curiousepic comments on Boring Advice Repository - Less Wrong

56 Post author: Qiaochu_Yuan 07 March 2013 04:33AM

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Comment author: curiousepic 07 March 2013 03:48:20PM *  20 points [-]

Some previously posted boring advice about maintaining an exercise routine:

I was successful in keeping a strict (but light) exercise routine for a year. Here are the main things I think helped me form the habit:

  • Not worrying about quantifying, or optimizing. I would immediately get into the rabbit hole of analysis, when I knew that any exercise was much better than procrastinating until I found the perfect method. Once the habit is formed, then you can optimize it.
  • Reduce physical inconveniences to actually exercising. The thought of going to a gym immediately turns me off, so I knew it had to be at home. That meant obtaining equipment. To keep it simple, this consisted of a yoga mat and a resistance band.
  • Doing it right after waking up. I think this was vital to habit formation, as my mind wasn't very active, and it was easy to fall into routine. Only very rarely did I find myself considering not exercising.
  • Doing it every other day - not too often to get burnt out, and not too infrequently to form the habit. In order to keep a consistent sleep schedule and not have to wake up very early, I alternated morning routines - exercise days and shower days. My workouts weren't intense enough to necessitate a shower immediately after. Also, I worked it in with my intermittent fasting routine on non-exercise days.
  • Tracking it. Noting days that I exercised did give me a couple of achievement hedons. The effect diminished, but not before the habit was formed.
Comment author: RomeoStevens 08 March 2013 12:46:30AM 17 points [-]

Once the habit is formed, then you can optimize it.

I think this is really important and not mentioned enough.

Comment author: bbleeker 09 March 2013 07:40:16PM *  3 points [-]

Yes; but beware even then. I had a simple weightlifting routine once upon a time. Then I decided to improve it: I'd start using different weights for different (and more varied) exercises, and recording them. Pretty soon, I'd given it up altogether. Now I'm thinking of starting the simple routine again (but it isn't optimal! waaah!), and even sell the bench that takes 15 seconds to adjust between different exercises, and just use the suboptimal stepping bench that takes 1-2 seconds to adjust.

And that reminds me. When I bought that stepping bench, I started using it right away, just stepping on and off, every day for 15 minutes or so. Then I bought a book about stepping. I was doing it all wrong; you had to use music, and it had to have a specific number of beats per minute, and you couldn't just step on and off, you had to use complicated (for me, most people would probably find them quite simple) patterns. No more stepping...

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 08 March 2013 01:50:14AM 2 points [-]

Yes, this is why I tried to install a habit of trying new things before optimizing exactly which things to try and how to try them.

Comment author: [deleted] 08 March 2013 05:01:11PM 5 points [-]
  • Find a physical activity that you enjoy.
Comment author: OrphanWilde 08 March 2013 08:08:42PM 12 points [-]

On this note, something I've discovered:

Jogging sucks when you're overweight. Jogging is awesome when you're already fit.

Try things again as you progress. You may find them considerably more pleasant.

Comment author: [deleted] 25 February 2015 11:38:40AM 1 point [-]

On the plus side, you can build massive arms and shoulders from simple push-ups when you are overweight. Don't need no gym, at least, if you like that sort of be-scared-of-me look. There is no way an obese, say, over 120 kg person could master the 100 push-ups challenge and not have brutal arms and shoulders. However, it will not be 7 weeks, more like a year.

This is really the primary silver lining obese people tend to forget. Just throwing that kind of body around, like playing tennis or going boxing, builds massive muscles. I tell obese people hardgainers probably already envy your calves. One of the hardest muscles to grow and poof you got it for free.

Comment author: curiousepic 09 March 2013 04:21:31AM 1 point [-]

Yes, in fact, weekly contra dancing is starting to replace my previous exercise routine!

Comment author: OrphanWilde 07 March 2013 07:28:46PM 2 points [-]

Find what works; if something doesn't work, find something else that does. If it stops working, immediately start looking for something else in turn.

I don't exercise at home because it's too easy to rationalize that I'll do it in five minutes, and never actually do it. Whereas if I go to the gym every day on my lunch hour, there's little room for procrastination.

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