Lifting seems like effort without the fun of a game.
The fun is in learning your muscles, feeling them shift and move as you put new strain on them and ultimately improving. Any metric you can track for improvement gives you a big source of pride when you hit a new milestone. Maybe it’s more reps. Maybe it’s a bigger weight with the same number of reps. Maybe it’s a new more difficult exercise you can do. Maybe you’re aiming to join a local competition. There’s always a goal to work towards and you can watch your body get better as you work on it. There’s incredible magic in knowing the control you have over your body’s shape, and suddenly being able to join in races or competitions that you might have used to be annoyed by how they get in your way.
I’ve gone big into biking. I started out struggling to make it around the block (which includes a big hill because where I live there really isn’t any flat surfaces to bike on) and last week I hit 12 miles in one go, and that’s including quite a few hills, some I powered up standing on the pedals, and some I powered through going as slowly as I needed and just continuing to pedal and push through. Every week or two I can achieve a new best for the season or even a new personal best, and that’s just tracking distance. I could instead focus on increasing my average speed. Or I could download an app where I race other people on the same route in virtual time trials.
The fun is in learning your muscles, feeling them shift and move as you put new strain on them and ultimately improving. Any metric you can track for improvement gives you a big source of pride when you hit a new milestone. Maybe it’s more reps. Maybe it’s a bigger weight with the same number of reps. Maybe it’s a new more difficult exercise you can do. Maybe you’re aiming to join a local competition. There’s always a goal to work towards and you can watch your body get better as you work on it. There’s incredible magic in knowing the control you have over your body’s shape, and suddenly being able to join in races or competitions that you might have used to be annoyed by how they get in your way.
I’ve gone big into biking. I started out struggling to make it around the block (which includes a big hill because where I live there really isn’t any flat surfaces to bike on) and last week I hit 12 miles in one go, and that’s including quite a few hills, some I powered up standing on the pedals, and some I powered through going as slowly as I needed and just continuing to pedal and push through. Every week or two I can achieve a new best for the season or even a new personal best, and that’s just tracking distance. I could instead focus on increasing my average speed. Or I could download an app where I race other people on the same route in virtual time trials.