A thought about exercise

[xiphias]

I'm pretty sure that the whole "exercise makes you feel better" works 100% on the "hitting yourself in the head with a hammer" mode of feeling better: it just feels so good when you stop. . . .

Comments

[jhitchin.livejournal.com]

That's how I think of it, and usually think, "If it feels so good when I stop, it'll feel better if I just don't start!"

[wcg.livejournal.com]

There really is more to it than that, but (in my experience) you have to already be in pretty good shape to experience the "feeling better" part. It's certainly *not* the reason to exercise in general.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

nah, not really. (to the being fit part.)

A walk is exercise. And enough exercise to make me feel better, generally. And while I have been so out of shape that a walk hurt, at that point, I was so out of shape that EVERYTHING hurt.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

OK, I'll agree with this. I was thinking more along the lines of high intensity exercise, but sure, walking is exercise too.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

A walk might be enough to break the "I've been at the computer / at the bench / whatever too long" bit, but it doesn't really get me past feeling lethargic if I haven't worked out.

This is a disadvantage of training as much as I do.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

You could be sure of that, but you would be wrong. *g*

[tylik.livejournal.com]

Not only does training make me feel better, including while I'm doing it (look, I might have masochistic tendencies, but training a few hours every day if it were actively unpleasant?) but if I don't train I feel *lousy*. And slow and lethargic, and.... ugh. Getting started moving isn't always easy (like, say, if I've been sick, or trapped at a conference - though I'll usually skip out and do forms in the parking garage or something) but I loves me the being active.

Sitting is also good. Sitting in front of a computer... not so much.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I've started working with a personal trainer. I go three times a week, for 45 minutes of mainly strength training and conditioning (at a high enough level that I'm actually getting cardio along with the conditioning.)

I hate every single solitary second of it.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

What don't you like about it?

I mean, I used to really hate gyms. Not so much anymore, but they're all about a means to an end. So it was the combination of the physical discomfort, the boredom, and hating the whole atmosphere. Martial arts for me is inherently interesting, and the meditative side of things has always been a lot more accessible, so I liked that part right off. And being interesting kept my mind off the discomfort, and it wasn't such a meat market.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It FUCKING HURTS. And not in anything even remotely resembling a fun way.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

How long have you been at this?

It sounds like you're approaching this in a pretty low time high results sort of way. Which is great, but it's going to be a little on the harsh side. Is that the set of trade-offs you want to make?

Honestly, if I were suddenly back in my body from many years ago* I probably would go for a harsher but high returns model - because I've been through it before, and I know how to train and what works with my body, and I just want to get back to the place where training feels good as quickly as possible. But that's not how I got there in the first place, and I think it's a pretty emotionally difficult (not to mention physically difficult) model for most people. You really have to have faith and believe in the process.

When I started teaching, one of my big goals was to make those classes as accessible as possible to out of shape geeks like the one I had been. (And for people with chronic pain issues, and people doing injury rehab.) So there was a couch people could flake out on if they needed to. And I tried to make sure that the things we were doing could be approached in multiple different ways, and at different levels, and in ways that didn't have to hurt. (One of the tag lines became "This is Taiji. It's not about pain. If you're looking for pain, I can suggest some other martial arts that are great that way!") And I tried very hard to make it a very welcoming, comfortable atmosphere, and to make it a place where people could reconnect with their own bodies without getting caught up in the shaming and feeling incompetent and all that stuff. And for some of the people, this worked really well. For some people, it was kind of the gateway working out, and they went on to get involved in other things that were harder core. And for others... well, they're some of my senior students now, and let me tell you, they're fucking awesome. (Okay, I get all proud mom.)

But it wasn't the most effective way, at least for the short term, to get fit. For some people, it was part of a pretty effective way over the long term, but not for everyone. (Though I never know what people got out of it. It's funny how many people would disappear, and then show up a year or two later. Or how I'll see former students who'd drifted off talking about how they were hiking on some mountain, and then stopped to do Chen forms. And I'm thinking "You remember your Chen forms? Aw!")

Okay, this is a lot of silly babbling in your journal. Obviously it's a subject I feel kind of strongly about :-P I do think being really clear on your goals is important. For an awful lot of people, gym type workouts just aren't that effective, because they just don't like them enough to stay with it for the long term, and for many of those folks, finding something they really like for itself - whether it be folkdance, or bicycling, or whatever, is going to be a better bet because they'll do that. But there is a lot to be said for gym workouts. (I got into weights when I realized my upper body strength wasn't nearly as good as my lower, and decided I wanted to fix that. Though I mostly get that from different things now.)

* This isn't entirely idle speculation - after painfully clawing my way back into something like fitness after the spine injury, and starting to get functional again, I was hit by another fricking car back in 2003.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I've been doing this for, I dunno, two, three weeks now, and I'm already much stronger and have much better endurance.

I just hate the workouts.

But BECAUSE I hate exercise, I know I won't do it without forcing myself -- so I bought a hundred sessions with a personal trainer, all up front. 'Cause there's no way other than something like that -- making a financial commitment with another PERSON on the other end -- that I would ever do this.

[linenoise.livejournal.com]

'Cause there's no way other than something like that -- making a financial commitment with another PERSON on the other end -- that I would ever do this.

Yes. This.

I actually *like* exercise. It feels good, even when it hurts. I'm just horrible at actually *doing* it.

