If it's suffering, you're pushing too hard. I think that's the challenging thing for beginners to understand. At worst you should be bored, most days. You don't really need to push into uncomfortable territory until you've got some regular volume and want to improve race performance.
Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but for me there certainly was (is) a mental hurdle to get over. When I first seriously started exercising I think it probably took 6 or so months of 3-4x per week before I began looking forward to it. Even after years of training, I still will battle with myself a bit before heading to my muay thai gym or heading out for a run.
I loved that scene too, but something I wish I knew before I started my running/fitness journey is that, every day it does NOT get easier.
You are going to have bad days.
I remember running 3 miles and feeling great, and then trying the same run a few days later and feeling like crap - gassed myself half a mile in and either couldn't finish or finished at half the pace. I would get frustrated, wonder if I was even making progress, etc. In reality your progress is going to look like a stock price. Some up days, some down days, some very up and some VERY down days (or weeks or months) but over time the line WILL go up and to the right. I once apologized to my fitness instructor that I half-assed his workout that day. He just shrugged and said, "Eh, not every day's Christmas." I think about that a lot now. But yes, going out for a shitty run still counts as a run, and you have to frame your mind around how big of a success that was. You make the most progress on the days you have to fight the hardest and the days you break some speed or distance PR, the gains are minimal at best and destructive at worst.
It's a classic "annoyingly-misleading wise-sounding statement", because there's an interpretation - which I think is the intended one - which _is_ correct; "every day [that you do it] it gets easier [than it would have been, ceteris paribus, if you hadn't done it that day]". So, on that down day where you get what feels like a bad result, you still got a better result ("it was easier") than if you _hadn't_ have trained the day before. Your environmental factors were pulling you down, but your accumulated training counteracted that. Your bad days are better than they would otherwise have been.
But that's not as snappy for a cartoon monkey to say.
This was important for me to realize too when I started my journey, both strength training and cycling.
For cycling in particular I like to use the anecdote "It never gets easier, you just get faster."
It's hard, and will always be hard, but seeing and feeling the results, beating my PRs, etc. keep me going, and also celebrating the small wins. Some days, just committing to going to the gym and picking up the weights is a big accomplishment and you should absolutely celebrate it.
The cheat code is to substitute it with something like rollerblading. But you'll need to practice it ~3x longer each time, and aint' nobody on HN got time for that.
If it's suffering, you're pushing too hard. I think that's the challenging thing for beginners to understand. At worst you should be bored, most days. You don't really need to push into uncomfortable territory until you've got some regular volume and want to improve race performance.
Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but for me there certainly was (is) a mental hurdle to get over. When I first seriously started exercising I think it probably took 6 or so months of 3-4x per week before I began looking forward to it. Even after years of training, I still will battle with myself a bit before heading to my muay thai gym or heading out for a run.
Yeah, true. Putting your shoes on and getting out the door is half the battle. I wouldn't call that suffering, though.
Every day it gets a bit easier. But that's the key. You have to do it every day.
- weird monkey from Bojack Horseman, paraphrased through my memory
I loved that scene too, but something I wish I knew before I started my running/fitness journey is that, every day it does NOT get easier.
You are going to have bad days.
I remember running 3 miles and feeling great, and then trying the same run a few days later and feeling like crap - gassed myself half a mile in and either couldn't finish or finished at half the pace. I would get frustrated, wonder if I was even making progress, etc. In reality your progress is going to look like a stock price. Some up days, some down days, some very up and some VERY down days (or weeks or months) but over time the line WILL go up and to the right. I once apologized to my fitness instructor that I half-assed his workout that day. He just shrugged and said, "Eh, not every day's Christmas." I think about that a lot now. But yes, going out for a shitty run still counts as a run, and you have to frame your mind around how big of a success that was. You make the most progress on the days you have to fight the hardest and the days you break some speed or distance PR, the gains are minimal at best and destructive at worst.
Happy running everybody.
It's a classic "annoyingly-misleading wise-sounding statement", because there's an interpretation - which I think is the intended one - which _is_ correct; "every day [that you do it] it gets easier [than it would have been, ceteris paribus, if you hadn't done it that day]". So, on that down day where you get what feels like a bad result, you still got a better result ("it was easier") than if you _hadn't_ have trained the day before. Your environmental factors were pulling you down, but your accumulated training counteracted that. Your bad days are better than they would otherwise have been.
But that's not as snappy for a cartoon monkey to say.
> every day it does NOT get easier.
This was important for me to realize too when I started my journey, both strength training and cycling.
For cycling in particular I like to use the anecdote "It never gets easier, you just get faster."
It's hard, and will always be hard, but seeing and feeling the results, beating my PRs, etc. keep me going, and also celebrating the small wins. Some days, just committing to going to the gym and picking up the weights is a big accomplishment and you should absolutely celebrate it.
"It doesn't get any easier, you just get faster"
- Greg LeMond
No it often gets harder because stuff-happens.
No we often need days-off to rebuild.
The cheat code is to substitute it with something like rollerblading. But you'll need to practice it ~3x longer each time, and aint' nobody on HN got time for that.
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