Exercise and motivation

I find that explosive movements (sprints, especially hills or stairs; cleans, push presses, fast deadlifts) are probably the most "joy in movement." Or a long run on a day with good weather. It feels more like play.

I'm usually the least motivated to do things with a performance anxiety component (lifting for a max, timed mile) and I typically underperform due to nerves. I'm usually less motivated and put out less effort exercising in a group than alone, though it took me a while to realize this. Obviously, I'm also less motivated to exercise outside in bad weather, or to exercise at all if I have a lot of work to do.

Motivations? Mine are sanity & vanity. Sanity: I am a much nicer person and more relaxed on a day I've exercised. It's also a very good cure for gloom. Vanity: appearance and performance. (The thought "I am so much better looking/fitter/tougher than all those sedentary chumps who aren't exercising.") Vanity is an excellent motivator when things are going well -- unfortunately it's also an excellent demotivator when things are going badly. ("Ah, what's the use? I look like hell/I haven't had a decent squat all year.") But honestly, I don't know anyone who's kept up a serious exercise program in the long term without some kind of vanity.

Moving in conjunction with the body of a member of the opposite sex, at speed, to music, across a dance floor. I would happily go out social dancing five nights a week if I could. If there was more going on in my area I would have the body of a Greek god.

I did actually take up running at one point to make myself fitter for purposes of dancing, but got demotivated by how ridiculous I must look when moving at speed across anything other than a dance floor.

What gives me pleasure in exercise isn't actually movement at all; it is a shift in my breathing and an increased awareness of where various parts of my body are. Among the most reliably joyful things I do are yoga balancing poses, for example. More generally, anything that makes me breathe fully, expanding and filling my chest cavity, tends to be associated with a sense of joy.

I associate exercising with an enjoyable activity, listening to music. Not only does this help me exercise longer than I normally would be able to, but the idea of being able to blast music makes me want to work out more.

I've typically found that straight up "working out" is not very enjoyable. I still do it; when I wake up I typically do some basic calisthenics. That has done quite a bit for my fitness, but it's not very fun. Exercise, for me, is more fun in some form of a game. I generally enjoy soccer, but don't play it very often. The exercise I enjoy the most, however, is martial arts. Fencing is my personal favorite, mostly because of the intellectual component involved (my coach refers to it as physical chess). If you really want to enjoy exercising more, find a sport you enjoy.

What I've found interesting/frustrating is that our society has found lots of ways to prevent us from having to exercise naturally, which we pay money for, and then comes up with ways to force us to exercise artificially, which we often also pay money for.

I do not own a car. I go most places by foot, or by bike in the summer. If I can do so without bothering people, I run wherever I'm going. It's not a particularly systematic form of exercise but I never feel like it's an obligation, it's just something I do in the process of doing whatever I would normally be doing.

The drawback is that there are legitimate social costs to not owning a car and to running everywhere. There's some weirdness signaling and awkwardness when you occasionally need to get a ride from a friend. (Granted, you can solve that problem by simply owning a car and refusing to use it, but I've found that when I did have a car I was more likely to default to it).

I've never been good at motivating to exercise on my own. I have been successful by becoming part of a group, like a studio or a team or a dojo. Developing social relationships around exercise helps me.

I also realized I enjoy physical contact and now gravitate towards martial arts.

I've been pretty consistent about rock climbing and martial arts for multiple short periods in my life, and it is always glorious. Currently I am climbing (bouldering, which has a simplicty top-roping does not) multiple times a week, and weightlifting and getting cardio exercise as well for a few months. I am probably in the best cardio shape of my life (which is pretty mediocre!) and it is pretty great. I've got a group I go with, which is good for motivation.

Any hint of "prove you're a worthwhile person by how much you can make yourself endure" or "not being fat is the most important thing in the world"[1] is apt to be demotivating.

