Tips on Getting Back into Exercise Routine

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Hello

Hope someone can share some experience and hope

I've always been very physically fit and active. It's a way of keeping regulated. I have strong psycho motor over excitability. I've been in a severe burn out. Got of of routine. Lots a lot of fitness. I need to get back to exercising and am struggling. I don't do classes as dont like the social element, I like to go in my own rhythm

Anyone have any tips, experience to share? My emotional, mental and physical health is really suffering. Just dont know how to get going again

Look forward to responses

I don't exercise as much as I think I should any more.

Reasons, as far as I know:

1. I used to cycle to work and back twice a day, 5 days a week. Retired now, so I don't. Hopes of getting fit isn't a strong enough incentive to ride it.
2. Bike fell apart, replaced it but the new one is much heavier and therefore harder to pedal up hills.
3. Outdoor environment here is uncomfortable - traffic, very narrow sidewalks or no sidewalks at all, weather too damn hot, stormy, or cold, woodland full of snakes and infected ticks.
4. Little of attraction within reasonable walking distance.
5. Partner has no routine, making it harder for me to adopt a routine. Everything is prone to change at the drop of a hat so planning tends not to work, and my brain isn't flexible enough to adapt to an environment that's in constant flux.
6. Strange abandonment issue that tends to stop me going off and doing what I want to do when partner or cat randomly turns up wanting, or seeming to want, my attention.
7. Tendency to get glued indefinitely to activities on my big heavy laptop, which is physically hard to put to one side because there's no space to put it, the apartment being very small and crowded out.
8. Lost access to exercise bike.

If you can find out more about the reasons why you're no longer exercising, beyond the fact that life knocked you out of your routine and you're feeling burned out, looking at them might point to solutions that could be tried. In my case I don't see any viable fixes for the causes of my physical inactivity, so I guess the only hope is that if I become concerned enough about it, something else will have to give. Sometimes when you've got yourself painted into a corner the only fix is to walk across the damn paint.

Personally I'm a great believer in starting in small ways, and also in the idea "if you can't immediately make it better, at least don't let it get any worse." I try to walk to the store and back every evening (1/4 mile each way, gentle slope) when the heat and traffic have subsided. I also pace up and down the apartment while waiting for water to boil etc. And most days I do a few very simple stretching exercises that could almost be called yoga. A supple body is easier to exercise than a stiff one is.

Right now is a bad time for me to exercise more - I've got flu. By the time I'm over it, I'll probably have forgotten that I resolved to exercise more when I was healed.

Same =(. I used to be super active in high school, but once I graduated and moved out of my parent's house my motivation to exercise really dropped. It doesn't help that sweat is a huuuge sensory issue for me.

I work in an office which has made my physical activity levels worse. Right now the only for sure thing in my routine is standing at my office desk. I like to stand for the last 20 - 30 minutes of each hour of my work day. I have it on my calendar to do a 15 minute walk at 2:00pm every day, but I usually ignore it... Maybe I should do it today. I also try to schedule a walk with my partner on my hair washing days (Tuesday and Saturday)--that way I can get any smell of sweat/oil out of my hair immediately after I'm done walking. So, I guess the only advice I have is to do things that are enjoyable to you, and to partner it with something you already have established in your routine.

One thing I read in a book (Jeanette McCurdy's I'm Glad my Mom Died) is that you shouldn't let your slip ups slide into an avalanche of failure. I'm trying to abide by this and be more forgiving of myself if I break my routine.

I'm going to subscribe to this thread because I'm also curious what other people do to get more exercise into their daily lives.

Hi

Perhaps I can be of help. I have some experience from training in different ways. The last 12 years it's been one of my interests, learning and educating myself about training.

Pretty much everything you describe, I can relate to. At the moment I am in a similar position as you. When retraining (starting to train again) from a longer break it will feel strange. Your muscle memory want you to do things which your body can't provide due to loss of fitness and/or muscle strength. My advice is to be kind and forgiving to yourself. I suggests you try to take a shorter time to get to know yourself. Where am I now, ability/performance wise? Start from there.

I'd be happy to help you with whatever I can.
A couple of weeks ago I took part in a lecture from the International Olympic Comittee's director of physio eduction about tapering. The aim of the lecture was about elite performers and how to peak their performance. The idea and benefits from tapering might be very helpful for people like you and me, who are at risk for burn outs, to make it more sustainable.

Just let me know how I can help you...motivational, planning, technique etc

_________________
Love is all ♪

I've been off and on the last year or so. When I want to go, I do. Being a large guy, I start small on the treadmill with 30 minutes. The gym is a few minutes away from my house so I warm up on the way and I do cool down on the treadmill, drink a bottle or two of water before returning home for a nice shower.

Once I get going on a routine basis, I do well with it, but there are times when this or that happen and it can be hard to get back to doing it. I know I need to, but ti can be hard to get back sometimes. I just wish I could be continually motivated.

Looking for small ways to keep motivated.

I'm someone whose never made strides with muscle-building but I was very into jogging for 2-3 years during Covid but fell off after my asthma and sciatic issues got bad, I was working up to running 14km with my goal being to get my distance running up to the point of a mini-marathon and now I am back running as of this week and struggle to do 2.5 km although I find bringing my dog with me and walking her home after our run helps motivate me to give me another factor to do it, however in increasing my distance I can't rely on my dog too much longer as I don't want to exhaust her and will have to find another motivator but for the time being it's helping. I also subscribed to this thread as a recent commenter has said and also to that commenters mention of Jennette McCrudy's book I'm Glad My Mom Died it is such a brilliant book I would highly recommend it to many struggling with any kind of neurosis to use an outdates clinical term.

I have a suggestion for this thread although I don't want to take over the Author's intentions; what if those of us interested in developing an exercise routine on this thread were to share our weekly results to help motivate each other? it doesn't matter what it is we do for our workouts as we can't compare each others situations or abilities but if it provides us with support for developing ourselves I'm thinking we could try see if it serves as a motivator?

I can start today if those of you are interested: I've done a 16 minute workout including sciatic exercises for my leg and back, along with some full body dumbbell exercises (each dumbbell weighs 22kg) and yesterday and the day before I went on a 16 minute run both days with my dog, I ran very slowly but made a distance of about 2.5 km (or 5km put together) - if people approve and partake in sharing their workout progress I'll post an update on this day next week - to clarify a workout can be walking, running, muscle-building, swimming, boxing or literally anything that takes physical effort.

I hope I didn't take over this thread too much with my long and boring post.