Do You Enjoy Exercise?

Do you enjoy exercise?  Are you one of those people who can’t stand the thought of jamming all of your workout clothes into a bag and shlepping over to the gym?  Do you balk at the mere thought of sweating?

Or, do you think exercise is supposed to be fun?

In their efforts to get more people into exercise, the media and government have paraded around the idea that exercise should be enjoyable fun; that in the middle of your five mile run you should spontaneously break into song.  Of course, if you’ve ever performed a gut-wrenching set of chest press, you know that exercise that stimulates your body fully enough to be results-producing is anything but fun.  In order to effect change, the exercise stimulus has to great enough so that effort is required – and you can be certain that more effort will effect more in the way of results (provided you don’t overwhelm your body’s ability to recover from the exercise stimulus).

Let’s be honest here:  Housecleaning isn’t exercise.  Walking your dog isn’t exercise.

Wii Tennis isn’t exercise.

Exercise doesn’t have to be torturous to be productive; it’s true.  But make no bones about it; productive exercise is hard work.

Enjoyable?  Yes.  Rewarding?  Without a doubt.  But fun?

It’s a truism – if it’s still fun, you’re probably not working hard enough.  Or you’re insane.