Exercise – most people seem to either love it or hate it. If you think you hate exercise then you need to read this post about making exercise fun.
Let me put it this way – it’s unlikely you hate ALL forms of exercise. You just probably haven’t found one you like yet.
There’s a reason I have the tagline on my blog of ‘Never stop playing’. It’s because I believe we should always have fun! Who says you have to stop playing when you become an adult!?
This goes for exercise too.
From the age of 7-17 I trained as a dancer. I danced 6, sometimes 7, days a week and absolutely loved it! It was my life, and I’m thrilled that dance has recently come back into my life because there wasn’t a single day that I didn’t miss it.
Whenever I go to London I try to fit in a class at Pineapple Dance Studios, but back here in Cornwall there aren’t a huge amount of adult dance classes. So I tend to look for other ways to fulfil my love of dance – some of the ways I’ve found include pole dancing (or pole fitness, whichever name you prefer for it) and aerial hoop.
I also enjoy various other forms of exercise, most notably weight lifting, surfing and gymnastics.
Something I don’t like very much is running. Occasionally, on a hot sunny day, I might get a random urge to go out for a run. And I actually do sometimes enjoy it, but in general I wouldn’t class myself as someone who likes running.
The reason I bring this up is because almost everyone who has ever spoken to me about wanting to either lose fat and/or get fit says they really struggle to motivate themselves to exercise because they hate running. So why are they making themselves do something they hate!?
Yes, if you have specific goals, such as training for a marathon or a triathlon, then you will need to push yourself to run. BUT you don’t have to run if your goal doesn’t ultimately include some kind of event actually related to running. Instead, find some form of exercise you enjoy. Even if the only reason you enjoy it is simply because it makes you feel like a badass for an hour.
Ok, so you might not end up finding something that you feel ecstatic about and want to count down the days until your next class, but it is possible to find a form of exercise that you actually like. Something you don’t dread anyway.
These are just a few forms of exercise that come to mind, ranging from gym training and classes to things that you could make a full fun day out of:
- Weight training
- Swimming
- Kettlercise
- Spinning
- Gymnastics
- Pole dancing/fitness
- Aerial hoop/silks/trapeze
- Dancing
- Surfing
- Skating/ice skating
- Skateboarding
- Cycling
- Pound
- Clubbercise
- Yoga
- Pilates
- Barre
- Boxercise
- CrossFit
- Hiking
- Kayaking
- Stand up paddle boarding
- Indoor/outdoor climbing
- Running
- Walking
- Calisthenics
- Martial arts
- Circuits
- Athletics
- Body pump
- Body balance
- Aqua aerobics
That is actually a pretty long list of options, and those were just a few of the things I thought of within about a minute. So why would you force yourself to do a form of exercise you hate!?
Pick a few of the things that stand out from this list and try them!
Most importantly though, please don’t feel the need to just follow the latest trend. Pick something you actually enjoy, regardless of whether it’s a current fitness trend.
Find whatever it is that you truly enjoy and you’ll be much more likely to actually stick with it!
Nat xx
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