I'm sure it is demotivating to be exposed to the implication that you "ought" to have different goals than you do. I find it dispiriting when I'm under social pressure to do something I don't want to do, and when people assume that everyone must want the same thing. I think there's way too much overgeneralization in the world.

On the other hand, there are perfectly good exercise programs that are marketed for fat loss, but might still be satisfying even if you're not going for that. (In fact, a lot of things -- like running -- are marketed for fat loss but are actually more useful for other things, like increasing stamina.) It might be good not to write off good things that come with annoying marketing.

If you don't celebrate Christmas, it might get irritating after a while to hear carols everywhere and see everything decorated in red and green, and the assumption that of course you're going to trim a tree and hang stockings. At any rate, I know a lot of people who hate it. But if something perfectly good is marketed for Christmas (egg nog, say, or a department store sale), you should still be able to enjoy it.

Perhaps this will be helpful to someone: "Although doing Y seems to be more important, I'll achieve considerably less in the next N hours at Y if I don't exercise right now" where N hours = min(24h, deadline). (You need to verify that pattern personally so I'm not taking time to provide evidence.)

Ice skating makes me feel unreasonably good. Why, I'm not sure, but the following may or may not be relevant:

• I'm not very good at it, but not a raw beginner either. I have good balance, can gain some speed, have reasonable mastery over speed and trajectory. I can have fun trying things out like skating backwards or experimenting with alternate braking moves.
• It's usually cold when I do it, and physical exercise when it's cold tends to have an exhilarating effect on me (I like skiing to, at which I'm even more of a newbie)
• Anything that involves balance is more pleasant for me than things involving strength, fast movement, reflexes or competition (this isn't meant to be an exhaustive list of motion categories) - I like ropes courses too for that reason.

I suspect that one part of this list is idiosyncratic (pleasure in balance) while the other is universal (pleasure in things where I'm getting better over time).

Not being fat may well BE the most important thing in the world. Being fat leads to avoidable death (look around for old fat people), which is pretty high up on the LW Scale of Evil.

(Not that this helps motivate me, I'm over 300 lb. In fact if I had a point I am unsure what it is).

Scott Sonnen's a former instructor of a Russian martial art called Systema. I've tried other martial arts, but Systema is my most enjoyable form of exercise, with rock climbing coming in a sadly under-engaged in second.

I've heard "they weren't smiling enough" leveled accusatorially against a Systema training group by more experienced practitioners. I highly recommend it, if you don't mind learning to take punches without damage.

I wonder how much endorphin secretion differs between people. I tend to have an obvious raw chemical happyfun effect from heavy exercise, but reading the comments here it doesn't seem obvious that everyone has the same thing going on.

I liked that interview with Scott Sonnon.

Any hint of "prove you're a worthwhile person by how much you can make yourself endure" or "not being fat is the most important thing in the world"[1] is apt to be demotivating.

Do you have other contexts in which the existence of additional goals discourages you? Can you pin down exactly what it about the other goals that discourages you? For example, can you distinguish the effect on you of other people using an exercise to not be fat and the implication that you should?

I've been doing the Tibetans for a little over two years now, first thing in the morning, every morning. I've had a few bouts of illness in that time when I couldn't do them, so when I couldn't do them, I didn't. There have also been a small number of days when I got up too late and had to be out too early to fit them in (the remedy for which is: don't do that), but apart from that, they get done every day. What keeps me doing them is the great difference they seem to have made to my general level of energy throughout the day. I can only say "seem to" because I haven't made any sort of experimental test, e.g. stopping them for a month to see what happens, or stopping one or other of the exercises to see which of them make the difference.

On the other hand, Scott Sonnon's "Flowfit" series of exercises just drained my energy and I quit those after about a month of attempting them. They may work for other people though.

I find feedback that this is working or this is not working the most effective sort. After all, I'm doing these things for a purpose, and one that is very important to me: my health is my most valuable possession. Why am I going to continue unless I can see progress towards that purpose?