Workouts for People Who Hate Working Out
I hate working out. Like I truly hate it so much. I am one of the few people here at the University of Oregon that has only ever used our Nike funded gym once or twice. I get some weird anxiety in a gym so its not my thing, and I prefer to workout from home or outside if I can. I blame all of my hatred of working out on the fact that I was a dancer from ages 2-18 so I never once had to go workout separately from my sport. Aside from our regular warm-ups, we would do, there would be cardio, flexibility, yoga, and a myriad of toning exercises that would also be done during classes. I never had to go to the gym or make a separate time to go and workout.
When I quit dancing after high school (mainly due to so many injuries) I again didn’t have a lot of need to work out until a couple of years down the road when I started taking more yoga classes and found not only was working out a great source of anxiety relief, but yoga was a great way to help the pain.
The last reason I hate working out is mainly my health. I get really sore and exhausted very quickly, even though it is meant to be something that goes away over time, mine never does. Chronic illness means that I have a million symptoms that are often exasperated by me doing things, so while working out is very important to help the chronic illness it also makes it worse. Go figure. Working out and being active it also just an important part of being a healthy human in the grand scheme of things. I have compiled a list of workouts below, where to find them, and what they are good for depending on what you need or are looking for. Keep scrolling to find it!
Yoga- I have already mentioned one big pro of this one: pain management. It helps you learn how to figure out which part of your body is hurting, and ways to help it stop. Stretching is amazing for aches and pains as well as overall bodily health. Yoga can also be great for people who have fatigue issues or people with other health issues since it can be very low impact. It can also be the best way to get into working out if you hate it, or if you need to get back into it. Check out Yoga with Adrienne on Youtube where you can find yoga for beginners, specific practices for certain pain spots, yoga for certain moods, and so much more! Adrienne is amazing and has a very welcoming and goofy presence so if you don’t want to get involved in yoga because you think it might be too hippy-dippy, she is the one for you.
Dance- I am partial to this one because I like dancing and did it for several years. But, dance exercises and classes are often geared towards people who do not have dance experience. They are meant to be fun and also give you a great workout so no technical dance training is required. Zumba is always a great way to dip into the pool of dance exercise. There are videos on Youtube if you are living in a place that still has gyms closed (like most of America) or there are things on fitness apps as well to give you this same way. I also use a channel on Youtube called MadFit and she has some dance exercise videos as well as other exercises so you can explore her whole channel to find out what other videos you might be interested in. Barre is also a current fitness craze that I absolutely love because it is a lot like ballet! However, you do not need to have ballet experience to enjoy and get a lot out of barre.
Hiking- If everything in a workout class or any kind of workout like above is still absolutely revolting to you (totally understandable) go on a hike! It is good for your muscles, and it is great cardio. You are outside doing an activity that doesn’t feel like a workout at all and it is something you can do with other people easily. If you can’t hike right now, or have health issues that would make it hard to hike, a long walk also has a lot of benefits. Get outside and move your body is the bottom line here.
If all of this still sounds awful, I highly recommend you download the app FitOn! It is a completely free app that allows you to input the kind of results you want (including if you just want to be more active) and then will recommend a workout for that. However, you can also just browse the app and look at a bunch of different kinds of on-demand classes. They have dance, pilates, yoga, strength training, toning and so much more. It is a freeway for you to experiment with a bunch of different workouts so you can get a feel for what you might like. It might surprise you what you enjoy in a workout!
Madey
Cover photo found here