This kind of work is my preferred exercise. I used to spend a lot of time helping a friend out on his farm–we did just about everything you can imagine is involved in farm work: heaving haybales around, repairing the outbuildings or fences, herding the stock into another field or a truck, and many other physically-demanding chores and tasks. At the end of the day, we may have been tired but we felt great. And we had accomplished something.
Funny thing–I could work all day on the farm without a problem. Five minutes in a gym, however, and I would just feel like hell, want to stop, and to get out of there. Odd.
I spent 2 years in the Army, working my ass off. Before that I trained with weights at least 3 days a week and and wrestled in high school. I never felt good during or after exercise.
I think that part of it is that when you do real work your mind is engaged as well as your body and the point isn’t the exercise, it’s to get the job done. When you’re done you get a sense of satisfaction for what you’ve accomplished as well as getting to know that you got more than enough exercise that day. This morning I went out to clear out a 5’ by 20’ patch of mint. It doesn’t sound like a lot of work but digging down a foot in wet ground and turning it all, constantly stooping and tugging to pull out the roots and hauling away several wheelbarrows full is far more work than weights would have been and just as hard on my muscles. When I was done I was wet, tired, covered in mud and perfectly happy. It’s a lot easier said than done if you live in the city or suburbs and have no need to do that kind of work, though.
I hate exercising but I love racing. I find that as long as I’m signed up for a race, I can keep a minimum level of motivation ;). Actually, I find that I absolutely have to have a routine. For me, it is way too easy (mentally) to lapse and then it is just that much harder to get back into the routine. Therefore, as long as I don’t break my pattern I’m pretty consistent. I’m not sure that makes any sense but it seems to work for me.
I am quite out of shape now.
But, in the past, I’ve trained for several half marathons, two marathons, and a few long course triathlons and stayed pretty active between events. I was in shape. When I say that exercise sucked, I’m not saying that it didn’t get easier; of course my body adapted to more and more exercise.
But the “this feels good” or “I feel energized” or alertness thing that other people are talking about? No. There was no runner’s high.
Crap. I am, or was, probably doing it all wrong. Everything I know comes from one semester of college phys-ed class. 12 years of gym prior to that taught me how to give the ball to the real athletes and get out of the way.
At any rate, the professor said that you should excercise at an intensity such that you can just barely communicate in short sentences. If you can hold a conversation, you’re not accomplishing much. He also had great disdain for walking and jogging, which he claimed did little or nothing for health. No idea about how correct this stuff is.
Recently, a doctor told me he doesn’t recommend running to anybody because of the potential for knee damage. He also said it was a bad thing for heart rate get above 200, with 160 being good.
For a while I was using a stationary bike at the doctor-recommended pace but it didn’t do anything and was terrifically boring, so I went back to going full out, which while not entirely safe at least went faster. Which is why I finally gave up entirely.
Exactly - I’ve been able to stick to the running thing by signing up for races that are really going to challenge me and by having a program - if today is Tuesday then I have to run three miles because the calendar says so.
Absolutely. Not everyone’s body has the same ability to process the necessary ingredients for energy in the same way.
On the prior page, I linked to a study about exercise intolerance that is proving that (surprise!) people with some chronic conditions actually show a measurable decrease in their ability to produce and efficiently use energy. So contrary to what some people say, it’s not just all in their head, and it’s not a matter of just ‘trying harder’ or ‘keeping with it.’
I’ve heard people say that if you are exercising hard and can’t carry on a conversation, it means you’re out of shape. I’ve never got that–when I’m walking in between running laps, I can talk fine, but when I’m running, I can’t really talk that much. So maybe I’m doing something right!
I was told by a trainer that you should still be able to carry on a conversation while exercising. Now, this was advice given to a very out-of-shape person, but it was still professional advice.
I hated excercise even when I was young and (for a brief time) in absolutely fantastic shape. I was in great shape not because I exercised in a gym but because I was a student with next to no money. The one summer I had a desk job I gained 15 pounds, which was o.k. for a 5’ 7" woman starting at 120. Later, when I was a stay-at-home mom, I was in great shape because I again had very little money to spare, and we would walk or bike everywhere we could to save on cost. Try bicycling a couple miles with a toddler perched in a bike seat. Burns up lots o’ calories, it does.
I’m glad to hear that. Not that I really want to burn that much fat, but I’m glad I don’t need to worry about talking while I run–not gonna happen any time soon!
