If your years at school taught you to hate exercise, you are not alone. Here are some thoughts on how to move on…
On any weekend morning in Cape Town, before the sun has come up, and even when it is raining, cold and dark, there will be runners and cyclists out and about, getting fit (or something).
I will never be one of them.
That’s because it’s hard to overstate how ill-equipped my body is for all the conventional forms of exercise.
Let’s list the ways:
* I have extremely poor balance. Seriously, I can ride a bike (just) in a straight line, but fall off if I have to go round a corner.
* I have no ball skills at all. I don’t see a ball coming, and if I do, I can’t move fast enough to catch it.
* I can’t instantly tell left from right. So any dance class member is soon going to be wishing I had stayed home.
* I have only minimal swimming skills.
* I am also quite possibly the slowest runner on the face of the planet.
If I had been born in another time, these quirks would have had me packed off for occupational therapy, probably before I even hit formal schooling. But such a thing was unknown when I was a small child.
The hell of school
And so when it came to phys ed classes, or team sports, or extra-mural activities of the active kind, my school years were as unpleasant as can be imagined. But you’ll be happy to know, dear reader, that I was eventually able to escape some of the torment.
My high school had a policy that you had to sign up for one summer sport and one winter sport, no negotiation possible. In the year I turned 15, I quietly failed to put my name down for anything. And the teachers, one and all, quietly said nothing. For the rest of my school career I spent many blissful hours helping out in the school library.
And when I left school I said goodbye at last to all of it. In the years since, I have never taken up a team sport, nor have I unexpectedly turned into a marathon runner, or managed to sustain a gym membership beyond two miserable months.
I have tried yoga classes, and enjoyed them – I did that for many years until a particularly gentle teacher stopped giving classes. Two months with a new and rather fierce instructor drove me away.
These days, I do one Pilates class a week and some bodyboarding. There are also some extremely un-cardio ambles around the neighbourhood with our anxious rescue dog (who is terrified of other dogs, restricting us to the walks we can do at times when no one else is walking a dog).
And that’s it. I can do those things without reliving all the feelings of inadequacy that haunted my teenage self.
And yet – now I want to do some exercise
The thing is, I want to get stronger (or as strong as I can in an ageing body). I have a goal, you see: I want to do a Camino (either overseas or locally) in the year I turn 65.
So I am going to have to do some more purposeful walking, and probably some strength training. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I might begin to tackle this challenge.
And, given that I may be poor at exercise but am extremely good at knowledge work, I turned to AI for answers. I built myself a coach in Google’s Gemini tool, and asked it for an exercise programme that works for me, given that I had a minor knee operation on August 6. (For your interest, and in the interests of not stealing other people’s writing, the articles that I used to build the coach are listed at the end of the email).
There are probably people who are as exercise averse as I am, and so I also asked it for five strategies to use to overcome mental barriers to exercise. Here, edited by me, are the gems of wisdom that I got:
Stop aiming for perfection. Forget the all-or-nothing mindset. Don’t worry about missing a day, just get back to it the next day. The goal is consistency, not perfection. Short, frequent bursts of activity are just as effective as one long session. Think of your physical activity in “snacks” rather than full meals. A 10-minute walk is better than no walk at all.
Make it a habit, not a choice. Try to schedule your exercise sessions at the same time each day, if possible, so they become a natural part of your routine. You’re less likely to skip an activity when it’s just what you do at that time.
Focus on intrinsic goals. Instead of fixating on the number on the scale or the steps walked, focus on how these activities make you feel. Do you feel more energetic? Are you sleeping better? These internal rewards are powerful motivators.
Find your “why.” Connect your actions to the bigger picture. Why do you want to get stronger? To have more stamina for travel and hiking? Remind yourself that you are doing this for your future self. It’s an act of self-care, not self-punishment.
Use what you enjoy. Look at the activities you enjoy (in my case walking, Pilates, and body boarding). These aren’t just “hobbies,” they are your exercise programme. Your aversion to “formal exercise” is a non-issue if you don’t see what you are doing as formal. (My emphasis)
I must say that I found the last point particularly helpful. If I can just do what I do anyway (perhaps in a more focussed way) I never have to call it exercise. And that works for someone who hates it as much as I do.
Main picture: Me and my son Jack in the water in 2017.
Other things I have written
Five things I learned from having a knee operation – I’m generally a healthy person, so when I have to slow down to have a medical procedure, reflection is in order. Here are my knee operation lessons…
Learning to fail on a bodyboard – I view life as a learning journey. What I’ve discovered is that it’s possible to be terrible at something and still be learning…
What I have learned while wearing a wetsuit – You can never be too old or too unglamorous to have fun. And you can shed your dignity in favour of spending time with your child.
Everything I know about rescue dogs – How did a cat lover come to be the owner of a series of rescue dogs? And why? Plus some tips on how to cope.
How to build yourself a virtual coach with AI (for free) – So you know how to use ChatGPT (or Claude, or Gemini). But you’re sure there’s more you could be doing. Here’s how to build yourself a virtual coach with AI (for free).
Articles I used as the basis for my Gemini coach
Exercise: Getting Active | University Health Services
How Soon Can I Exercise After an Arthroscopy? | Orthopedic Associates of West Jersey, PA
How to Train for the Camino de Santiago: Tips for Walkers
How to exercise when you hate exercising – Justin Thomas Miller
How can I help you make order from chaos?
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