How to Start Exercising If You Hate Exercising (Free!)
I used to hate exercising. These days, I tolerate it. Do you enjoy exercising? I didn’t know how to start exercising until early this year, and this is the story.
Before 2021, there were times when I experienced bursts of motivation to exercise, typically after admiring certain strong and toned female specimens – like that time I watched Jennifer Garner in Elektra. The single-handed pull-ups left an indelible mark. I can’t even pull myself up half an inch with both hands! Still can’t!
My attempts to exercise regularly never lasted, though. Several sessions later, I inadvertently find myself back in the comfy embrace of inactivity. So comfortable, safe, and unchallenging.
When I started exercising in January of 2021, I didn’t have any expectations. All I know is I was desperate to change and I want to give it another shot.
Surprisingly, I stuck to it so far and I’ve been exercising regularly for most of the year! I’ve never been this physically active, and it has made a world of difference. This is how I did it. Just with videos on the internet and a yoga mat.
How to Start Exercising – How I did it
Make it so easy you can’t quit
To make myself stick to my exercise “regime”, I set an easy target of 5 minutes a day. I didn’t care what I did as long as I did something. There are two things I’m certain of: I’m really out of shape, and I’m a quitter. When the going gets tough, I throw in the towel. So I made it so easy I literally can’t give up.
It didn’t matter what I did in the 5 minutes. Be it the girly push-ups that I can do like 7 of; the planks that make me shake like a leaf; or the crunches that mess up my neck (poor form!). Whatever it is, as long as I exercised for 5 minutes, it’s a successful attempt. Easy, right?
5 minutes isn’t quite enough for a healthy lifestyle, but it’s a first step to overcome the inertia that comes with a distaste for exercise. When that distaste is overcome, it’ll become easier. Remember, we’re creating a habit here. If you get discouraged, it won’t stick. Once your body gets used to 5 minutes, it’ll become a lot easier to increase the duration.
Make it fun so you don’t want to quit
I spent the first few days doing traditional boring shit. You know, jumping-jacks, push-ups, planks, crunches. The nasty things. Then I remembered that my sister regularly posts Tabata style exercise videos. They’re 4 minutes high-intensity exercise sets. In each video, there are 8 exercises, each lasting 20 seconds, with a 10 second resting time in between.
It’s not too difficult, not boring, and actually has an element of fun to it. The best part is, each video is 4 minutes so 1 video plus a 60 seconds plank would make it a “successful” day.
I started doing one video, working on my abs, then I found another video for my arms. Then my legs. The next thing I know, I was working out for 15 minutes a day. Now, 15 minutes is short, but it beats 0 minutes!
A month later, I graduated to longer videos on YouTube.
Make use of YouTube
Exercising is difficult. But follow-along YouTube videos make it a little more enjoyable.
I know I talked about watching our social media use in my last post, but YouTube is undeniably a valuable source of information. I basically taught myself to crochet on YouTube, now it’s teaching me how to exercise.
There are so many great Trainer-YouTubers out there. You can find anything from Yoga, HIIT, Tabata, Pilates, and even fun dance workout. Honestly, it can get overwhelming. But it also means you’ll definitely be able to find a YouTuber you like. Since it’s free, take your time to try different YouTubers until you find one whose difficulty level, energy, and personality suit you.
My favorites are Madfit, Heather Robertson, and Caroline Girvan. I find Caroline’s exercises really effective, even though I can only do the easiest of her exercises.
Learn the right form and always warm up and cool down
If you’re new to exercising and you’re following YouTube videos like I am, this is super important!
As a rookie exerciser (is this a word?), I had no idea if I was doing the exercises correctly. So I searched for videos that teach me what not to do, which muscles are supposed to be worked, and how best to breathe. Pay attention to your form or you run the risk of injuring yourself like I almost did.
After doing a session that involved a lot of squats and lunges, my knees felt numb and achy. I knew I did something wrong. So I looked up YouTube on how to do squats properly and haven’t gotten that weird knee pain since.
Check out videos that teach you how to do squats, push-ups, and crunches with the correct form. I cannot stress how much they helped me. Not only do they help you to prevent injuries, they’ll also make your exercises more effective.
Prevent injuries so they don’t prevent you from building your exercising habit! Similarly, warming up and cooling down before and after exercising help to prevent injuries too!
Make it manageable yet challenging
Choose exercises or YouTube channels that are compatible with your fitness levels. If you’re just starting out, look for shorter, low-impact, or low-intensity exercises. The important thing here is to not discourage or injure yourself.
If you tend to strain your neck doing crunches, start with a standing abs workout or core workouts that don’t require you to move your upper body upwards. If you have bad knees, look for knee-friendly lower body workouts.
Being exercise rookies, there are definitely moves we cannot do. It is okay. We’ll get there slowly. If we don’t, it’s okay too!
Push yourself a little harder whenever you can, but not too hard that it stops being fun. Remember, our aim is to turn this into a habit, not allow excuses to creep in. Make it manageable and tolerable.
Make it consistent
If you’re like me and you hate exercising. Consistency is super important especially at the beginning as we’re establishing a habit.
I exercised daily for about 8 months before breaking the pattern for a mini vacation. Knowing how I am, I was deathly afraid of taking a day off and breaking the momentum/habit. Luckily, I was able to resume my routine after I got back from the vacation.
Some days, I did 30 minutes, some days, I do 75 minutes. It depends on how I was feeling and how busy I was. In general, I find 25 minutes of moderate exercise a day more manageable than 2 90-minute strenuous exercise a week.
Working out for a shorter duration daily allows the body to get used to exercising, keeps the workout manageable, and prevents overworking the body.
Have an exercise plan, but change up the specifics
I focus on different parts of my body on different days of the week. This way, I allow the different muscle groups time to recover and I can strengthen my body as a whole and not neglect certain parts of the body. On the days when everything hurts, or when I really don’t want to exercise, I do some walking or stretching! They’re relaxing and good for muscle recovery.
I read that a good exercise regime would include strength training, cardio, stretching, and rest days. I recommend you follow the guidelines of your favorite fitness instructor!
Remember to change up the exercises regularly as it’ll make the exercise more effective and keep things fresh and fun.
Other notes
So that’s how I’ve made myself exercise regularly. If you hate exercising and are looking for a way to get yourself to exercise too, I hope you’ll find this post useful.
Doing it this way isn’t the fastest or the most effective, but I think it is more sustainable and preferable for someone like me, who had never really exercised in her life and aren’t trying to get buffed.
I pretty much tricked myself into the habit. Haha. If I eventually broke the exercising habit, I’ll use the 5 minutes a day trick to get back to exercising daily. But this time I’ll do 10 minutes.
Do you have difficulty exercising regularly? Do you hate exercising? Or do you exercise using YouTube videos? If you do, who’s your favorite? How did you get into the habit? Let me know in the comments!
