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I've tried a few times to get into weightlifting. I can never stick with it, though. It's not necessarily a self-discipline thing, because I've run thousands o

I've tried a few times to get into weightlifting. I can never stick with it, though. It's not necessarily a self-discipline thing, because I've run thousands of miles over the past decade. When you run, you get outside, you go somewhere, you see and feel different things. There's a race ecosystem that encourages you to get in when you can barely run a mile without stopping and allows you to push yourself as much as you want. It's cheaper to start, it's easy to create routes that are as varied as you want them to be, and if you pick the right spots it's safer. But the gym is the same sights, smells, and sounds over and over again. I wish I enjoyed it more; I love how I feel when I stick with it for a couple months! Any tips on this?

emerged 5y ago
I’ve always found lifting to be unbelievably boring. Contrasted with an obsession with cycling which has been maintained daily for many years. I can’t seem to find any mentality which makes lifting enjoyable at all for me. Yet somehow sitting on a bike for hours at a time, even indoors, is great fun.
- ofrzeta 5y ago
  I find cycling a bit boring and it takes a comparably long time to work out as much as running six miles. I also enjoy that running doesn't have any tech attached which can become a burden, like a gear shift that's not 100% adjusted. To each their own, I guess :) This year, though, I got to enjoy it a bit more when I tried some "triathlon", sprint distance, which encompasses 20km of cycling (a joke for every serious cycler). Maybe next year I'll try to tackle the olympic distance.
zzbzq 5y ago
Game-ify it by tracking and focusing on progression, tracking your weight and reps for each move to increase your personal bests. Celebrate your new personal records to encourage better dopamine activation throughout the next training cycle.
johnNumen 5y ago
I'm not sure what you were doing in the gym, but for me lifting heavy and pushing the boundaries of what I can do every single time I'm in the gym makes it fun.
- pnutjam 5y ago
  It also helps if you setup regular routines to make comparison easy, for example: day 1 - bench, curl (barbell), lat pull, tricep extension (dumbell) This example hits alternating muscle groups so you can minimize rest in between. If I do something like this I can usually get my heart rate up as well.
klenwell 5y ago
I heard an interesting interview this weekend with a clinical psychologist and ultra runner who gets into some of the physiological effects of running: Thompson says that running has worked as a powerful medicine for the mind, and that, much like the analyst’s couch, the running trail has become his therapeutic space, allowing his traumatic memories to be processed in a safer way. Ultra runners, he explains, experience physiological changes in the brain, entering trance-like states that alter perception and enhance free movement of thoughts and memories. https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/life-examined/jm-thompson-running-is-a-kind-of-dreaming/ultra-running-psychology-trauma-shame-depression-suicide https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/life-examined/jm-thompson... Not a runner myself but found it pretty interesting. Goes a bit beyond the usual "runner's high" stuff. I imagine there are comparable effects across physical activities.
silicon2401 5y ago
It's entirely subjective. I'm neutral about running outside, but I enjoy running on a treadmill because I can get into a kind of zen mode or watch something. Similarly, I love weight lifting because the experience of hard muscular exertion is intensely satisfying for me, and the overall lifting session gets me in a similarly zen mode. > When you run, you get outside, you go somewhere, you see and feel different things. I disagree. When I run outside, I see the same thing every time. Maybe if I lived in a wide open meadow or forest where I could take infinite paths it would be different, but in a suburb/city, it's just buildings and streets. Not that interesting to me. > There's a race ecosystem that encourages you to get in when you can barely run a mile without stopping and allows you to push yourself as much as you want I hate group sports. I don't want to see other people at all when I'm exercising, so this 'race ecosystem' has no value to me. > if you pick the right spots it's safer. I don't really understand your point here. Are you saying running is inherently safer than weight lifting? I would need to see some evidence. Safer than strongman or powerlifting, maybe. Safer than light-moderate lifting with proper form? I'd be skeptical of that claim. > But the gym is the same sights, smells, and sounds over and over again Again, I feel the same way about running outdoors. For me the differences from you seem to be (1) I don't need novelty, I exercise for the health and physical sensation of exercising itself. If I want novelty or new sights I'll watch a movie or take a trip somewhere. (2) I love the sensation of lifting itself, just like I also enjoy the sensation of running or biking. Maybe find a way to focus on the exercise, not the environment. Or just watch videos or listen to music. There's no way around it, weight lifting is inherently repetitive
- Brendinooo 5y ago
  I started a huge reply to rebut some stuff and/or clarify but...that's not the point here! Not here to argue. Thanks for your input. It's pretty clear that different people want different things out of exercise, and will have different individual risk factors based on what they're doing. Thinking about it more, I know that weight (fat) loss is often a goal for my exercise, and I think it's hard to do that while lifting. With running it's simple: Loosely track calories, and each mile on the road gives about 150 extra calories to play with. When I've tried to lose weight while lifting, I usually end up really hungry and struggle to find a balance.
psyc 5y ago
It’s an expensive solution (heck I can’t even afford it at the moment) but my solution for this was a personal trainer. If I have an appointment with a human being who’s expecting me and will be cross if I don’t show, I’m going to go. After I let the trainer go, I had a SO who would have raised an eyebrow had I quit lifting, so that kept me going until we broke up. In other words, if you can, enlist someone to whom you can be accountable.
serjester 5y ago
Have you tried pre-workout? Personally this makes going to the gym a blast when I'd otherwise be going through the motions. Just make sure you find something that's ranked well on LabDoor since admittedly the industry can be shady. Lifting with someone else can also go a long ways in making it more enjoyable although this can often be difficult. A personal trainer can be a great substitute if you have the disposable income. Lastly quantifying your lifts is great. This is coming from someone that ran cross country in high school but now mostly sticks to the gym and Jiu Jutsu. I have the opposite problem :)
cspada 5y ago
My tip, which helped me become consistent and motivated at the gym, is to make it part of your morning ritual. I am a morning person, so I find that making it a non-negotiable part of my morning forces me into the habit and also forces me to consistently eat a solid breakfast. At first I felt that I needed to force myself to go, but at this point I am so deep in the habit that I look forward to it each morning.
dunefox 5y ago
> Any tips on this? Go with someone and write down your gains and take photos.
dirtyid 5y ago
I try to hit EASY 10-20 reptition maxes or have some sort of easy rep PR goal every session. Emphasis on easy, I reserve pretty sandbagged weights, maybe 10-20% below what I'm actually capable of doing. They're somewhat challenging, but easy enough that I almost never miss even on days when I feel bad/sick. It's just nice knowing your body is doing something it's never done before. The rest of it is actually treating lifts as a skill to be mastered rather than reps to be ground through. But not everyone has patience / personality to approach lifting like that. Finally, my typical 1.5-2hr gym session is good time to catch up on podcasts @2-3x speed. There's probably only ever 20-30m of lifting happening total. It's definitely not the kind of activity that consumes me. Unless I do cross fit or other circuit programs where you're moving all the time. Incidentally I can't stick to those because they're too close to running.
pnutjam 5y ago
If you're into a "race ecosystem", I'm surprised you haven't picked up on the weight training competitive nature. I constantly have to remind myself I'm not trying to impress anyone. It's also something I try to teach other new lifters, there is a huge tendency to "compete" with the people around you.

