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Comment by markus_zhang | Hacker News Reader

TBH I really hate physical activity, but I have to do it to keep healthy :(

You should try crossfit.

It is basically like Fight Club if the first two rules were the opposite.

Don't let the Crossfit brand turn you off of the whole thing. If you ignore the weird culty online culture, it's just a bunch of people doing a hard workout. You'll make lots of friends, get healthier and you'll start to enjoy the workouts a lot faster than you think.

It isn't just the Crossfit brand that turns me off; it's the Crossfit mentality. When these people can't get to their "box", they come to a regular gym and tie up multiple pieces of equipment at a time doing circuits.

Crossfit appears to be about chasing fatigue, which is why I don't understand the appeal. I do moderate cardio and strength training.

crossfit is dangerous enough that it probably shouldn't be casually recommended without appropriate oversight and working with legitimate experts about how to do it safely.

Crossfit is great if you don't plan on needing your joints for a long life. As Bill DeSimone, author of Congruent Exercise[0], explained in a podcast, "Everyone gets a set of free passes. You decide if you want to use up all your free passes." So don't do needlessly stupid things with your body that wear out your joints any faster than necessary. Your 80 year old self will appreciate not needing a walker. F=ma, it's the law. If you can stimulate the adaptive response in your muscles with no acceleration, why would you ever do anything faster than necessary?

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Congruent-Exercise-Weight-Training-Ea..., "Congruent Exercise: How To Make Weight Training Easier On Your Joints"

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8ZTIvJySiY

More generally, it's worth asking older athletes about their health issues, to really appreciate what it means to have constant pain and physical limitations due to wrong use of the body. I learned what kind of an ordeal is to have, say, knee surgery. I came to appreciate the value of mobility and strength excercises, and am sceptical at the general state of health of elderly people in the west.

You just need to find something that fits you definition of fun, I'd try different activities :)

Chapter 3 text 8 of the Gita on Karma Yoga

Perform your prescribed duty, for action is better than inaction. A man cannot even maintain his physical body without work.

Then you should do some mental activity to find a physical activity that you like.

I pretty much hate everything that is easily accessible...swimming is OK but TBH I prefer reading books or coding side projects. I purchased boxing classes and will try it out with a friend.

I think some people just despise physical activities, like there are a lot of people who just refuse to think.

Be careful with boxing - taking hits to the head is very bad for brain health.

He's obviously taking fitness [boxing] classes and will not actually be sparring anyone.

Yep, that's me. Hated physical activities since my childhood. I was naturally bad at it, so I was dead weight in any kind of competitive play which further increased my hate for any kind of sport. Still can't force myself to go outdoors and prefer to stay home for days, but that's really bad for health and for cognitive functions, so will have to find some way.

This is a harder problem than you seem to imply. There are very few physical activities I truly enjoy and these tend to require a significant investment of time and money (like skiing) and are not sustainable on any schedule that makes them useful as regular exercise. There are activities that I enjoy occasionally (hiking, running), but I feel like if I started doing them on schedule (I tried), the way I go to the gym, they would become a lot less enjoyable, because it is now a chore rather than entertainment. So I would rather go to the gym and hate it than grow to hate the things I actually like.

Here is a list of physical activities to stimulate your memory or imagination. There is more to exercise than the gym.

Swimming, Soccer, Rock Climbing, Hiking, Kayaking, Free running, Martial Arts, Fencing, Yoga, Surfing, Dancing (Samba, Ballroom, Contemporary...), Long walks, Cycling.

My favourites are cycling because I feel so free and I love the sensation of speed and climbing because I have a natural talent for it and I love the feeling of getting to the top.

> There is more to exercise than the gym.

There is more to "I hate physical activity" than the gym, too. Some of us have seriously been looking for the proverbial "something you enjoy" for decades and haven't found it.

> Here is a list of physical activities to stimulate your memory or imagination

You can also strap a competition car to your arse, and try to beat the quick peeps at an autocross track.

Search for "bodyweight exercise" and you'll find many types of exercise that require little or no equipment, can be done almost anywhere, and provide similar benefits to other physical activities. One I would recommend is Animal Flow, which is just quirky and challenging enough to stay interesting.

It can get a lot easier with time & adaptation. I used to hate, hate running. I started to take it more seriously because my wife-to-be liked to run. After a year or two of dedicated & conscientious training (about 500 miles) it's no longer so difficult, and in fact I began to need to run. Now I take my running clothes with me traveling to help me deal with stress.

The key mental switch for me was leaving behind the mindset of accomplishment through grind, tough, suffer, and instead train, train, train, and take it easy & enjoy yourself.

"The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare"

Try a few before you give up. Boxing, martial arts, weightlifting, running, hiking, scuba, swimming, soccer, sword fighting - really, the options are endless.

Find a friend to do it together.

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