How To Make Working Out Less Enjoyable
Again, obviously a tongue-in-cheek video.
Working out/training is a big part of my life. I’d love to talk about it more, however what usually stops me is a combination of:
There’s so much stuff on the internet
I’m not qualified beyond my own experience (which is another way of saying I’m not qualified)
I’m not exactly a super-impressive athlete, in the grand scheme of things
That being said, I do think I see some mistakes that people make when it comes to working out which I wanted to call out in this video. So, to examine the reverse below:
1. Only do first sessions/for the love of god do more than one session
The first session is usually the worst, as you’re confronted with how out of shape you are. It’s the very bottom of whatever mountain you’re trying to climb. The second session, depending on what it is, is usually a bit better - as at least you know what to expect.
So often, however, I think we shoot ourselves in the foot by not even making it this far. One thing I try and remind myself whenever trying something new, or some new program or anything like that, is that the first session is the hardest (psychologically speaking). Once you’ve done that, the worst part is over, so there’s no reason to throw in the towel.
Progress is generally seen over the course of weeks, if not months. You’ve got to put in a minimal investment.
2. Wing it/For the love of god follow a program (especially if you’re inexperienced)
Look, if you want to bake a specific thing, or cook a specific dish, you follow a goddamned recipe. The more specific the thing you want, the more detailed a recipe you’re going to need. And guess what, if you have little experience cooking, even if you want something simple you should follow a recipe - it won’t require any more effort, but the results will likely be a lot better.
Programming (that is, in this context, the art and science of designing a training program) for strength, muscle building, cardio etc is a hotly debated topic of which you can find endless material online, much like you can find endless, wildly different ‘perfect cookie’ recipes. When you’re starting from scratch, it doesn’t ‘really’ matter which one you pick, so long as you pick one.
Even if your goals are nonspecific “I just want to get healthier” or “I just want to look better” it pays to follow a program. You’ll learn more about working out and training by doing so - much in the same way if you’re just “hungry for something” you should still cook something specific!
Where to find programmes? The books mentioned in the next section are good places to start. Other than that, look online in subreddits like /r/fitness and /r/bodyweightfitness where they have beginner routines for someone just starting out. These have the added bonus of having lots of anonymous strangers on the internet agree that they’re effective.
And once you’ve done some programmes, you’ll be in a better position to start putting together your own training programme specific to you and your goals. You can mix together ingredients because by this stage you’ll have experience on what works for you and what doesn’t, by virtue of having experimented properly in the first place. There are also books dedicated to this sort of thing such as practical strength programming and the big book of endurance training. These are meant to give you principles to work with (BUT DON’T START THERE, START WITH A PROGRAM)
3. Don’t educate yourself/For the love of god educate yourself
Look, sports science is a thing. We’re different in many ways, but at the end of the day, lots of what we’ve learned about how the body adapts will apply to almost every human being on this planet (including you). This is really useful information .
Weight-loss fads and ads with ‘secret exercises’ keep people hooked because they fundamentally don’t know any better. Sure, as with any body of knowledge, there are disputes, but the foundation is a lot less controversial than you might expect.
The two books recommended in the video are The World’s Fittest Book by Ross Edgeley and Bigger/Thinner Leaner Stronger by Mark Matthews
Neither of these books are perfect, but I think together they make a really phenomenal start that could save a lot of people years of wasted time.
Ross Edgeley is a savage who you might know from having swum around great Britain. He’s basically boiled down a lot of sports science in this book into an easily digestible framework, with corresponding workouts and examples. Above all this, however, he’s a big fan of getting to know your own body, and setting your own personal goals. There’s a balance between being informed by research and your own experience, and he articulates it beautifully.
Bigger/Thinner Leaner Stronger is a great book for many reasons. It has sections dedicated to common myths and misconceptions, and gives actionable steps to achieve physique goals. This is a purely vanity book - but lets face it, a lot of us care about this. It will also make you stronger and so on, but I think most people ultimately want to know the answers to the questions he explicitly covers. Between these two books, we can be fit, healthy, and look good. Why not have it all?
Last pitch - look, you’ll probably need to work out for years to come. It’s two books, there are lots of pictures in both of them. It’s like, a few hours max for most of the important chapters. Just, freaking, read dude.
4. Have terrible expectations/For the love of god have reasonable expectations
Most models, bodybuilders, people you see on magazines and on Instagram are almost certainly a combination of
Possessing great genetics
Having years of training from a young age
On some sort of performance enhancing drugs
As such, it can be really easy to have our expectations warped of what is achievable, not only in a short time frame, but even in a lifetime (without, you know, pumping yourself full of steroids).
Some bodies simply are happier at a higher bodyfat %. It’s still calories in vs calories out, but for them to live at the level of leanness of another person would probably mess with their hormones and they’d be dealing with excessive, constant hunger. Some people can touch weights and put on huge amounts of muscle, some struggle to. Our bodies are all different - however, if you’re looking at someone online, bear in mind that they have gone through a selection process of being one of the most aesthetically pleasing/athletic body types.
