I think this is a great point. I appreciate the examples too. I often find it hard to come up with good examples, but at the same time I think good examples are super useful, and these are great examples.
2
For lifting weights, I personally have settled on just doing bench presses and leg presses because that’s what actually triggers enough motivation in me. Other exercises I just don’t enjoy nearly as much. I also find it much more motivating when I can get in and out in a half hour. When I was younger I would often have 90+ minute sessions and I’m just not motivated to do that anymore.
I also only go about once every week (or two). Which I’m ok with. There seem to be pretty big diminishing returns when it comes to strength training and I don’t want to risk aiming for a 3x/week schedule, failing at it, and ending up going months without doing any strength training at all.
3
The failure mode you point out seems to me like a Valley of Bad Rationality. Normal people are not automatically strategic and don’t jump to trying to how you could optimize your exercise routine when you tell them you just started exercising. Rationalists are more strategic and probably make this jump too frequently. Being strategic is often a good thing, but here it’s probably not.
1
I think this is a great point. I appreciate the examples too. I often find it hard to come up with good examples, but at the same time I think good examples are super useful, and these are great examples.
2
For lifting weights, I personally have settled on just doing bench presses and leg presses because that’s what actually triggers enough motivation in me. Other exercises I just don’t enjoy nearly as much. I also find it much more motivating when I can get in and out in a half hour. When I was younger I would often have 90+ minute sessions and I’m just not motivated to do that anymore.
I also only go about once every week (or two). Which I’m ok with. There seem to be pretty big diminishing returns when it comes to strength training and I don’t want to risk aiming for a 3x/week schedule, failing at it, and ending up going months without doing any strength training at all.
3
The failure mode you point out seems to me like a Valley of Bad Rationality. Normal people are not automatically strategic and don’t jump to trying to how you could optimize your exercise routine when you tell them you just started exercising. Rationalists are more strategic and probably make this jump too frequently. Being strategic is often a good thing, but here it’s probably not.