emerged 5y ago

I’ve always found lifting to be unbelievably boring. Contrasted with an obsession with cycling which has been maintained daily for many years. I can’t seem to find any mentality which makes lifting enjoyable at all for me. Yet somehow sitting on a bike for hours at a time, even indoors, is great fun.

ofrzeta 5y ago
I find cycling a bit boring and it takes a comparably long time to work out as much as running six miles. I also enjoy that running doesn't have any tech attached which can become a burden, like a gear shift that's not 100% adjusted. To each their own, I guess :) This year, though, I got to enjoy it a bit more when I tried some "triathlon", sprint distance, which encompasses 20km of cycling (a joke for every serious cycler). Maybe next year I'll try to tackle the olympic distance.

zzbzq 5y ago

Game-ify it by tracking and focusing on progression, tracking your weight and reps for each move to increase your personal bests. Celebrate your new personal records to encourage better dopamine activation throughout the next training cycle.

johnNumen 5y ago

I'm not sure what you were doing in the gym, but for me lifting heavy and pushing the boundaries of what I can do every single time I'm in the gym makes it fun.

pnutjam 5y ago
It also helps if you setup regular routines to make comparison easy, for example: day 1 - bench, curl (barbell), lat pull, tricep extension (dumbell) This example hits alternating muscle groups so you can minimize rest in between. If I do something like this I can usually get my heart rate up as well.

klenwell 5y ago

I heard an interesting interview this weekend with a clinical psychologist and ultra runner who gets into some of the physiological effects of running: Thompson says that running has worked as a powerful medicine for the mind, and that, much like the analyst’s couch, the running trail has become his therapeutic space, allowing his traumatic memories to be processed in a safer way. Ultra runners, he explains, experience physiological changes in the brain, entering trance-like states that alter perception and enhance free movement of thoughts and memories. https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/life-examined/jm-thompson-running-is-a-kind-of-dreaming/ultra-running-psychology-trauma-shame-depression-suicide https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/life-examined/jm-thompson... Not a runner myself but found it pretty interesting. Goes a bit beyond the usual "runner's high" stuff. I imagine there are comparable effects across physical activities.

