How do you like those apples?

While it is absolutely true that I have certain exercises that are my favorite, there are others that are not my favorite.  My least-favorite list is not quite the same as anyone else’s because—news flash!—we are all unique.  The good news is that there is almost always some other way to work the same muscle groups, so for the most part we can avoid the exercises that fill us with dread or fear.

Let me digress for a moment:  dread, the way I’m using it, is that feeling that we just don’t want to do it.  Whatever we’re dreading isn’t going to cause damage, but it isn’t going to be fun either.  We’ll suck it up if we have to, but really, we’d rather be doing pretty much anything else.  Fear is a different animal.  We have real concerns that what we are contemplating might hurt us, that we could fail, that something is going to go horribly wrong.  We deal, on the whole, pretty well with dread all by ourselves, but fear is something we can use some help with from time to time.  In a fitness context, fear might mean that we move an exercise to a more stable position (from the Bosu to the ground, or off the TRX to a bench) or we use a lighter weight until we are confident about the movements or we just stop and breathe for a few moments to collect ourselves.  I try to help my clients examine exactly what it is that is underlying the fear and then we break the Big Scary Task into something more manageable with whatever tools and encouragement we need.  End of digression.

So:  if someone really detests skullcrushers, she can try kickbacks instead.  If a person would rather be shot than do jumping jacks, he can substitute any other cardio exercise and make sure that there is some lateral motion somewhere else in the workout. 

Often times, the perceived evil of an exercise comes from the fact that we’re not ready to do it yet.  People who hate regular pushups may find that doing them on a wall or bench where there is less load makes them much more tolerable.  A stability ball against a wall can make the difference between a good squat and an actual torture.

I believe that workouts should not hurt.  We may get uncomfortable, but anything that causes pain is right out.  And if we can build in as much fun as possible while working hard, that is the best outcome of all.

Let’s play.