Can effective workouts be fun?
In a sense, they have to be. To me, working out is not about working out. It’s about having fun and maximizing my own total quality of life. I think the trick to being effortlessly and consistently active in the long term is to find something – anything – physical that you want to do primarily because it’s fun and stimulating. Then, that it also happens to be a great workout should be considered a welcome side effect, or you will struggle with motivation like all those who try to hit the gym after new year’s. To me, conventional gyms with rows of machines are dead boring unless there’s something else going on there, like group activities etc. Just heading in with headphones on and not saying a peep to anyone while treading along on some mechanical contraption is not what I consider a good time.
In fact, we experience “fun” as a reward signal that we’re doing something important and good for our survival and replication, as far as our evolutionary wiring is concerned. Doing things in a group, being social, learning and applying anything challenging, playing and simulated fighting, etc. It’s all tied to being a better survivor both individually and for the species. There’s obviously a whole rant on how this applies to game design, but what I’m getting at is that it also applies heavily to leading a healthy lifestyle.
Do you have any advice to other developers that are considering incorporating a workout program into their schedule?
For starters, find something fun that gets you excited just thinking about it. It can be totally oddball like learning unicycling, playing hackeysack, dodgeball, or any martial arts. As long as it gets you real sweaty in 20 mins and you don’t want to stop doing it once you start, it’s a keeper. Try to get your friends excited and involved too.
A specific thing my local indie gamedev posse and I have gotten into is this: Find your nearest and oldest Crossfit affiliate gym and take them up on the free first session they usually offer. The huge difference between a CF and the conventional gym experience is a) you’re doing something different every time, as directed by a trained and certified instructor, and b) you’re doing things in a mixed co-ed group, often under fun and competitive circumstances. Everyone can get into it since all the exercises are scaled or modified up/down to fit the individual, even though you’re working out as a group. Oh, and I’m not in any way affiliated with Crossfit, I’m just an avid fan and patron at crossfitsouthwest.com!
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Thanks again Dan for taking the time to answer my questions. I’ve tried the “run up and down a local hill” exercise and while it was great training for football, it’s very painful and not too fun. An intense game of dodge ball on the other hand sounds awesome (we might have to challenge Dan’s team to a game sometime, I think the Flashbang guys are also on team Hand Grenade). I’ll have to look into this Crossfit stuff a bit more, I believe a CF gym was used to help the actors get in shape for the movie 300. Has anyone else discovered fun, time-efficient ways to stay in shape?