After Walking

In our last physical activity entry, we went over the hardest part of any workout regime—finding the time (see https://gymsjim.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/working-out-the-hardest-part/). Unfortunately, that won’t ever get easier, but for the purposes of this article, we’ll assume that you’ve reached the plateau I suggested of being able to take five half-hour walks (or some other moderate activity) a week consistently, or soon will. First off, congratulations—that’s really awesome and important. Not many will be impressed with your feat, but we enlightened ones recognize that getting to this point is a crucial milestone in the march (or in this case, walk) to fitness, to feeling better. My guess is that you’re already feeling at least a little better. So make sure you take the time to celebrate your achievement. No, that doesn’t mean skipping your walks for a month or living on Burger King this week, but at the very least, give yourself permission to feel a sense of accomplishment even if few others will see what you’ve done as a big deal. Take it from someone who’s been working out at least five times a week for the past thirty years—it is.

But I also hope you’re starting to feel like you’re ready for more. Walking is great, and if that’s as far as you want to take it, that will be fine. To reach a higher level of fitness, however, you’ll need to move your activity up a notch. So what you need to do now is…

This is where most physical fitness programs lose most people. Instead of encouraging fitness seekers to find the unique mix of things that works best for each individual, most gurus have a rigid program of specific exercises or workouts or regimes that you have to follow precisely if you expect to make it to their definition of fitness. And no matter how weird or incredibly difficult (or even expensive) something is, a certain percentage of folks will succeed with it, will flourish under it, will have their lives changed for the better by it. So right off the bat, we’re not about to bash anything that works for anybody else. If it does, it’s good for you. If it doesn’t though, that’s where you have to adjust rather than give up.

Just because you have no desire to turn your thirty-minute walks into thirty-minute fartleks (Run all-out sprints for 200 meters, walk for two minutes, and repeat for at least half an hour. And yes, I used that example because its name appeals to my totally immature inner sophomore.) People get too hung up on the type of exercise they do instead of focusing on how valuable all exercise is if done regularly. Sure, some mega-intense cross training routine, where you don’t feel you’ve worked hard enough if you don’t puke right after you’re done, will get you in fantastic shape—if you avoid hurting yourself first—but most of us will not enjoy that enough to make it a five-day-a-week habit, much less paying for the privilege. Instead, we’ll drop out, feel like failures, and head right back to our Häagen-Dazs marathons. (And I’m certainly not knocking cross trainers.)

What I’m advocating is that we try another way: Making certain the activity we do is something we like to do, something we find reinforcing, even fun. I know how that sounds to most of you who’ve never gotten to the point where you looked forward to breaking a sweat, but it is possible, if you try enough things, to find ones that work for you. And as we’ve already pointed out, once you attain a level where your workouts are second nature, you’ll be more willing to try other things that might supplement your go-to, for-sure activities. Do that long enough, and you’ll be forever locked into that healthy pattern; you’ll actually be more uncomfortable on the days you have to force yourself to take off so your body can rest once in a while. You’ll also have to change your goal from “feeling better,” to “continue feeling good.” That’s a great place to be.

But, you have to find that exercise, machine, routine leader, activity, sport, and/or hobby that will get you started on your journey there. You also have to realize that it might not even be a specific health approach that does the trick for you. A personal example might illustrate that idea more clearly.

I already mentioned my concern as I started my third year of teaching, having gained an inch on my waist each of the previous two years. Not knowing much about working out, I got an exercise bike to use in my apartment. Very quickly, I discovered how boring sitting on a bike for at least twenty minutes was—and twenty minutes, from the little I had learned, was the least you could do to expect any aerobic/cardio benefits. Watching television while I pedaled did little to alleviate the tedium as the noise from the bike bugged the hell out of me. Plus, whenever a commercial came on, I would be pulled back to the pain of exertion or boredom from which I was suffering. It looked like my bike was destined to revert to what most exercise equipment quickly becomes—a clothes rack.

In a last ditch effort to find a distraction, I pulled the bike next to my stereo so I could plug in my headphones and listen to music on my stereo during my workout. And with that simple and (in hindsight) obvious change, I had discovered the key to my working out on a consistent basis. I have always loved pop music (much, much more on that in the near future), but when I moved into a multi-unit apartment, I had to turn the volume down much lower than I had grown accustomed to while in college. Suddenly with the headphones on while pedaling, I could not only listen to my beloved Cars without just sitting there, but I could have Ric and the boys nice and loud without fear of getting my neighbors angry. And so my physical activity eventually became something I looked forward to instead of dreading: It wasn’t an eternity of agony and sweat; it was the time when I could listen to loud music.