silicon2401 5y ago

It's entirely subjective. I'm neutral about running outside, but I enjoy running on a treadmill because I can get into a kind of zen mode or watch something. Similarly, I love weight lifting because the experience of hard muscular exertion is intensely satisfying for me, and the overall lifting session gets me in a similarly zen mode. > When you run, you get outside, you go somewhere, you see and feel different things. I disagree. When I run outside, I see the same thing every time. Maybe if I lived in a wide open meadow or forest where I could take infinite paths it would be different, but in a suburb/city, it's just buildings and streets. Not that interesting to me. > There's a race ecosystem that encourages you to get in when you can barely run a mile without stopping and allows you to push yourself as much as you want I hate group sports. I don't want to see other people at all when I'm exercising, so this 'race ecosystem' has no value to me. > if you pick the right spots it's safer. I don't really understand your point here. Are you saying running is inherently safer than weight lifting? I would need to see some evidence. Safer than strongman or powerlifting, maybe. Safer than light-moderate lifting with proper form? I'd be skeptical of that claim. > But the gym is the same sights, smells, and sounds over and over again Again, I feel the same way about running outdoors. For me the differences from you seem to be (1) I don't need novelty, I exercise for the health and physical sensation of exercising itself. If I want novelty or new sights I'll watch a movie or take a trip somewhere. (2) I love the sensation of lifting itself, just like I also enjoy the sensation of running or biking. Maybe find a way to focus on the exercise, not the environment. Or just watch videos or listen to music. There's no way around it, weight lifting is inherently repetitive

Brendinooo 5y ago
I started a huge reply to rebut some stuff and/or clarify but...that's not the point here! Not here to argue. Thanks for your input. It's pretty clear that different people want different things out of exercise, and will have different individual risk factors based on what they're doing. Thinking about it more, I know that weight (fat) loss is often a goal for my exercise, and I think it's hard to do that while lifting. With running it's simple: Loosely track calories, and each mile on the road gives about 150 extra calories to play with. When I've tried to lose weight while lifting, I usually end up really hungry and struggle to find a balance.

psyc 5y ago

It’s an expensive solution (heck I can’t even afford it at the moment) but my solution for this was a personal trainer. If I have an appointment with a human being who’s expecting me and will be cross if I don’t show, I’m going to go. After I let the trainer go, I had a SO who would have raised an eyebrow had I quit lifting, so that kept me going until we broke up. In other words, if you can, enlist someone to whom you can be accountable.

serjester 5y ago

Have you tried pre-workout? Personally this makes going to the gym a blast when I'd otherwise be going through the motions. Just make sure you find something that's ranked well on LabDoor since admittedly the industry can be shady. Lifting with someone else can also go a long ways in making it more enjoyable although this can often be difficult. A personal trainer can be a great substitute if you have the disposable income. Lastly quantifying your lifts is great. This is coming from someone that ran cross country in high school but now mostly sticks to the gym and Jiu Jutsu. I have the opposite problem :)

cspada 5y ago

My tip, which helped me become consistent and motivated at the gym, is to make it part of your morning ritual. I am a morning person, so I find that making it a non-negotiable part of my morning forces me into the habit and also forces me to consistently eat a solid breakfast. At first I felt that I needed to force myself to go, but at this point I am so deep in the habit that I look forward to it each morning.

dunefox 5y ago

> Any tips on this? Go with someone and write down your gains and take photos.

dirtyid 5y ago

I try to hit EASY 10-20 reptition maxes or have some sort of easy rep PR goal every session. Emphasis on easy, I reserve pretty sandbagged weights, maybe 10-20% below what I'm actually capable of doing. They're somewhat challenging, but easy enough that I almost never miss even on days when I feel bad/sick. It's just nice knowing your body is doing something it's never done before. The rest of it is actually treating lifts as a skill to be mastered rather than reps to be ground through. But not everyone has patience / personality to approach lifting like that. Finally, my typical 1.5-2hr gym session is good time to catch up on podcasts @2-3x speed. There's probably only ever 20-30m of lifting happening total. It's definitely not the kind of activity that consumes me. Unless I do cross fit or other circuit programs where you're moving all the time. Incidentally I can't stick to those because they're too close to running.

pnutjam 5y ago

If you're into a "race ecosystem", I'm surprised you haven't picked up on the weight training competitive nature. I constantly have to remind myself I'm not trying to impress anyone. It's also something I try to teach other new lifters, there is a huge tendency to "compete" with the people around you.