Hi guys! For the past… ever, I’ve been putting my health and fitness aside. I tried a few times to get into the habit of exercising to no avail. I’m not overweight or anything but neither am I strong or flexible as I want to be. Mainly because I don’t want to have health troubles later in life. HOWEVER, to get started I needed to google of course and… best 10 xyz, do this, don’t do this, you breathe wrong, you stand wrong, you do everything wrong, this is the only solution. All of these can be found about anything related to fitness. How does one get started with all this nonsense, misinformation and clickable? What’s even real anymore? Thank you in advance :)
Exercise used to feel a lot more like work until I started listening to podcasts during my runs and weight training. Now I cue up episodes that interest me in advance and actually look forward to it. Most of the time.
Also I found starting slow and easing into shorter workouts lowered the barrier to entry for me. Then gradually added to my workouts in length and difficulty. Doing something is better than nothing.
If you’re not overweight and simply want to become more athletic I personally think the most important thing to do is to find an activity you enjoy. That’s something you have to discover for yourself.
For example, I can’t stand working out for the sake of working out at a gym. But I do get really motivated by climbing, hiking, trail running, and skiing. Climbing builds strength and has a certain level of problem solving involved too so it’s mentally stimulating. Hiking and trail running are excellent cardio and have clearly defined goals to reach a certain summit or some endpoint. And skiing is just a blast in all forms. All of that keeps me active and having fun while I’m doing it. That makes me want to do it more which allows me to set bigger objectives and then it builds on itself.
It’s important to note that fitness is not really a project with a beginning and an end - it’s a journey that you will be on for as long as you live, basically. As such, you ideally want to find things that:
- Can sustainably fit into your life
- You truly find joy in doing
For example, I used to think that the only viable form of cardio was running, and that I needed to be running for the sake of my health. The problem is that I fucking hate running, I consider it to be boring as shit. Hence it was always an uphill battle to run for me.
In its place, I’ve found cycling to be an endless source of fun - I don’t really have to try hard to go cycling, because I yearn to do it as much as I can reasonably fit in.
So I recommend that you try different things until you find something that you really enjoy.
Other than cycling, I really like strength exercise. I used to have easy access to a gym earlier in my life, which is unfortunately not true where I live today, so to get strength work done, I do a routine of body weight exercises. This is by no means the perfect way to become stronger, but you really shouldn’t let perfect be the enemy of good. The best fitness activities are the ones that you can consistently do indefinitely.
Finally, two things that caused problems for me at the start of my fitness journey:
Having neglected strength work for all my life gave me some muscle imbalances that didn’t correct themselves by just doing regular workouts, I had to consult with a physical therapist to learn how to counteract these years of inactivity. The same may or may not be true for you.
Being overweight posed a big challenge at the start of my fitness journey - higher-intensity exercises can really hurt when your organs are a bit cramped by fat. After a huge struggle with dropping my weight, I noticed that a lot of exercises that previously hurt a lot no longer do. This may or may not be applicable for you either.
This is truly exceptional advice. Those two bullet points alone will take you so far in your journey to good health.
I’ll just add that it’s OK to start slow. The only person you need to compare yourself to is yourself, and if you’re not doing any exercise today then even just 20 minutes a week is improvement.
Having neglected strength work for all my life gave me some muscle imbalances that didn’t correct themselves by just doing regular workouts, I had to consult with a physical therapist to learn how to counteract these years of inactivity.
what imbalances did you have, and why can’t they be corrected with regular work-outs?
Weak glutes, hip imbalance and hamstring tightness were the ones that didn’t improve through ‘regular’ strength work, I needed to do some more targeted exercises to get those things going.
I also had some back weakness leading to neck problems, but I didn’t need the help of a physical therapist to work that out, I noticed it and found corrections for it on my own. The regular strength work didn’t help solve those either, though.
Walk very far distances. Before cars, a lot of people walked between towns. It was completely normal and safe if you know what you’re doing. I have friends who sometimes walk up to twenty miles to the neighboring towns because they swore off vehicles, and they show up and people are flabbergasted like they’re thinking “holy crap it’s a miracle you must be gods” as if the friends didn’t just have to use two feet for two hours to get there. But that’s what a human is supposed to do, biologically that is. And you don’t even have to run, in fact it’s better for your body and mind to walk than run.
Also, sleep well and stay hydrated. Sleep controls metabolism. Metabolism controls fitness. Bad sleep equals bad metabolism. Same goes for hydration. Drink a pint of water every time you piss. That’s probably why there are drinking fountains next to bathrooms. All this advice has worked for me too.
If your friends are walking 20 miles in two hours they very well might be gods
To be fair, I rounded that up a little crudely. Sources say it’s ten to twelve miles, but nobody knew if that counts the distance between their house and the town edge, and when they do it, it’s about two and a half hours, but I mistakenly rounded it down instead of up for the same reason.
I second the recommendations here about finding an activity that you like. For me it was rec sports. Gets me out of the house a few days a week, and for me it was an activity to help me stay active but also a reason TO get fit. I wanted to feel less beat up after playing, so I started working out and stretching regularly.
I also had trouble with getting to the gym, and had trouble with focus and picking workouts, so I had success with P90x. It’s all workouts you can do at home with some adjustable dumbbells. I think I got a deal on the streaming subscription to Beachbody for 100$ for the year. Then I just followed the program and the workout calendar. They have a number of different programs on there, if you want to get ripped I recommend P90x, if you just want to do some sort of workout for 30 minutes a day I’d recommend p90x3 because it’s easier to stick to.
That was a good start for me, but I ultimately settled on just picking my favorite moves from the program and I switch between upper and lower body workouts every day because I found I was consistently skipping certain days of the programs.
