What do you do when you don't feel like it?

Don’t feel like getting up the in morning?  Do you have the luxury of sleeping in?  Folks tell me I’ll enjoy that part of retirement (no…not yet…not for a while).  But on days when I might sleep in, I wake up anyway.

Are you one of those that hit the snooze alarm every day?  Not me. I really have no idea how the snooze alarm on my bedside clock even works. Oh, I’m sure I could figure it out, but when the alarm goes off, I’m wide awake. You’ve got to find motivation to get up and get going.

Don’t feel like going to work? I’m not guilty of that one either. I know that I was lucky, extremely lucky, to discover a job that I truly love, that I look forward to each and every day. When that alarm clock does go off, I am blessed to not lie there and say “oh woe is me—another day at the old grindstone.”

Nope. For me it’s “oh man, I get to go do this stuff again today!”  If that sounds self-righteous at all, it’s not meant that way. I know what it means. It means I won the career lottery.

When kids come to me for college advice, my core recommendation is to find something that you truly love doing and build a career around it. As the cliché goes, if you find something that you love and make it your life’s work, you’ll never really work a day in your life.

I saw a meme one time that went something like this:  8 AM plans for dinner--baked chicken, salad, and two vegetables.  5 PM actual dinner—pizza and sodas.

The real part of life is that sometimes you just don’t feel like cooking. And that healthy meal became junk food out of necessity.  I get it. I really do. My wife and I do that from time to time.

Planning your meals helps. Laying out that chicken in the morning makes it more likely that you will not stop by for fast food on the way home.

But the big ticket item on this topic is exercise.  What do you do if you just don’t feel like exercising?  I said something last week about not always enjoying biking on the hills that are everywhere around here or the strength training that I do 2-3 times per week.

A buddy and I have a saying about all that. “Are you riding or are you hiding.”  That may be all about the weather or maybe I just don’t feel like it. With few exceptions, once I get out there or get started with a ride or a workout, I’m glad I did. You know in your head that you need to exercise (or eat right or sleep enough) but your heart just isn’t in it.

What do you do? Listen to your heart and ignore your head? An Accountability Partner helps. Traveling the path to better health is easier with someone in your life to go with you. To hold you accountable.

There is no doubt that an exercise partner helps, especially on those days when you might not feel like exercising. There’s just something about knowing that someone else is counting on you being there that will make you get out of bed in the morning.

For years, I exercised with the same group of people. If somebody missed, they were likely to get a text message. “We missed you” is common. Sometimes it was more like “get your lazy butt out of bed.” In any case, it helped.

Maybe you made a New Year Resolution. To get healthier. To exercise more. Gyms are usually full in January, taper off in February, and are back to the regulars in March.

If that’s you, then let me offer you a suggestion. Establish a new mindset. Decide that this is going to be long term. Decide that this is going to be your lifestyle from now on. 

And then find an excuse to get out of bed in the morning.

Why is fitness important to you?

 What is the purpose of fitness? Why do you exercise?  What do you hope to accomplish?

Are you doing it to prepare for a sport?  We know for sure that exercise and good fitness are important for whatever sport that you might happen to be playing. And regardless of your age.

Sports-specific programs are important not only to help you be better at your sport but also to prevent injuries.  How does fitness prevent injuries, you might ask.

Lots of injuries happen late in the game.  Fourth quarter. Last ski run. Those kinds of things. Fatigue is definitely a factor. As you get tired, your technique deteriorates and your focus wanes. 

Your body’s ability to a change in direction (think about planting your foot to cut to your left) or to react to outside forces (think about getting bumped while you’re running) lessen with fatigue.

Performance is the goal for a lot of people. I took up CrossFit in 2008 because I could see that the emphasis on core strength would help me on the bicycle, particularly the mountain bike.

I can remember when Pete Rose broke down barriers in the 70’s by lifting weights.  Back then, baseball players avoided strength training fearing that they couldn’t perform well with big muscles. We now know how wrong that was.

Now we know that strength training, stretching, and sport-specific training are all essential to successful sports performance (along with eating right, getting adequate sleep, and listening to your body) regardless of the sport.

