On Adjusting A Bad (workout) Attitude

Sometime in his 60’s, my grandfather singlehandedly built a cinderblock wall on the western border of his property. It was beautiful, and 300 feet long. All of this after he pulled up the 300 feet of bamboo forest that stood in its place.

That brother was a machine. Hardest working man I’ve ever met.

He was in great physical condition, a guy who built his own chain of tire stores and was never afraid to get his hands dirty, or get a workout with the guys in the garage. As such, he was active and mobile until he passed, serving as a great reminder that some form of strenuous exercise will need to be a regular part of my life from now on. Without it, my 60’s won’t be nearly as active as I’d like them to be, 70’s will be significantly more restrictive, and 80’s will be a decade of comfy blankets and crossword puzzles.

So, over the past three years or so, I’ve tried to workout 4-5 times a week with weights, cardio, and a few exercises that require balance. But there are barriers: motivation, equipment, time, motivation, energy, motivation, etc. In my attempts to be a bit healthier, I’ve come to the conclusion that exercise, at least the way I do it, sucks, and there’s nothing worse than the 30 to 250 minutes between the time I realize I need to workout and the time I actually strap my feet in to the exercise bike.

I’ve learned a few tricks that help; best one is the fact that the first 5 minutes of a workout are crucial; that’s when your body warms up and the idea of continuing to workout doesn’t seem too awful. So, instead of committing to workout for 30 minutes, I commit to 5, and make my workout decision while I’m warming up.

Still, it doesn’t help. Thinking about working out today, on my 54th birthday, sucks.

But I have a new thought this morning, one that’s unique to older Americans hoping to make exercise a regular thing. Hang with me as I’m still fleshing this one out:

We work hard. Many of us are still raising kids and/or dealing with difficult relationships and overall doing our best to navigate the troubles of middle age. When it comes to emotional effort, we’re all building a 300 foot fence, constantly. It seems like there’s always something we have to deal with, always some trouble on the horizon to replace what’s currently in our lap.

When it comes to physical exertion, our lives are almost the exact opposite – our minds are constantly tasked while our physical being gets a hall pass. I don’t think our body/soul/whatever works well that way. There needs to be a balance between the emotional workouts and the physical ones.

So the pain, monotony, discomfort, discouragement etc. that comes part and parcel to working out is a good thing, much needed for people who spend too much time in the emotional gym. And that cold, lonely, awful feeling we get in that span of time before our workout begins isn’t something that we have to give much weight to. It goes away almost as soon as we begin, definitely RIP’d by the time our workout is over.

The emotional part of working out, i.e., the “gett your @ss off the couch” piece, is extra difficult for people who spend too much time emotionally working out. None of us should expect that part to get easier. We tax our minds too much and can’t expect them to get excited when we ask for more.

While I realize just as much as anyone else that 30 minutes of boredom and discomfort sounds like a miserable idea on this side of it, I’m coming to realize that a) it won’t kill me and b) I need it on multiple levels.

If you’re someone who loves your workouts; your 10 mile run, your 5-day-a-week trip to the crossfit gym, etc., good for you. I’m happy to hear that you’ve found a way to motivate yourself. I’d prefer to hear about it a little less, maybe not so many social media pics of shirtless you, but bravo.

Wish I could get there.

For the rest of us, I don’t think enjoying our workouts, or finding joy in exercise should be the goal, like we’re doing something wrong if 30 minutes of 143 BPM doesn’t feel like a party. The physical pain that comes with a good workout, and the drudgery of walking out the door for a morning run, though they feel like hell, are OK, normal, especially for the emotionally taxed.

All of this runs counter to the contemporaty American idea that pain is a bad thing, that something’s gone horribly wrong if we’re hurting, or bored. Our country was built by people who spent the brunt of their lives plowing fields without machinery, or crafting cities with little-to-no power tools. Boredom, drudgery, and physical exertion have been part of 99% of humanity’s existence.

Adding 30 minutes of it to my day isn’t going to kill me, and so far, though I still struggle to believe, has brought just as much to my life as the other painful/boring disciplines I’ve managed to embrace.