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Fitness Can Be Fun! Really!

By Stan Small

When most people think about getting in shape they think about long hours exercising, sweating, and pain that may eventually lead to a body that's close to what they envisioned. Once they reach that point they have to continue to work to keep their body in this condition. Is it worth the effort? If this is similar to your perception of getting fit, the answer is probably no. What you need to do is turn this negative perception into a positive one. The best way to do this is to make fitness fun! For those of you saying to yourselves, 'Make fitness fun' Yeah right. Please be patient and give me the chance to convince you that it's possible.

No matter what activity a person is doing it's usually preferable to have fun doing it. If you've got a choice between going to the dentist and going to the beach, most likely you're going to choose the beach. So if you're going to choose between exercising and sitting on the couch watching your favorite show with a bowl of ice cream, which choice are you going to make? I think we both know the answer. How do we get ourselves to choose the healthy workout over the relaxing movie and fattening ice cream? We have to make exercise something we look forward to by making it fun. The trick is to structure the activity in such a way that the emphasis is on the FUN and not the exercise. The exercise is just the fringe benefit you're getting from something you really enjoy.

There are several ways to make exercising fun. One way to do this is to get an exercise partner. If you have someone you get along well with and have common interests with there will most definitely be some fun in your workouts. I've experienced this in my own workouts as well as having witnessed it with my clients. In fact, I currently have two female clients that are friends and work out together in semi-private training sessions. There isn't a single session that goes by without at least a couple of bouts of laughter from all three of us. Do they still get effective workouts with all of this fooling around? You bet they do! They've been getting fantastic results and telling people I know as well as myself how much they look forward to their workouts. Exercising and having fun at the same time, pretty amazing wouldn't you say?

How about including members of your family? Get your family together and decide on some activities that you would all enjoy and schedule time to do them. You could hike a trail, stop for a nice relaxing family picnic lunch, and hike back. You could go for a family bike ride. How about a family kick ball game in the back yard or in the park? Have you picked up on the key word here? In case you haven't, it's Family. I don't know about you but sitting down to watch a TV show with my family is nowhere near as fun as a family activity (activity contains the word active). One of my favorite family activities is to take them to the local tennis courts and hit the balls around for an hour or so. We goof around, laugh at each other, and get a lot of exercise. That's the great thing about including your family, you not only get the exercise, but you get to create lasting memories and bonds with the people you love the most.

Some people enjoy group fitness classes or fitness boot camps. These can be especially fun if you get a few of your friends to do them with you. The other thing that's great about these types of activities is that you usually have to pay for the entire thing up front. This ensures that you'll continue to show up for the classes unless you like throwing your money away. Group classes also provide a fair amount of variety in the types of exercises you do. You might get to experience a few exercises that inspire you to continue on your own or in another class. If you're single, you may even meet someone that you connect with. There's nothing sexier than a body drenched in sweat, right? (or not) You'll never know unless you give it a try.

If your free time consists of watching television, snacking, taking naps, playing video games, or any other number of non-active things, you probably don't lead a very exciting life. Let's be honest, it's much easier to sit around and do nothing than it is to take action, but action feels so much better. Beginning a fun exercise program can provide you with improved health, more energy, more friends, invitations to more social gatherings, more quality time with your family, and an overall brighter outlook on life. You might even have some fun doing it. So call a friend or get your family together and start having some fun today.

About the Author:

Stan Small is a certified personal trainer in Ellsworth, Maine. He is the owner of Personal Fitness Solutions providing in home training programs for the Ellsworth, Maine vicinity. His website is www.Personal-Fitness-Solutions.com