“Only do it if it’s easy and you like it” doesn’t seem as obviously wrong to me as it’s supposed to sound. During the 6 years of my life when I had dance practice ~twice a week I never just decided I didn’t want to show up, because I really liked going! In performances I would get this high where I wanted to just do every song straight through for the full hour (or however long), even though I always scheduled in rests for each person – and a lot of other people had this experience as well. Similarly, when I run on an elliptical I get to a point where I feel like I never want to stop. I push myself but I don’t experience it as ‘uncomfortable’ subjectively – I might get sweaty and out of breath and be sore the next day, but I like that. The sweaty out of breath feeling is an exhilarating glow, and the soreness feels rewarding and kinda nice.
tl;dr exercise genuinely doesn’t have to be unpleasant??
Side note, my dance group was entirely made up of nerds. And in general I don’t resonate with the nerd/jock dichotomy, like, at all. Though based on my sister’s experience (in competitive tae kwon do) that may have to do with competitive vs non-competitive forms of exercise.
Yeah, this seems like an important point. For me the difference between jogging and badminton is like night and day. Asking me whether I like “exercise” would be like asking me if I like “food”.
In general, I think most people should put a lot more resources into shopping around for enjoyable exercise. I got really lucky that my friend talked me into taking a badminton class with him in high school; if not for that, I might conceive of myself as “not a cardio person”.
All that being said, I still do force myself to jog when my preferred cardio alternatives are unavailable.
I agree with shopping around. It took me a couple of decades of bouncing off of long distance running until I found a jiujitsu dojo full of engineers. All of a sudden, “exercise” was fun.
“Only do it if it’s easy and you like it” doesn’t seem as obviously wrong to me as it’s supposed to sound. During the 6 years of my life when I had dance practice ~twice a week I never just decided I didn’t want to show up, because I really liked going! In performances I would get this high where I wanted to just do every song straight through for the full hour (or however long), even though I always scheduled in rests for each person – and a lot of other people had this experience as well. Similarly, when I run on an elliptical I get to a point where I feel like I never want to stop. I push myself but I don’t experience it as ‘uncomfortable’ subjectively – I might get sweaty and out of breath and be sore the next day, but I like that. The sweaty out of breath feeling is an exhilarating glow, and the soreness feels rewarding and kinda nice.
tl;dr exercise genuinely doesn’t have to be unpleasant??
Side note, my dance group was entirely made up of nerds. And in general I don’t resonate with the nerd/jock dichotomy, like, at all. Though based on my sister’s experience (in competitive tae kwon do) that may have to do with competitive vs non-competitive forms of exercise.
Yeah, this seems like an important point. For me the difference between jogging and badminton is like night and day. Asking me whether I like “exercise” would be like asking me if I like “food”.
In general, I think most people should put a lot more resources into shopping around for enjoyable exercise. I got really lucky that my friend talked me into taking a badminton class with him in high school; if not for that, I might conceive of myself as “not a cardio person”.
All that being said, I still do force myself to jog when my preferred cardio alternatives are unavailable.
I agree with shopping around. It took me a couple of decades of bouncing off of long distance running until I found a jiujitsu dojo full of engineers. All of a sudden, “exercise” was fun.