The Fun Project

By Gary Rock :: More posts in Training and Exercise

I absolutely love this video and the message behind it. As a personal trainer I hear from people all the time about how they hate working out. My reaction could be one of two things:

• Show no empathy and tell them to suck it up
• Tell them I understand and then show them that working out can be fun

My reaction is always the latter if for no other reason than to avoid looking like a wanna-be drill sergeant on a really bad television show. The truth is that working out is an awful term for a lot of people because of the negative emotion they attach to it – they literally consider it work. I love working out because, like a lot of athletes, I consider it play. My sport is Brazilian jiu-jitsu and, at 30 years old, I am still actively competing. Playing jiu-jitsu is one of the greatest workouts on the planet. Notice how I said playing jiu-jitsu? I don’t consider it working out because I love it.

 

With that said, if you are having a problem getting started on a workout program because you “absolutely hate it” then sit down for a minute and think of something active you can do that you can consider play. It could be anything from taking your dog for a long walk to dancing lessons. There has to be something.

In this video, simply making the “chore” of walking upstairs more fun than taking the escalator resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of people that chose the stairs. It goes to show you that if we make something more fun it will be a lot easier to do. By the way, you should always be taking the stairs when possible; there is just no reason not to unless you are injured.

I recently got a great idea when reading a client’s company newsletter. His company wanted to promote a healthier staff so it started a competition among the employees using a really simple idea. The employees formed teams and each employee was issued a pedometer. Each employee tracked how many steps he or she took each day; team members then combined their team’s scores and competed against the other teams to see which could walk the furthest over an 8-week period. One group’s combined results equaled the distance from New York to Sydney. The best part is that each group’s weekly totals were getting higher and higher as the competition went on because they wanted to win and that encouraged them to get out there and walk or run. Men and women alike are competitive by nature and this company used that fact to motivate their employees to exercise. My hat off to them and their employees.

You can use the same strategy or you can simply compete against yourself in this contest if you are interested. If you are competing against yourself simply commit to walking further each week for the next 8 weeks. You will be surprised when at the end of the 8-week period you are walking a respectable distance and are now on the right path to health and fitness. You will change your habits without even knowing it and therefore you will have little resistance along the way.

So that’s it. You can try this out or simply be creative and come up with your own idea. The point is to have fun and get moving.