This only intensified with my making mix tapes instead of listening to albums (Yes, in 1981, my collection was still largely vinyl). Today, of course, I can have over 600 mp3 songs on my 4G Sansa Clip, which straps onto my arm for total mobility, but back then, it was a revelation to be able to work out to my tunes. Music made a huge difference for me.

Of course, others had already discovered this: Richard Simmons, Jane Fonda, and other aerobic folks had figured this out with VHS tapes like “Sweating to the Oldies.” And if that’s what works for you, find a health club with those kinds of classes or buy some DVDs from one of the many companies that offer them.

Or, if you just love being outside, maybe running or biking or cross-country skiing will be what keeps you coming back for more. Really social? Tennis, health clubs, and volleyball leagues might be your answer. The key is simply figuring out what aspects of all the various ways to improve your fitness appeal to you. For me, it was the opportunity to select a bunch of songs that made me want to move, listening to loud music, and being able to get lost in my thoughts without having to worry about how I looked or bashing into anything. My salvation was a Walkman (yes, I am very old) and a stationary bike.

So now that you’ve figured out a way to eke out the necessary time for your workouts, the next step is to assess just what you would enjoy doing for those two-and-a-half hours a week. Analyze the drawbacks and plusses of various activities and start experimenting with what will work best for you.

Look at the characteristics of your choices with the following things in mind: Convenience—Are you willing to travel or is it important to be able to do your activity in your home? Company—Do you need others around you or is it better for you to be alone so you won’t be self-conscious about sweating and jiggling in front of others? Cost—How much do you have to spend on setting yourself up? Diversions—What will stop you from focusing too much on the effort and tedium of working out? Do you prefer the distraction of conversation with others, the mind control of a television, or your own thoughts? Equipment—Do you need nothing more than a pair of running shoes or will you need machines and paraphernalia? Motivation—Can you get yourself to do your workouts when you don’t really feel like it or would it be better to have somebody else who’s counting on you to be there? Spend some time sorting through all this so you won’t waste a bunch of effort and money on things that seem like they would be awesome, but turn out to be awful for you. Or you could just join a Y for a month.

Yep, if you’ve got a cheap health club nearby, you can spend thirty days sampling a wide variety of activities with very little expense or hassle. A well-equipped club will have exercise bicycles, ellipticals, rowers, steppers, and treadmills so you can try out the most popular machines. It will also have a pool so you can see if the calm isolation of swimming laps is your solution. Pumping iron, whether with machines or free weights, will also be readily available. Health clubs have scheduled classes and lots of like-minded people for those who prefer to have a more social bent to their workouts. Finally, they have trained employees who can explain how everything works as well as giving you some advice on what might be best for you. Hey, many clubs even have on-site child care so you don’t have to figure out what to do with your kids while you’re getting in shape. You might find that your one month turns into a permanent arrangement.

Health clubs are not for everyone, but they are definitely a great way to check out various types of fitness activities and exercise machines before plunking down thousands of dollars on something that you find you don’t want to do after a couple of weeks. For a long time, I was sure that I wanted a rowing machine for Jim’s Gym. And not just any rowing machine, but a Concept D or E, since everyone rates them as among the best. At roughly $1,000, though, I was willing to wait until I could find a used one for less. Since they rarely show up on the various resale sites, however, it was taking forever to locate one. Then came the remodeling of our basement which pushed me out of my beloved workout space for several weeks. So I joined my local Y for one month, and guess what they had—yep, a Concept D. Despite my history of working out hard every day using other exercise machines, I discovered that I just didn’t like rowing much. During my month’s membership, I gave the rower ten tries, but it was the ellipticals that I appreciated much more. I now have a garage sale elliptical that I love which saved me both money and frustration in not wanting to use something I had been looking forward to having. In no way am I criticizing the excellent workout you get from rowing nor was I disappointed in the quality of the top-notch Concept Ds; it’s just that this particular workout wasn’t for me. Without that trial at the Y, I probably wouldn’t have figured this out until it was too late.

It’s crucial that you find things that you will be willing to do now that you’ve worked your way up to that daily 30-minute threshold where good things start to happen with your physical activities. And one of the most economical ways to experiment to find those activities is to join a health club for a month. Be sure that you’re able to sign up for a short-term membership since many clubs require at least a year with expensive fees. A Y is definitely a good option if you have one in your area. For about fifty dollars and thirty days, you can sample all kinds of activities with very little risk. And while there are many TV monitors in most clubs, you might want to bring your music with you. (More on that next time.)