As I’ve written before, the fitness industry is often about aesthetics, rather than actual health and fitness. Bear this in mind.
So what should this mean for your expectations? There’s a balance here - on the one hand, you shouldn’t compare yourself to anyone else. Your body is your own, with its unique gifts and advantages for certain movement types. You might have genes predisposed for endurance or strength or better recovery. You should seek to find out what you’re good at, and when it comes to a program accept what comes as a result of doing the work.
On the other hand, you absolutely should be ambitious. While you shouldn’t expect to be an Adonis in 6 weeks, don’t but a ceiling on how far you can go. Few people can truly claimed to have reached their genetic limit. Better to venture forth with an air of discovery to see what you truly can achieve than to assume you’re no good from the outset.
Most people get the above balance wrong - having high short-term expectations with simultaneous really bad long-term expectations of their potential. Do the opposite.
5. Only do HiiT/For the love of god, please please please don’t only do HiiT. Preferably don’t do it at all to begin with.
My hottest take yet - HiiT is vastly overrated.
For beginners, anyway.
A few things - true High Intensity Interval training involves max-out-you’re-being-chased-by-a-rhino effort followed by as much rest as needed in order to repeat that level of effort. Most workouts which claim the label ‘HIIT’ are actually just a series of short intervals where exercises get switched up every so often.
The claim behind HIIT is “get more done in less time”. Which sounds great, except, it generally doesn’t work that way.
Lets take something like doing 30 seconds of squats. Sounds simple right? Just go at it. But what’s the quality of these squats? Are we doing the movement well? There’s a time and place for being explosive - but this is generally after we have control of the movement in the first place. Same with situps, pushups or literally anything else - speeding them up in an interval workout is only effective if we can do the movements effectively in the first place.
As anyone who has done HIIT before knows, the quality of your movements decreases pretty quickly if you’re not careful. You can easily end up doing half-reps, taking long pauses in between to catch your breath. This increases the chance of injury, and even if you push through, you’re only going to get better at doing half reps.
Strength/hypertrophy (fancy word for muscle building) training involves rest periods for a reason. Namely, you need that time to effectively recover so you can do high-quality work.
If burning calories is your goal, that’s what cardio is for.
Build muscle over time to increase your resting metabolic rate (i.e. passively burn more calories) and do cardio daily for health and short term burn. That’s the balance.
And here’s the big secret - if you’re doing HIIT to burn calories and build muscle, let me blow your mind for a second.
Suppose that in a HIIT video or 7 minute youtube video workout or whatever you end up doing 100 starjumps, 100 squats, 100 mountain climbers and 100 lunges or something (that would probably be pretty hardcore for 7 minutes but bear with me).
Suppose instead, you did the same amount of repetitions in twice the amount of time. Namely, you took your time, focusing on high quality, much slower reps of the squats and lunges. What would happen?
If you’re doing the same amount of repetitions, you’d burn the same amount of calories. If anything, you’d burn more - because you’d probably be doing full-reps, rather than shorter ones. Once more - the energy expenditure, if you’re doing the same amount of work would be the same. HIIT doesn’t break the laws of thermodynamics.
It’d also be easier on your body, and you’d likely be better adapted for the next workout.
HIIT was invented to practice max-power output, and to increase V02 max. Not to build muscle or to build calories. Yes, it can do the latter, but there are vastly better ways of doing this.
6. Don’t try new things/For the love of god, try new things (especially things you don’t think you’ll like)
I avoided weightlifting, and touching a barbell, until I was 22. It was only because I was stuck in Havant, a small town next to Portsmouth, for 3-4 days a week for around 7 months (don’t ask) that I did. There was a gym next to work, and almost nothing else to do. So I hired a PT to teach me the basics.
By lord, I suddenly understood the appeal. When, on the outside, all I had seen was grunting and machismo muscle-building, what I quickly found out is that it’s an exercise in precision and focus. Barbell training can be extremely methodical - even mathematical. Plus, weightlifting training is so god damned effective. I kicked myself for judging it from the outside and not trying it sooner.
So try things! Yes, it’s perhaps possible, however remotely, that you are the sort of person that would despise every kind of training, but it’s unlikely.
7. Always train alone/For the love of god please train with someone else sometimes
From the age of 14 to 16 I trained between 6-8 sessions a week in one activity - rowing.
And I hated it.
Every time we would go out in boats on the cold, dark, bleak river Thames (usually overcast weather with occasional light rain, enough to be unpleasant but not enough to stop us) I swore to myself that when we got back, I’d quit outright. It was one motion repeated again and again and again to exhaustion. It was maddening.
