Many people believe they either like exercise or they don’t. In reality, enjoying exercise and sticking to it often comes down to developing a series of skills. These include controlling effort, body awareness, injury management and learning how to persuade yourself to get started.
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For a long time now, I have viewed health and fitness as the process of developing a series of skills around food, exercise and lifestyle. While many of these skills are focused on getting yourself to move in the first place, most people assume they either like exercise or they don’t. I don’t see it that way. Most people are simply missing one or more of the skills needed to make exercise enjoyable and sustainable. The following are the most useful ones to develop if you do not already have them:
How Do You Learn to Control Exercise Intensity?
Most people exercise too hard, too often. Learning to control effort makes exercise feel more sustainable and enjoyable.
Aerobic exercise uses a Rate of Perceived Exertion scale on a 0-20, or 0-10 scale, where 0 – is watching TV, and 10 is collapsing from the sheer effort of the exercise like you were in the worst army fitness drill imaginable. Most people are really bad at being aware of this effort level during exercise and end up going way too hard, then associate exercise with suffering and of course become inconsistent. Kids are particularly bad at this, I see it all the time on the athletic track. When you learn how to control your effort it makes exercise life changing. As effort is self-evaluated it has already factored in how tired you are, stressed, demotivated and thus gives you much more freedom than simply setting it to level 8 like you normally do and then wondering why you hate the gym today. You can develop this ability by routinely asking yourself how hard exercise feels on the 0-20 or 0-10 scale. Over time your perception of what feels a certain number changes, rather than you actually working higher up on the scale.
Key takeaway: Most people would enjoy exercise far more if they learnt to go easier. Learning to control effort is one of the fastest ways to make exercise feel sustainable.
Why is Body Awareness Important During Exercise?
Understanding where you feel an exercise helps make movement safer and more effective
When people start exercise and you ask them where do they feel the exercise you are lucky if they can guess the right muscle that is working. With experience you are able to narrow it down to the few cm’s the muscle is maximally working. Body awareness is a big part of yoga, and surprisingly something bodybuilders are very good at. A lot of PT’s make weight training sound very scary so people are scared to do it on their own, but if you can identify the difference between feeling an exercise in a muscle vs the joint it is very safe. No exercise should be felt in a joint, just the working muscle. Developing body awareness comes from doing an exercise and asking yourself where do you feel it.
Key takeaway: The better you become at feeling what your body is doing, the safer and more effective exercise becomes.
What is Joint Proprioception? –
Joint proprioception is your body’s awareness of where your joints are and how they are moving.
It refers to how your body and brain know where your joints are in space, the speed they are moving and what it needs to do to react to it all. We often lose this ability as modern life rarely questions our fitness demands. You want to train the nervous system to move joints efficiently within different movement patterns and react quickly when needed, e.g. when you trip. This is developed by using multi directional exercises and training jumps or quick movements.
Key takeaway: Good movement is not just about strength and fitness, it is also about teaching your nervous system to react efficiently and confidently.
Why You Should Learn Basic Injury Management?
Most minor aches and pains can often be improved with simple home strategies before they become major problems.
We are always picking up niggles and minor aches in life, especially if you move quite a bit. They are below the level of needing a physio but enough to stop you wanting to move. This is not overly a problem as the vast majority can be sorted out at home with some very basic methods. Using a massage ball, strengthening the nearest muscles and focusing on stretching or mobility of the most likely tight muscles around the area, will improve most minor niggles.
Key takeaway: Most minor aches and pains do not need to stop you exercising if you know a few simple methods to manage them.
Can You Learn To Tolerate Different Types of Exercise?
Different forms of exercise create different sensations, and these can be trained just like fitness itself.
There are different feelings involved in doing exercise, going for a run is a not at all the same feeling as power lifting or a yoga class. This is why most people just stick to the one form of exercise that they like, because they have not learnt to enjoy or tolerate the different types of sensation. The intensity of these different feelings should be adapted to how much you like them, e.g. a seasoned runner who hates stretching should push themselves on the road but be very gentle when stretching afterwards. Over time, you can train yourself to like all the different exercise sensations.
Key takeaway: Enjoying exercise is often a learned skill. The more experience you have with different exercise sensations, the more options become available to you.
How Do You Discover What Exercise You Enjoy?
Most people have only experienced a tiny percentage of the exercise options available. So, you do not have enough experience to really know what you like and don’t like. If you have only been on a treadmill and done a squat you are limiting your options of what may be enjoyable. Once you know what you enjoy the most, you can build your routine around those fun activities.
Key takeaway: If you have only tried a handful of exercise types, you probably do not yet know what forms of movement suit you best.
How Do You Persuade Yourself to Exercise?
Consistent exercisers are often better at negotiating with themselves than forcing themselves.
The ultimate exercise skill is being able to persuade yourself to actually do it. This may involve negotiating only a few minutes instead of 30, or going really easy instead of pushing it hard. The ability to get yourself to move is a very trainable skill and one every consistent performer has developed. Part of this is actually knowing what to do when you decide to exercise, you are not born knowing what a lunge, downward dog or running interval is, albeit all of them are very natural movements that you are born able to do.
Key takeaway: The ability to get yourself moving, even when you do not feel like it, is one of the most valuable exercise skills you can develop.
What Does This Mean For You
Stop convincing yourself you are not into exercise and instead focus on developing any missing skills from the above list. If you totally hate exercise then I would start with learning the rate of perceived exertion and go no more than 6/10 effort for a few weeks, which should feel comfortable. Most people find it too easy at that lower level, so push themselves harder, then wonder why they never managed to become an exerciser.
Summary
- Exercise is a collection of skills, not a personality trait
- Most people can learn to enjoy exercise more over time
- Controlling effort is one of the most valuable exercise skills
- Different forms of exercise require different tolerances
- Consistency often comes from making exercise easier, not harder
- Self-negotiation is a trainable skill
Photo – I have learnt to enjoy the different exercise feelings using the above techniques, a picture from Battersea Park Run this weekend, a random pump up in my bodybuilding days and my best attempt at the side splits in lockdown,
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