A lot of people hate working out. This is a fact. The thought of going to the gym totally turns them right off. They would rather almost do anything but workout. On the other side of the coin you got people that are pretty much addicted to working out, they never miss a day and if they have to miss for extended periods of time they get withdrawals- they become irritable, lethargic, etc.
So what separates these 2 groups? Are they just both different? No. The human body was meant for movement and exercise. It was not meant to be sedentary. This is why a lot of health problems happen if people don’t exercise. This is also why “feel good” chemicals are released when we exercise and this is one of the reasons people become addicted. They become addicted to the high and how good it makes them feel.
My clients often tell me how good they feel after they train. You can literally see it in them. You can see the high. I then tell them to remember this feeling, in case for some reason they have to take some time off or whatever. This is my goal when starting to train someone is to get them to this point. I want them to become addicted…to exercise.
So why do some people absolutely hate exercise? The answer is simple: past experiences with it. Most people who hate exercise have tried many times in the past and always ended up quitting.
This is the key that a lot of people do not understand: When people are first starting out to exercise their tolerance is extremely low. As a trainer you must err on the side of caution and if anything make the workouts too easy instead of too hard. Then slowly increase the intensity/density/volume/duration from workout to workout.
When most people start out to exercise they are all gung ho and figure they are going to lose 10lbs with one workout so they come in and practically kill themselves. They may end up getting sick, dizzy, not feeling well and definitely sore for days on end. This is obviously a very bad experience and not something you would look forward to. Then they come in again and the same thing happens. After a few more times of this happening they quit. I don’t blame them. Would you want to do something that seems extremely hard and doesn’t make you feel good? I wouldn’t.
If they would have started out very slow and slowly ramped up the progression from workout to workout then none of this would have happened. This can be done rather quickly too. It is amazing at how fast the body changes. In the beginning you see rapid changes from workout to workout. It is like walking a fine line. You want to give them exercise that is causing adaptations to occur but you want to do it within their tolerance level.
Here is how I do it so that people will actually enjoy exercise and this is what I recommend you do if you want to start a workout program. First understand that you are not going to lose 5lbs with each workout. You must think of this somewhat long term. The next thing I tell clients on a scale of 1-10 if 1 is sleeping and 10 is pushing yourself as hard as you can, I want them to work up to about a 6. So I want them to push a little, but once it gets somewhat challenging I want them to stop. This goes for the very first few workouts. This progresses quite rapidly and within 2-4 weeks a person can push themselves hard without it seeming to hard and not getting all of those bad effects.
Believe it or not, after a person has been training a bit they actually crave pushing themselves hard. Not at the beginning obviously but once they get used to it people tend to push themselves hard…and they enjoy it! This is the goal. Once you get to this point then it is all down hill.
So for people who hate working out I recommend this: Try it again, but start off slow. Maybe 20 minutes of light weight training. Work up to about a “6 out of 10” then slowly push a little harder from workout to workout. You must walk that fine line between getting results and not making it so hard that you do not enjoy it. You will see with time that you will be pushing yourself as hard as you can, and you will be enjoying it!