Weight management is another great reason to seek better fitness levels.  Dieting without exercising is futile. You just can’t get the results that you want.

Maybe you exercise to look better. That’s OK. Whatever drives you. I’ve said often that the best exercise program that you can do is the one that you WILL do.  Same here. It doesn’t matter as much WHY you exercise as it does that you DO exercise.

Kids need to exercise so that they become active adults. That’s a proven fact. And it’s also a fact that if their parents will exercise with them, the kids are even more likely to participate and to continue an active lifestyle into adulthood.

You might exercise for the way it makes you feel. Although I have never ran far enough or hard enough to achieve a “runner’s high,” I do know that regular exercise keeps me feeling better.

I’m not going to lie and tell you that it feels good on some of the long hills on my bicycle or that the strength training that I do is always fun. But I can tell you that as soon as it is over, it feels great. Exercise causes the release of endorphins in your system that will leave you almost euphoric.

Exercise is a key ingredient to living longer or, at the very least, living well in you later years. Again, study after study has indicated that.

I know people my age that feel like they’ve reached the age when it is time to slow down…that it is the natural progression of aging. That is most certainly a slippery slope.   If you let it, age becomes an excuse for getting lazy.

Stay active, stay strong, and don’t let birthdays dictate how you feel or what you do. You are neither too young nor too old to pursue fitness. And let me repeat what I already said:  It doesn’t matter nearly as much WHAT you do as it does that you DO it.

In My Lifetime

In my lifetime, there was a time when football helmets didn’t have facemasks. I can barely remember it but I know when I got my first football helmet, before I started playing youth football, it had a clear plastic facemask and was something of a novelty item.

Thank goodness everything about the game of football has gotten better. Equipment is better. Training is better.

I have seen concussions as something you shook off change to where we now know that they can be life threatening events with horrible consequences. I shudder at the thought of some of the advice we gave in my earliest professional days. But we’re better now.

In my lifetime, I have seen sports medicine go from hot tubs and analgesic balm to high technology and evidence-based practices. But we’re still taping ankles, pretty much the same way.

In my lifetime, I’ve seen backpacks go from bulky canvas to featherweight nylon. My first backpack was a Boy Scout issue with a wooden frame that I made myself. My current backpack, which isn’t the latest and greatest but good nonetheless, is aluminum and nylon and weighs nothing.

Same for my sleeping bag. I use a three-season bag that can be comfortable in winter with the addition of clothing and which can be used if it gets wet. If my first sleeping bag got wet, it was useless for days.

My boots are Gore-Tex and sturdy. I once hiked the portion of the Appalachian Trail inside the Smokies in canvas Converse All-Stars! And a friend started that trip (we were 12) with an iron skillet and a fishing rod.

And speaking of which, in my lifetime, I’ve seen basketball shoes going from those same canvas Converse All-Stars to Air Jordans and beyond.

I’ve seen rules changes in basketball where dunking was made illegal and then later it was embraced as part of the show. I’ve seen girls’ basketball go from a 3-on-3 half court game to a full court game. That half court game was a thing until I was in college. Hard to believe now.

Regular, five-on-five basketball was supposedly too strenuous for girls. How wrong we were!

In my lifetime, I’ve seen the polio epidemic.  It was scary but mostly because of the iron lungs that some children were forced to live their lives in.

I have had more of a chance to be scared this time. I was just a kid then but those iron lung things were the items of nightmares. Still, I’ve had friends and family members die of Covid-19. I’ve probably preached enough on that sermon so I’ll move on.

In my lifetime, I’ve seen Jim Crow America.  I can remember separate facilities for non-whites.  Separate bathrooms, separate water fountains, separate entrances to stores, separate seating sections at events.

Us kids were all thrilled when schools were integrated (I was in the seventh grade) because it meant that we got to go to school with our friends who happened to be a different skin color. And we got to play on the same sports teams.

Old people talk about the Good Ol’ Days. Were they? Certainly parts of life then were simpler, maybe easier. But I would never go back.

Look around. Embrace the world as it is today. Love one another. Take care of the environment. Take care of each other. This is the Best of Times. Have a Happy New Year. I’m sure you’re like me and ready to put 2020 behind you.