The wrong idea about what a training regime should look like can create too high a threshold, resulting in the failure of the motto: “Do it right or don’t do it at all”. The wrong fitness philosophy. For some…
“Some pain? No game!”
It’s a familiar phenomenon; people who eagerly start a new training regime only to stop just as eagerly after a short time.
One of the suspected causes, in my opinion, also criticized programs on TV like The biggest loser. Putting someone from being completely inactive and eating unhealthy to a spartan training and nutrition regimen; I think it offers long-term results for few. The message sometimes seems to be: “You achieve a healthy weight by suffering pain”.
You might now think of the cliché “no pain, no gain”. Some people have been exercising a lot since their youth and enjoy pushing their limits. Others adopt a completely new lifestyle, from couch potato to fitness fanatic. However, there is a large group for whom the hard work itself is not an intrinsic motivation. People who often can’t sustain a certain discipline long enough to make training a routine. For some of them, the motto is: “Some pain? No Game!”
The perception that a ‘good training regime’ consists of fully exhausting workouts, 5 to 7 times a week, can be a reason to do nothing. Convincing them of the usefulness of a less painful game as a healthy alternative could make this group more active. This is also supported by research from the University of Michigan[1].
Enjoyment or Training?
According to the researchers, part of the unhappiness of inactive women is caused by two conflicting goals: ensuring enough exercise on one hand and relaxing and enjoying leisure time on the other.
The perception of training as a form of self-flagellation would make these two goals contradictory. “Training is hell, not exactly relaxing”.
The direct conflict between what these low-active women believe they should be doing when they exercise, and their desire to decompress and renew themselves during leisure time, demotivates them. Their beliefs about what exercise should consist of and their past negative experiences about what it feels like actually prevent them from successfully adopting and sustaining physically active lives.
Here we can again pull out all the fitness clichés. About the discipline needed to achieve your goals. That you’ll have to make sacrifices. That it’s a lifestyle. Granted; if you’re successful in that, you’ll achieve more than someone who casually goes to the gym now and then.
However, this doesn’t work for a large group. ‘What’s the point of going to train today if I’ve already missed two workouts this week?’
The active women in the study also had a lighter view of training. For example, they found it less objectionable to skip a training session occasionally. I recently wrote about similar conclusions from a study with young mothers. They also had a more positive association with training; they didn’t see it as a torture like the inactive women.
There are important implications from this study on how we can help women better prioritize exercise in their day-to-day life. We need to re-educate women they can move in ways that will renew instead of exhaust them, and more effectively get the message across that any movement is better than nothing. To increase motivation to be physically active, we need to help women to want to exercise instead of feeling like they should do it.
If Fitness Isn’t Fun…
Then do something else. When it comes to your weight, most of the benefit comes from nutrition. If you see exercising just for the sake of it as torture, then exercise for fun. Find an enjoyable sport or active hobby that motivates you where movement is secondary. Ensure that relaxation and movement are no longer contradictory concepts.
Unless, of course, you want the figure of a bodybuilder or bikini fitness model. Then you just have to get your lazy butt off the couch.
References
- Michelle Segar, Jennifer M. Taber, Heather Patrick, Chan L. Thai, April Oh. Rethinking physical activity communication: using focus groups to understand women’s goals, values, and beliefs to improve public health. BMC Public Health, 2017; 17 (1) DOI: 10.1186/s12889-017-4361-1