I know that I'm not good at follow through, and I have excessively large pain tolerance, so I tend to just maximize my workouts and know that I'm going to hurt tomorrow. It'd work better if I did it more often, but...

Would it perhaps serve you better to do a lower-intensity workout to try to minimize the painful bits?

Alternate possibility, I cannot recommend too strongly the benefits of a good massage therapist. I break myself on a regular basis, because I have horrible genes for body/structure issues, and I don't take good enough care of myself. Paying $45-$60 for an hour's massage with a competent therapist is worth every last penny, and I would not survive without it. I'm overdue for a session right now, actually. It keeps me from freezing solid from early-onset arthritis, etc.

[snippy]

I read in the NYT some time ago (like, 2003?) that only 30% of people actually get the endorphin rush from exercise, and that most gym teachers, aerobics/exercise class leaders, and personal trainers come from this percentage.

I only figured out this summer that if I want to be able to do my normal activities without muscle pain and exhaustion, I have to "work out" somehow that is harder than my normal activities, and experience the exhaustion and muscle pain from that. There's just no getting away from the exhaustion and pain either way.

[fauxklore]

Are there other forms of exercise that you wouldn't hate while doing them?

Personally, I'm a fan of dance-related exercise because of the distraction music provides. I also like swimming because I can get into a certain rhythm that is almost trance-like for me, but it means swimming fairly regularly before that works (which I have not been doing lately, alas). I can sometimes get that trance-like feeling walking.

But I have never found any form of strength work that I consider anything but sheer torture. (I admit to not having looked all that hard, though.)

[dancing-kiralee.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on who you are.

I can get the endorphin rush... and when I do, the working out part feels good as well as the stopping part; but I don't always, and when that happens it can be a real slog (and sometimes, if I'm in pain too, it can be a little scary).

Also, I find the endorphin rush kind of recedes... If I excercise a lot and get more physically fit, then I have to excercise harder / longer before I get the rush. That makes it a very bad motivator... I only have so many hours in a day, so I set up a routine; then I get the benefit of the routine (become more physically fit) but lose some of the pleasure of doing it, because I don't have time to change the routine to excercise harder / longer; then I quit, and get out of shape again.

For what it's worth, I wish I had the money / time to do what you're doing... well, what your doing on an ongoing basis, not just for 100 sessions.

Kiralee

[paper-crystals.livejournal.com]

I see it as creative self harm when I am unhappy and when I am happy then I can feel the muscles building up and I like to challenge myself. Plus, I find if you exercise for a long enough period of time the pain goes away. I like swimming, walking and dance so when I do exercise I usually do one of those two things. Because then I enjoy what I am doing even though it hurts.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I love exercise.

Except that I hate it. I dread it for every second that I plan on doing it. Every second that I am actually doing it I am thinking about how many seconds it is until I get to stop. And the second I am done I get this huge rush of relief that I'm finished and I don't have to do it again until tomorrow.

And then I feel fantastic for the the rest of the day and I can feel very clearly how much better I feel mentally. And I know that if I do it again tomorrow my mental health will improve even more.

So yeah. I know it's very much from the hammer school. But fuck, it's the only thing that's ever actually worked.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on the exercise, the pacing and what you have to work with.

I used to do weight training when I was in High School. It never felt good, never was fun and was never something I looked forward to.

On the other hand in high school I enjoyed Volleyball. I think the social aspects of the game made it possible for me to ignore the physical strains involved.

Football and basketball on the other hand were not fun at all and made my body ache.

These days:

Walking is fine for me, so long as my shoes are good and I'm not carrying weights. Running is a fail - my joints can't take the jolting for long.

I liked Yoga, so long as I was doing it with an instructor who was willing to go at a restorative pace, slowly stretching out muscles, not going into contortionist positions in a high heat or trying to add fast aerobic movement into it. It helped me get things aligned and worked well for me. Too bad all the instructors I've heard about since are of the other kind, or just too expensive for me to work with.

Weight training now, not going to happen. My back won't do it, nor can it. Its taken too much wear and tear and my doctors office has basically told me it will only get worse, exercise in that way would simply hasten me to a wheelchair.

Same is true of many sports. My Body can't take the jolts any more and doing so would not help it.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I don't know what options are available in your area, but I've generally been pleased with the Iyengar yoga teachers in my area, though I've heard tales of some elsewhere getting a little aerobic-y with Sun salutations. That's uncommon in my experience, and any good/well-trained teacher will be able to suggest alternative poses for students with health/etc. issues.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Lately there has been a rise in the area of 'Power Yoga' styles, while the softer styles are less represented. I think part of it is the high cost of studio space in our area, so they go less for the softer styles and use the ones that they can snag a bigger crowd of athlete minded folks in for to improve cash flow.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I enjoy weight training -- when the numbers are right for me. Right now, that means fairly light weights and fairly low reps, but not as light as a few weeks ago when I started, yet again, trying to get an exercise routine integrated into my life.

I really don't like treadmills, even when my health was good and I could walk for ages. I got an entry-level rowing machine, and so far, I'm quite enjoying it, even though, at my current capabilites, I'm couting strokes, not time -- I can't do as many (with good form) as I'd like, but I can do more than when I started, and that's all that matters.

I have enjoyed yoga in the past, and probably will in the future, but right now, I'm taking a break.