I just started exercising for the first time in my life. I’m at week 8 of the Couch-2-5k thing, and I can now do maybe 30 pushups. Woo!
At first it sucked. I’d hate it while I was doing it, and wake up sore the next day. Then it started feeling better afterward. Now, it’s starting to feel good as I do it, and I don’t even have to psych myself up before I go because I’m actually starting to look forward to it.
And I can feel the effects all day- I’m starting to grow new muscles and I can feel them eager to work as I’m going about my daily life. I’m also feeling more energy in my daily life. I think having measurable challenges has helped me stick with it. I am just now starting to see my new muscles and how I’m getting toned. But from even the second week I could see how my arms were getting stronger and my endurance was increasing.
I’ve always hated running; it’s never been fun, and I never really got to the point where I enjoyed it, even when I was hitting the “runner’s high” phenomenon. It was always just drudgery for me. I do, however, enjoy biking, even when it kicks my butt; it’s always been fun and refreshing for me. If I lived in an area where biking around as a commuter option were a practical option, I’d do it more often.
These days, I’m training with my sensei at a martial arts dojo, and I find that lack of control over my workout and a great deal of variety within my workout makes things a lot better for my enjoyment level, even when the workout is tough. I’m finding that, after two months of intense fitness training, I’m starting to like exercise again as long as it has a goal. At first, I was completely out of shape and hating it; I could barely do anything, and it wasn’t motivating at all to me to be out of shape. However, because I was taking a class with an instructor who’s very good at motivating me, I kept pushing through it and got better. The intensity level rose accordingly, and two months later, I’ve lost 20 lbs, gained a lot of energy, and feel better after a good workout, no matter how much I whine and moan during the exercise. I’m still sore on many days, as I work out five days per week and almost all days are challenging to me, but I feel good about myself and most days I’m tired but feel good (almost a “high”) afterward. I feel a great sense of accomplishment, and can see goals ahead of me that I am on my way to achieving. We’ll see how I feel in a couple of weeks when my training transitions over to martial arts classes with the instructor, but I have a feeling that learning more applied skills while working out will be a great motivator for me to continue.
I only do exercises that don’t make me feel awful, on the theory that it’s better that I actually do them than that I try them and go “Oh, no fucking way.”
There are a bunch of exercises that, while difficult, feel good. Well, good is the wrong word. But I feel myself getting something out of them, even as I groan and pant. Others are just, “dear GOD this is unpleasant.”
In some ways exercise feels good, in others it’s pretty damn unpleasant. Heavy squats and deadilfts in particular, since you can lift so much weight with those movements, bloody hurt. For Olympic lifts like the snatch or clean, it’s not fun convincing your brain that heaving a weight that’s heavier than you into the air, and then getting underneath to catch it and stand up with it is a good idea.
But being able pick heavy things up repeatedly is a good feeling. The aftermath of lifting is usually a pleasant lassitude, if you’re not overdoing things. Being stronger makes doing any number of things easier, and you’re not as prone to little aches and pains. I haven’t had a stiff shoulder or sore neck in months, while when I was out of shape I used to have something out of whack on an almost weekly basis. If you’re training properly, challenging yourself enough to keep progressing but not pushing to the point of injury, you’ll have better joints too.
Stuff that’s more aerobic is more painful than lifting, for me. I’m a good swimmer and I’m a good runner. It’s fun to do things you’re good at. I hate doing either one for long distances. Immediately after I’ve finished a longer session I don’t feel great, but I don’t feel terrible anymore either. I usually need some water and something to eat because I get shaky and nauseous when my blood sugar drops. After that, it’s pretty much like the aftermath from any other exercise, though I’m obviously more fatigued by longer efforts than by the relatively short work I do when I’m lifting.
The only reason I run anything longer than a 400m distance is because I want to be able to run 5k or 10k and do it well, but I definitely don’t enjoy setting my lungs on fire for 20–50 minutes. I don’t even really enjoy doing the short-duration high-intensity exercise that makes up the bulk of my metabolic training. It sucks. I do it anyway.
I like the results. I like not being fat. I like being able to climb several flights of stairs without getting out of breath. I like being able to run around a field like a little kid if I feel like it. I like that I can do sports and activities that are strenuous, enjoy doing them, and not be exhausted in a few minutes or have to worry about being sore the next day.
