Not exactly compulsive, but I feel strong negative emotions when I don’t walk. I walk to and from work every day–a 7 mile commute–representing about 2 hours of constant moving and mental “zone out”. It’s become as routine as sleeping or eating. So yeah, when I don’t get it I feel bad. Sometimes I make up for missed hours on the weekends by walking twice as much as I normally would.
I’m kind of proud of this, however. For years exercise was an absolute drudgery for me, and now it’s a very well engrained habit that I don’t even have to think about.
I’m not a compulsive person. If I were, I’d probably be an alcoholic or other druggie by now, considering my family and genetic background.
Still, since I’ve been exercising regularly for the last couple of years, if I haven’t been able to exercise for a few days I do get antsy and probably annoying to be around. I spent a day rained in when on a trip with friend in Nepal after having been pretty active for a few days in a row. If he hadn’t been bedridden with intestinal distress and sleeping most of the time I probably would have driven him nuts. As it was, I did an improvised workout in our room.
It pisses me off when I can’t get in a workout due to external events, partly because I can’t actually do a 3-on 1-off schedule like I would like to. I’ve only been able to do an average of 3 days a week most of the time, and that means that I’m roughly a year behind where I would be if I could do that ideal schedule. I would be in awesome shape instead of just pretty good. Anything that cuts into the limited time I do have is intellectually and physically bothersome.
For those of you who feel compelled to exercise, remember that longer is not necessarily better. Volume should take a back seat to intensity most of the time. If you’re a fitness fanatic, you’ll probably have to force yourself to not exercise on your off days. Keep your rest days sacrosanct. It’ll pay off big if you do.
I’ve heard that too, also that doing hundreds of reps is pretty pointless as abs are like any other muscle and beyond a certain number of reps (30 or so) you’re just working fatigued muscles.
But then I don’t have a six pack so can’t speak from any experience.
High-rep ab work has been debunked ages ago. Abs are like most other muscles in that they respond (grow) to heavy resistance at moderate reps. Situps are a low-resistance excercise that one adapts to very quickly, so getting a bulging sixpack by hundred rep crunch schemes isn’t gonna happen. Many 6-pack donning muscleheads do nothing directly to their abs, but rely on heavy squatting and deadlifting to take care of them. Low bodyfat is a must for an ab-tastic figure, as everyone knows, achieved by diet and bodyfat-shedding excercise, which situps or crunches are not.