Eight Years of Continuous Exercise: Sustainability, Discipline, and Balance

The 417th week of continuous movement, eight years. A total of 3,584 sessions and 2,638 hours. 8.6 times a week on average, 44 minutes each time. In the eighth year, various types of sports accounted for roughly 60% of the total hours of running, 25% of muscle strength training, 10% of walking, and 5% of cycling.

sustainable

The most important thing to maintain exercise habits is to find a natural, sustainable (sustainable) rhythm, and to consider the worst case scenario (worst case scenario).

Many friends are very enthusiastic about sports at the beginning, and exercise crazily every day, and usually drop out quickly. Sustainability is not about striving for perfection, but about finding a rhythm that can continue and be effective for a long time.

Begin by training yourself to enjoy exercise and focus on building intrinsic motivation. Using a “race entry” or any extrinsic goal as a means of building an exercise habit is bound to end in discontinuation.

Friends who pursue “every exercise must be effective” usually give up quickly. There are unpredictable things in the sky, and people have physical and mental ups and downs, which are all unpredictable. For a thing to be sustainable in life, the key is to be in the right direction and allow for errors, rather than seeking perfection every time.

There are also some friends who set super high standards, such as exercising five days a week, or even exercising every day. If you set a sports contract with a high standard, it must be terminated soon. A sustainable sports contract must be a low standard: no matter how busy you are at work, no matter how poor your health is, and no matter how little time you have, you can do it.

The biggest test of the year was the diagnosis of COVID in the final month. It has been two weeks now, the rapid screening has been negative, and there are still some respiratory symptoms. Importantly, the movement was not interrupted. Of course, the hours and intensity have been reduced, but the basic threshold that should be done every week will still meet the standard.

discipline

Habits are maintained without relying on unsustainable internal or external factors such as competition, community, or willpower. Be able to enjoy it and make it meaningful and effective, allow mistakes (the standard of non-stop is to exercise at least three days a week, not every day), and discipline will naturally form.

The best time to exercise is when you feel too lazy or too tired to move, because that means you have time. The most important principle of establishing exercise discipline is to train yourself to build the link of “too lazy to exercise”. Even low intensity is good.

In terms of the discipline of exercising at least three days a week, there is another tip: try to complete the first time on Monday. In this way, the next six days can be completed twice, with greater flexibility.

From wearing masks to washing hands frequently, the public quickly established habits and maintained self-discipline for three years. The same lessons can be used to establish the right exercise and diet discipline.

balance

At the most basic level, exercise should be a balance of “like” and “effect”. It is difficult to be sustainable if you insist on your favorite exercise method and fail to improve your overall fitness, or if you pay too much attention to the effect and lose the fun of exercise.

The effects of exercise have several dimensions: physical fitness, athletic performance, physical and mental health, and recreation. It is necessary to be able to promote simultaneously, but everyone’s balance point is different. Gradually finding the balance point that suits you is also a process of re-discovering yourself.

Sports is the balance between movement and stillness, training and life. From dynamic physical activity to static mindful breathing, training is required. There is also a balance between serious training and an easy life. Don’t compromise your health by overtraining, but don’t fail to improve your health by taking it too easy.

further reading