Cryptonic's top-level comment
Possibly because it works for more people than Cryptonic?
I could say exactly the same thing with different details (walking and some martial art for me). The most difficult thing is dragging your butt to practice regularly.
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