But when we eventually did return, I would, almost the instant my foot touched solid ground again, say to myself “ah, it wasn’t that bad, now was it?” This was due to one thing - the community of people who I rowed with.
My best friends were rowers. We were the non-sporty guys who couldn’t play rugby or football. It was our weird nerdy thing. We pushed through it together.
Training partners are, and I’m going to go out on a limb here - essential. You need them to get out of your own head-space, and mix things up. Plus, camaraderie in the face of adversity is a powerful motivator.
Whether it’s a personal trainer, or a friend, make sure to occasionally work out with someone. Pick something fun, like a random challenge neither of you have done before. Or take a couple of hours to work on technique - just pick something that energises you both.
My main workout partner is my dad. This has been the case since I was 12 years old. We still goof off, and still push each other. Even if we don’t train at the same time, just knowing the other one is still on the path is a powerful motivator.
8. Never examine your narrative around exercise/For the love of god, let whatever baggage you have about exercise go
If training and working out isn’t a part of your life currently, it’s likely you weren’t the sportiest at school, or the most natural athlete growing up.
You possibly have some bad associations with this sort of thing, and have some narratives to go along with it “I’m just uncoordinated” “my knees are no good” “I naturally have a slow metabolism” or whatever.
These might even be true.
And?
It doesn’t matter what you have been, what’s more exciting is what you can still do.
Working out can be many things - it can be a way to relieve stress, stay healthy, impress people or just outright fun. But at the core of it, at least for me, is that it’s a practice of self-transcendence. You’re pushing beyond what you were before, and finding new limits.
This is how I think about training, and how it all began:
When I was 12 I started working out. My decision to do this came from a single moment - I was standing looking at myself in the mirror one day after school, and I noticed I was kind of chubby.
I didn’t like it.
Tied up with this was the consistent experience of coming last in almost every sporting event or race that I was forced to participate in at school. In that moment, I had had enough.
I immediately started jogging on the spot, thinking to myself “I have to fix this now” After about 10 minutes of this, my dad came upstairs to see what the hell I was doing. I basically said to him I wanted to get fit, so we agreed to go for a run that Sunday.
Come Sunday, we maybe, maybe managed 10 minutes of jogging before I felt like I was going to die. We were aiming for two short laps around my local park. We made it just over one lap.
The next Sunday, I just about finished two laps.
The following Sunday, we decided to up the ante, and try for a 2km run, a local route we ran at school called ‘the bandstand’. I gave it my all, and at the end I was struggling to breathe so much that a passerby came to check on me, announcing she was a doctor. She was concerned I was having an asthma attack. My dad found this all quite funny (he knew I was fine).
For about 5 years following that, every Sunday, without fail, my father and I would run. We slowly increased the distance to a 6.5km route. When we first ran it, it took us around 50 minutes. Towards the end, we were running it just under 34 minutes.
And during those years, I was able to slowly shift my perspective on myself. I remember a couple of years into doing weekend runs with my dad, I had a summer-sports day at my school. Each person in various classes got assigned a random event, and I got assigned the 400m sprint. Classes were naturally competitive, and when we got together to evaluate our odds of winning each event, I was quietly ignored as a write-off.
Which I didn’t exactly disagree with. The guys I ended up against were relatively sporty types. I wasn’t too bothered with the whole thing, but quietly I set myself a goal - I was fine with coming last, but I wanted to be competitive. I was going to make them sweat for it, god damn it.
So on the day my event eventually rolls around, and I’m feeling quietly excited. After all, my working out had been fairly secret. Most of these guys didn’t know I had quietly been putting hours in. The race starts and I gun it, figuring fuck it, I’ll puke on the finish line I don’t care. By the last 100 metres, it’s clear that 4 others are far ahead of me. But there’s this one guy - this one other person, who I’m keeping up with. And in the last stretch, he runs out of gas, and I arrive in glorious second-last place. I remember him looking up at me to the side looking slightly confused, as his hands held on to his knees while he was catching his breath. I caught his glance, then looked away, and thought “yeah, that happened”.
Second-last place got zero points for my class. An unremarkable feat in a day filled with some fantastic natural athletic talent. But I was proud as heck. I had shifted the needle. I had made them sweat. My fate was altered. It could be done.
As you may have guessed, my narrative around working out is pretty positive. It’s tied up with a lot of my history, my relationship with my father, and how I’ve grown as a person.
I just think it’s a bad-ass thing to do.
A large part of why I think it’s so bad-ass, and why it’s so positive for me, is that it started out as a negative narrative. If it had all been easy, it wouldn’t have been worthwhile or meaningful.
So if you do have some baggage, or some negativity, in my experience that can make some wonderful fuel. Find a narrative that works for you, not against you. If you see yourself as disadvantaged - wonderful, you’re an underdog now, rising up, back on the streets. Previous athletic talent in your younger years that got lost? Great, this is a return to glory story. Change your relationship to working out, and everything about it will change.