What type of exercise you do is less important than doing something. You can claim that optimality of the exercise contributes to motivation, but this seems like a common failure mode. People spend more time researching optimal exercise than doing anything.
The best way to get motivated for me is to quantify the health benefits. A generic “it’s good for me” is not motivating. A specific percent reduction in risk of a CVD event is.
When my dad was a boy, the idea of a gym (outside a school gym) was fairly unknown here. They were like, want to get stronger? Go kayaking. Want to lose weight? Play soccer.
Sports have big startup costs for most, but I agree that once they are paid a sport will tend to generate feelings of intrinsic motivation. Reducing those startup costs would be valuable.
My problem is not having a good idea for what a long enough exercise session is. If I do something like 20 push-ups, and stop there, it feels like I haven’t done enough exercise for the day for it to be any good. Then I end up doing no exercise at all.
30 minutes/day has some evidence behind it if long term health outcomes is your main concern. I don’t recall if 3.5 hours per week broken up in different ways than daily is just as effective.
A somewhat old fashioned circuit of walking for 30 minutes interspersed with a few pushup and pullup sets is certainly going to be helpful. You sometimes see paths at parks purpose built for this with exercise stations scattered around the loop.
Yeah, that’s a problem. I can imagine myself doing 5 or 10 minutes of calisthenics at home, but not 30 every day. The exercises (push-ups, squats, burpees, kettlebell stuff) tire me pretty fast, and get boring fast.
I can manage 30 minutes jogging, and find it fun, but I worry that my knees will break up if I do it too often. They hurt several days after a weekend of running a 5K and hauling stuff up flights of stairs couple months ago.
Everyone does, but that seems to involve either a gym membership or owning a barbell set.
Though thinking about my “5 minutes” comment above, I realized I’d forgotten about the Tabata workout routine. I can do push-ups, squats and two sets of kettlebell swings repeated twice in four minutes, and end up feeling like I’ve had an adequate quick workout. I’ll see if I can install this as a habit.
What type of exercise you do is less important than doing something. You can claim that optimality of the exercise contributes to motivation, but this seems like a common failure mode. People spend more time researching optimal exercise than doing anything.
The best way to get motivated for me is to quantify the health benefits. A generic “it’s good for me” is not motivating. A specific percent reduction in risk of a CVD event is.
That is why I am think the idea of fitness/exercise is fairly broken and we should go “back” to sports
When my dad was a boy, the idea of a gym (outside a school gym) was fairly unknown here. They were like, want to get stronger? Go kayaking. Want to lose weight? Play soccer.
Sports have big startup costs for most, but I agree that once they are paid a sport will tend to generate feelings of intrinsic motivation. Reducing those startup costs would be valuable.
I think covered here.
My problem is not having a good idea for what a long enough exercise session is. If I do something like 20 push-ups, and stop there, it feels like I haven’t done enough exercise for the day for it to be any good. Then I end up doing no exercise at all.
30 minutes/day has some evidence behind it if long term health outcomes is your main concern. I don’t recall if 3.5 hours per week broken up in different ways than daily is just as effective.
A somewhat old fashioned circuit of walking for 30 minutes interspersed with a few pushup and pullup sets is certainly going to be helpful. You sometimes see paths at parks purpose built for this with exercise stations scattered around the loop.
Yeah, that’s a problem. I can imagine myself doing 5 or 10 minutes of calisthenics at home, but not 30 every day. The exercises (push-ups, squats, burpees, kettlebell stuff) tire me pretty fast, and get boring fast.
I can manage 30 minutes jogging, and find it fun, but I worry that my knees will break up if I do it too often. They hurt several days after a weekend of running a 5K and hauling stuff up flights of stairs couple months ago.
As always, I suggest lifting weights. http://lesswrong.com/lw/d7h/minimum_viable_workout_routine/
Everyone does, but that seems to involve either a gym membership or owning a barbell set.
Though thinking about my “5 minutes” comment above, I realized I’d forgotten about the Tabata workout routine. I can do push-ups, squats and two sets of kettlebell swings repeated twice in four minutes, and end up feeling like I’ve had an adequate quick workout. I’ll see if I can install this as a habit.
I suggest gummy bears