Why do you exercise?

[EnbyFitness]

Heyyyy it's been a while.

I'm still playing with ADHD meds, fell off exercise for a bit (my heart was racing? I'm on a different medication now lol), got back on it, and in the process realized daily check-ins weren't really my thing. But I still exercise everyday: I'm working through the Epic Arms challenge in the morning and the Zero Hero program at night.

Why do I do that?

Well, I'm studying to be a social worker and my internship is with a national suicide and crisis hot line. Between homework and taking calls, I started sitting down... a lot. Exercise not only gives me a break from sitting, but it's also a way for me to take care of myself after I've taken care of others all day. It helps me a chance both to process and to get away from some heavy social work stuff. It's also extremely good for managing my ADHD.

So, my question for the community is: What got you into exercise? And what motivates you to continue?

 

[JohnStrong]

What a great question! I think I've been waiting for someone to come along and ask it

I exercise because:

1. I am @JohnStrong and I exercise every day
2. I need to rehabilitate my body from years of sitting (I think of myself as being in rehab)
3. I want to strengthen my body and expand it's range of motion so it's capable of more (more options = more freedom)
4. I want to be a positive role model for my children and teach them good physical and mental health habits
5. I want to be better attuned to reality by a) giving my mind a rest and, b) engaging in simple physical activity that gives me instant feedback
6. I want to maximize the quality of my time remaining in my body by maximizing my well-being (also make Death really work for it)
7. I want to honor my body which is a gift from God

 

[elie]

Because I like it very much.

 

[PetiteSheWolf]

Because it makes me feel good.
Because it is part of keeping myself in shape despite / with heart problem and other problems.
Because it is fun, here, on Darebee.
And finally, as a kind of thumbing my nose to fate that gave me a body with those heallth issues You thought it'd slow me, Fate? Nanana na nere!

 

[AquaMarie]

1) Pain relief/management. Keeping my muscles flexible and strong keeps my assorted joints from complaining quite as loudly as they would otherwise.
2) My job. I love my job, and it is very physical. Exercise outside of work makes it easier for me to do what I love, and it makes it less likely that I'll pull or twist something at work.
3) Anxiety management. The feel-good chemicals are real.
4) This one is a little weird: I think of myself as someone who exercises, if that make sense. Like, when I think about the life I want and what I would do with unlimited time/energy/money, it always includes exercise (4 days a week in my own home gym - my daydreams get very specific sometimes ). So I try to incorporate that 'who I want to be' into my life now, as much as I can.

 

[EmeraldQueen!29]

Exercising gives me a peace of mind. I can be in my own world while enjoying a good workout, and the fact that it has significant effects on my mood and how I feel in general. With the right music and a clear head, I can take a moment to destress and center myself. Having a lasting impression on my children and being able to keep up with them keeps me motivated and a good lesson in health for them. I hope to inspire someone else who may need a workout buddy etc.

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

4) This one is a little weird: I think of myself as someone who exercises, if that make sense.

Totally makes sense. I am the same way. I have no concept of myself without exercise. A person could look like me and sound like me and smell like me. But if they didn't exercise? I wouldn't recognize them as me.

I am a child of the seventies. We didn't have cell phones or video games back then. (We had Space Invaders and Pong and Pac Man by the time I was in junior high. But I was already a serious competitive athlete by that point.) We did have television. But I wasn't permitted to watch it much. Unless it was raining, we were expected to play outside, both at home and at school. So we did. We played hopscotch, and four square, and tetherball, tag, and hide and go seek, red rover, and duck duck goose. (Mostly DDG is what we played indoors at school, if we couldn't go outside due to the weather.) We climbed on adventure playgrounds and pretended they were ships at sea, and monsters lurked in the depths (i.e.: on the ground) and would eat us if we couldn't get from one end of the play structure to the other without staying high up out of their reach. We went swimming and bike riding in the summer. (For $20 you could get a swimming pass that was good for 2 open swimming sessions a day--3 hours in the afternoons and another 2 hours in the evenings--at the municipal pool for all 10 weeks of summer vacation.) We skated on the town pond in the winter. We walked or rode our bikes to and from school. In junior high my friends and I played bike tag all summer, chasing each other all over the subdivision (and sometimes getting off our bikes, climbing the TV antenna up to the roof of my friends' house, and continuing the chase on their roof!) I was a competitive runner and swimmer in junior high and a serious competitive runner throughout high school. I've also played soccer, ultimate frisbee, and roller derby at different times. I've been a yoga practitioner for over a quarter century and worked as a fitness instructor for three years.

There have been times in my life when I wasn't regularly doing formal "exercise" in the sense of setting aside a specific time in which I worked out with no other goal in mind but to work out. But even during those times I was very active: getting around on foot and/or on a bicycle. I don't really know any other way to be.

These days I am very conscious of the health effects of an active lifestyle versus a sedentary one. And I really enjoy and appreciate my good health. So I do consciously try to be as active as possible when I am not sitting at my desk. I'm conscious of the health effects of an active lifestyle for my dog too. So if I don't have time to do much other than walk Shelby 12+ km a day, I'm okay with that. But I am trying to improve my speed as a runner. So I practise running regularly. I've never been consistent long-term in working on upper body strength. But I do have goals in that regard and am working towards them now. I also still practise yoga, because I enjoy it and I like what it does for my body.

But mostly, asking me what motivates me to continue exercising is akin to asking what motivates me to continue breathing. I like being alive. Exercise is integral to that.

 

[Henry (thinman)]

What got you into exercise? And what motivates you to continue?

I'll be 72 next month, I keep active every day, I walk (10 min) to a senior centre gym 5 days a week and workout 45 mins. When I get home I do 1/2 hour of Taijiquan forms, a headstand and crow pose, sometimes more Yoga. My wife and I will go for a long walk and/or use the pool in our apartment building.

When I emigrated to Canada November 1972 a young hippy person wanting to meet people joined a Yoga studio (1973). I watched a TV series called "Kung Fu" and gave me an interest in Taoism and February 1979 joined a Tai Chi (Taijiquan) club, this wasn't your old ladies follow along group, it was young people into long training and practice, this got me disciplined. 2005 I did 4 years of Aikido putting in 8 hours Dojo time a week.

During the 60's was interest in bodybuilding but didn't have discipline to train properly. May 1984 now being discipline bought a small bench and weight set and played around since.

Work before retiring was working for a builder as general labourer, that job kept me active 13 year or so, jobs before that have been manual.

So nowadays I get up at 5am and get ready to ROCK!

 

[OzzieTezz]

Because it makes me feel good, simple as that.

 

[LexiLionhearts]

In my case, I'm just trying to get myself back into better shape, as I've definitely gotten lazier with physical activity over the years since starting to work full time in IT, which involves a lot of sitting at a computer - That + my main hobby being playing video games at home meant I wasn't moving around as much as I should.

So currently I'm exercising with the end goal of getting myself back to about the same level of fitness I was back in high school/college, while also doing so to fight against gender dysphoria feelings.

 

[Nyther]

This pretty much sums it up for why I exercise/run.

 

[BravoLimaPoppa]

@Nyther has it right.
I've been hanging around Darebee off and on for years (remember Google Groups? ), so exercise has been a part of me for years. Ran a marathon, a few half marathons and completed some milestones.
Covid last year messed me up and made exercise a problem. I'm  finally able to eexercise and not have my immune system crap out. Or one of my long Covid symptoms flare.
So, also to feel good. And have some control over my life.