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Need motivation to exercise? Try these tricks

Here's how to get off the couch and find a little joy in your workout.

The New York Times
April 29, 2022 at 12:50PM
BC-WELL-MOTIVATE-EXERCISE-ART-NYTSF — Members of the Brooklyn Track Club during a workout at McCarren Park in Brooklyn. Experts say finding joy and community in exercise are some of the best ways to stay motivated to work out. (Keith E. Morrison/The New York Times) — ONLY FOR USE WITH ARTICLE SLUGGED — BC-WELL-MOTIVATE-EXERCISE-ART-NYTSF — OTHER USE PROHIBITED.
Experts say finding joy and community in exercise is one of the best ways to stay motivated to work out. (NYT/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

I was so tempted to skip the run. By the time my five Zoom meetings were done, it was getting dark and the sky was spitting sleet. Still, I headed out the door, because my last call of the day had been with a couple of professional runners, each with national championship titles in distance running under their belt. A physician, Dr. Megan Roche, and her husband, David, had encouraged me to think of my workout as recess after a long day of work, rather than another item on my to-do list.

"I struggle with motivation all the time," David Roche said. What gets him over the hump is finding joy in the activity itself. Sometimes it helps to get a little silly, he said. "It sounds ridiculous, but if you're running down a slight hill or even just tired, put your arms out like you're an airplane and suddenly everything become less serious."

It did sound silly, but when I tried the airplane arms trick, my dark, cold run became surprisingly joyful. Here are some other ways you can find inspiration and maybe even a little glee in your daily workout.

Don't think of it as exercise

When exercise isn't appealing, making it feel like something else can help. Crystal Steltenpohl, a psychologist at the University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, who studies exercise motivation, recalls a participant in one of her studies who said, "I go play basketball, but that's just hanging out with friends." In other words, although the activity qualified as exercise, that was just a fringe benefit, rather than the motivating factor.

"If you ask, most people will say they want to exercise for their health, and that's a great goal," said Katie Heinrich, an exercise scientist at Kansas State University. "But what gets people actually moving is doing something they enjoy." There's no perfect activity for everyone. "How do you like to move?" Heinrich said. "Maybe it's dancing, or it could be a walk in the park. For some people, it might be CrossFit or Peloton."

Bundle your incentives

Researchers recently published a megastudy testing the effectiveness of 54 approaches to motivating people to exercise more. The experiment, which enlisted more than 60,000 members of the 24 Hour Fitness chain as test subjects, found that offering a free audiobook was one of the most effective ways to get people to the gym. The idea was to give participants something to look forward to while exercising, said one of the study's organizers, Katy Milkman, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book "How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be."

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It's an approach familiar to Megan Roche. She enjoys taking photographs, and running gives her an opportunity to look for interesting things to shoot, especially while traveling. "These photos carry me through my running journey," she said.

Make exercise a priority

"The No. 1 reason people give for not exercising is time," Heinrich said, and the only reliable way to find the time is to prioritize it. "You have to make a decision to put exercise into your day; it's not just magically going to happen."

If you think of exercise as optional, you give yourself permission to skip it. Instead, try thinking of it as an essential part of your job, said Brad Stulberg, author of "The Practice of Groundedness." No matter what you do — lawyer, parent, educator — exercise will make you better at it, he said. "It will help you focus, stay calm and collected, and improve your energy."

Get some support

"The best fitness motivator is a friend. They hold you accountable to show up and they support you when you don't," Stulberg said.

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In one 2017 study, Heinrich interviewed CrossFit gym owners and coaches and found that feelings of community were a strong motivator for people who continued with the classes.

Create an environment of success

Look for ways to make your surroundings more inviting for physical activity, Steltenpohl said. Find or create a place where exercise feels enticing. That could be a gym, a park, a walking path or even just your bedroom with an exercise mat and a fitness app, she said. The key is that your surroundings are priming you to succeed.

Anticipate how exercise will make you feel

It's tempting to think you're too stressed or tired to exercise, but oftentimes exercise is exactly what you need to feel better.

Exercise can help you manage your moods, Steltenpohl said, and when you're feeling lousy, sometimes exercise is a powerful antidote. "When I get really frustrated, I find that's a good time to take a walk."

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about the writer

Christie Aschwanden

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