If you are not having fun, there is little chance of long-term success. Personally, I hate workouts, and any kind of weight lifting bores me out of my skull. Instead I go play ping-pong, or badminton, or beach volleyball (when in season) instead. The downside is that you need a partner or a team, and your workout is not overly scientific, the upside is that the time passes quickly as you socialize as well as exercise. Which leads me to the most important upside: looking forward to doing it again, instead of dreading it. YMMV.
Instead I go play ping-pong, or badminton, or beach volleyball (when in season) instead.
Ping-pong and volleyball basically don’t count as exercise, they are just recreation. (Unless you are performing at an unrealistically high level of competition which for most intents and purposes is a completely different activity.) Badminton does count assuming you are trying. That is, not walking around tapping the little thingie at each other but actually pushing as hard as you can to make each shot.
Rockclimbing might be another good and fun option, and can be done by yourself to some extent (bouldering, or borrowing gym staff). For me, it has an added bonus since lots of mathematicians socialize by rockclimbing together.
Weight lifting bored me out of my skull until I started doing a linear progression weight lifting program. Going up in weight every time I lift not only tests my mental fortitude (which is where the main fun comes from for me), but also provides great (unexpectedly great for me) motivation.
Also, I think the technique in Attention control is critical for… could help with increasing the amount of enjoyment. Or at least lessening the friction.
Do you have a citation for this? My impression is that the level of exercise needed to get benefits quickly hits diminishing marginal returns as soon as one has some regular form of exercise, but I haven’t looked at the literature on this subject in any detail, but articles like this suggest that the amount needed is not very high.
″ This modified routine involved one minute of strenuous effort, at about 90 percent of a person’s maximum heart rate (which most of us can estimate, very roughly, by subtracting our age from 220), followed by one minute of easy recovery. The effort and recovery are repeated 10 times, for a total of 20 minutes.”
is not light exercise. Have you done a HIIT routine similar to the one listed? It’s brutal.
Watch Daily Show & Colbert while you work out. Don’t let yourself watch those shows EXCEPT for when you are working out. Solved the problem for me. (substitute your favorite 50-min chunk of light TV to taste)
If you are not having fun, there is little chance of long-term success. Personally, I hate workouts, and any kind of weight lifting bores me out of my skull. Instead I go play ping-pong, or badminton, or beach volleyball (when in season) instead. The downside is that you need a partner or a team, and your workout is not overly scientific, the upside is that the time passes quickly as you socialize as well as exercise. Which leads me to the most important upside: looking forward to doing it again, instead of dreading it. YMMV.
Ping-pong and volleyball basically don’t count as exercise, they are just recreation. (Unless you are performing at an unrealistically high level of competition which for most intents and purposes is a completely different activity.) Badminton does count assuming you are trying. That is, not walking around tapping the little thingie at each other but actually pushing as hard as you can to make each shot.
Rockclimbing might be another good and fun option, and can be done by yourself to some extent (bouldering, or borrowing gym staff). For me, it has an added bonus since lots of mathematicians socialize by rockclimbing together.
Weight lifting bored me out of my skull until I started doing a linear progression weight lifting program. Going up in weight every time I lift not only tests my mental fortitude (which is where the main fun comes from for me), but also provides great (unexpectedly great for me) motivation.
Also, I think the technique in Attention control is critical for… could help with increasing the amount of enjoyment. Or at least lessening the friction.
sporadic light exercise will not cause the type of longevity promoting adaptation many are after.
Do you have a citation for this? My impression is that the level of exercise needed to get benefits quickly hits diminishing marginal returns as soon as one has some regular form of exercise, but I haven’t looked at the literature on this subject in any detail, but articles like this suggest that the amount needed is not very high.
″ This modified routine involved one minute of strenuous effort, at about 90 percent of a person’s maximum heart rate (which most of us can estimate, very roughly, by subtracting our age from 220), followed by one minute of easy recovery. The effort and recovery are repeated 10 times, for a total of 20 minutes.”
is not light exercise. Have you done a HIIT routine similar to the one listed? It’s brutal.
HIIT is the opposite of light exercise. While the time involved may be low, the effort involved is extremely, extremely high.
Watch Daily Show & Colbert while you work out. Don’t let yourself watch those shows EXCEPT for when you are working out. Solved the problem for me. (substitute your favorite 50-min chunk of light TV to taste)