Hate to Exercise? - Do Something 4 Health

A Different Approach to Help You Find Motivation and Get Started

At a Glance- Hate to Exercise?

Get specific about why you hate to exercise.
Find your motivation for getting in better shape.
Set a general goal. Don’t be too specific.
Set your priority for what you want to improve first.
Pick one (and only one) exercise you will commit to per day.
Measure your progress and celebrate victories.

I grew up on a farm and never had to work out. Cleaning stalls, wrestling young horses, throwing tons of hay, and splitting firewood were great workouts. After working up a sweat I could look back and see the results of my labor. The field was mowed, the hay was stacked high, and the stalls were clean.

The main reason I hated to exercise for the sake of exercise was because I didn’t have the instant gratification I call ‘the hayfield effect.’ I couldn’t immediately see the results of my efforts. Over the years (OK, decades) of my adult life I tried to start working out more times than I can count, but it never lasted more than a couple of weeks. It wasn’t until I was in my 60s that I finally started an exercise program I could stick with. Heck, now I even miss it if I don’t get my little workout in during the day. That has NEVER happened before in my life.

Now that you have a little background, I want to share how I finally achieved success. I no longer hate to exercise.

Clarify Why You Hate to Exercise

Why do you hate to exercise? Does it cut into your TV time? Does it take too much time? Do you hate going to the gym (I do. I can’t stand the gym)? Has it caused too much pain in the past? Are you just plain lazy? Be honest. You don’t have to share this with anybody but yourself. It’s important to nail this down, because it will help you decide how to start your new program. I missed the “hayfield effect,” was lazy, didn’t want to take away my TV/computer time in the evening, and was too rushed in the morning to make time for it.

Find Your Motivation

Why do you feel you need to start working out? I was 62 years old and had become weak. My knees were killing me with arthritis pain, I threw my back out twice by just turning the wrong way, and the results of my long-overdue checkup weren’t good. The doctor threatened to put me on meds for high blood sugar, high blood pressure, and high LDL cholesterol. On top of that, the next year my wife was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. And I was in no condition to be an effective caregiver for her. All of these things created a sense of urgency.

Maybe your situation isn’t so drastic. It could be that you’re just sick and tired of being sick and tired or you had a health scare like me. Chances are, you already have a good idea of why you want to start exercising. Just make that crystal clear in your mind. It will be your “goal.”

Set Your Priorities

I wanted to get stronger, improve joint health, and stay off medication if at all possible. Those were the three priorities that drove my exercise strategy. I chose ‘getting stronger’ as the number one priority when I started. I figured I was more likely to hurt myself trying other things without getting stronger first.

There are no hard and fast rules here. Improved flexibility/mobility, stamina, or cardiovascular/pulmonary health are other possible priorities. It is important to set your priorities in decreasing order before you decide what exercise to start with.

Don’t Set Goals…Sort Of

You know why you want to start exercising. Let’s say it’s because you are disgusted with how weak you have become. That’s one I can identify with. Translate that into a positive statement. In my case it is, “ I want to be stronger so I don’t become a weak, bent, shuffle-stepping old man, and I want to be able to care for my wife if her disease gets worse.”

This vague “goal’ is all you need to set the direction of your exercise program. Contrary to popular teaching, it doesn’t have to be specific. Some people aren’t goal-oriented. They are process-oriented. I’m one of those. The conventional approach to goals has always been a recipe for failure to me. When I abandoned that approach, I started seeing a lot more success in my life.

Toss aside those Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-based goals. Set your vague goal or dream and concentrate on the process and your progress. Here are some ways you can measure progress and declare victory in your desire to get in better shape.

You have exercised consistently for a certain number of days (when starting out) or weeks. If you exercise every day for 5 days, that’s a victory.
You can do more repetitions of an exercise before hitting failure, even if it’s just one more.
You feel some tightness or a hint of soreness after you exercise. This is the desired effect. Avoid going overboard and making yourself sore as hell.
You can recover faster from your cardio exercise, even if it’s just a minute faster.
You have to increase weight, resistance, reps or sets of an exercise in order to feel it.

Don’t set a time by which you want to achieve those milestones. Setting a time limit sets you up for disappointment if you fail to achieve them. Just celebrate those milestones when you get there. Fitness is a journey, not a destination.

Pick One and Only One Exercise

I chose pushups as the one exercise I focused on. They are great for almost your entire upper body. I had to start doing them off the kitchen counter because I was too weak to do any even off my knees. If I had it to do over, I would have started with pushups one day and an exercise for my core the next, following that alternating schedule 6 days a week.

If you want to tackle multiple fitness priorities at once, you might consider something like burpees with a pushup or mountain-climbers with a pushup. Or you can do a strength exercise one day and a cardio or flexibility exercise the next. The possibilities are almost endless as long as you remember this important criterion for the exercise you choose:

Choose an exercise that you can do one set to failure in two minutes or less. Failure is when you can’t do another repetition while maintaining proper form. You can also start with isometric exercises. HERE are two isometric abdominal exercises you can do anywhere.

When I started doing pushups off the kitchen counter, I could do 12 before I started losing form. I did this every single day for 2 months. When lazy me said, “I don’t feel like it today.” my brain replied, “Oh come on! It’s only 2 minutes!” Telling myself that enabled me to stick with an exercise for the first time in my life. That was the summer of 2019. It is now a year later, and I am still working out.

When you start feeling better, you may want to start adding more exercises. Add all you want, but maintain that commitment to one, and only one, exercise until it is an established habit.

Do Something

Within a month of starting my single exercise “program” I actually started looking forward to it. I could see and feel progress. I feel so good most days, I do a longer workout, although it still takes less than 10 minutes. Most of the time I look forward to my workout, but there are days when I still hate to exercise. That’s when I go back to that one set of pushups and have to tell myself “Oh come on! It only takes a couple of minutes!”

For more details on the exercise strategy that finally started me down the road to better fitness, click HERE. You can also read this article on how to develop healthy habits for life.

Now, get started with your exercise “program.” Just do it. It only takes a couple of minutes. Stick with it, and one day you’ll no longer hate to exercise.