Amusingly, I would not be surprised to find some people need both. In particular, exercise is boring. Very very boring. Anything that can help with concentration during boring tasks is useful.
Obviously, that is my experience. Ymmv
Obviously, that is my experience. Ymmv
Point is, I ended up getting into bouldering. If you want to send a bouldering problem, you have to spend a while actually planning out your movements, because if you waste time trying to figure out your next move in the middle of all but the easiest problems, you'll run out of energy before completing the problem. Like lifting, you need rest time between climbs, but you can spend that time planning out your next attempt. Only downside is that indoor bouldering walls tend to be crowded most of the time, and outdoor bouldering can require a bit of a drive depending on where you live.
Still, I find it a lot more stimulating than lifting; I actually look forward to bouldering, while lifting still felt like a chore even after 8 months of doing it.
edit: I should add that I've only been bouldering regularly for about 2 months, and mostly at an indoor gym.
2. It's generally considered impolite to give advice on how to climb something, unless the person asks.
3. Most bouldering/climbing gyms have small workout areas in addition to the walls, and memberships that aren't a lot more expensive than a regular gym.
But I totally agree, more "practical" excercise like bouldering is much more fun.
Bouldering routes are only a couple of moves so the focus tends to be on raw power; climbing routes are longer and require more time planning and developing an optimal/working strategy, which can be more engaging and interesting.
This http://borgefagerli.com/myo-reps-in-english/ works very well for me, great results and very short workouts.
I'm guessing what bothers you the most is the idea of doing the same thing over and over again, which is a fair criticism. Generally I listen to a podcast. In the beginning, I used to go with a friend so it didn't become too boring.
You can change your exercises every 2-3 months otherwise your muscle will hit a saturation point or start facing fatigue due to same type of work out
That is a lot of rest time. Try to keep it between 30-45 secs
No you don't. You don't have to. You can have 90 seconds between sets if you want. Just stay consistent, gym session after gym session. Who has time for a 5 minute rest between sets? If you're doing warm-up sets you'll be in the gym for hours!
You are clearly very unimaginative when it comes to exercise. I find the gym pretty bloody boring. But whitewater kayaking, mountain biking, rock climbing easily beat sitting in front of a computer. If those are too much go for a hike in the mountains and take in some scenery. Or learn to surf.
Or cycle to work. I get an hours solid exercise every day doing that and save myself time and money as a result.
Those aren't routine activities, unless you are fortunately situated.
Also again, my point was that getting good at exercising is getting good at a relatively quiet mindset that many people deprive themselves of. So, I believe there to be a feedback loop between the two ideas.
Cycling is fine, as long as you live in a place that supports it well enough (so a Deep South city with no bike trails might not be a good idea).
This can be a gateway drug, and cause you to change your whole lifestyle and move to a place with such activities in abundance.
I regularly spend 2-4hrs on a road bike and I've never found it boring and I have a low boredom threshold generally (outside of programming).
It's just a case of finding your niche.
Same here, which is a bit surprising whenever I think about it. Especially since I never listen to music/podcasts/anything, it's always the same place [0], and it's an out-and-back route only. But I hate driving, which seems like a relatively similar activity... no idea.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_%26_Old_Dominion_Ra...
My preferred workout is climb with audiobook, descend with silence, rinse and repeat.
I'm not convinced that it's the actual running that's predominantly responsible for the neurogenisis (although we know that exercise causes an uptick in HGH so it's plausible). It may just be that much time with nothing else to do but think. Essentially it's walking meditation.
They talk about how complex movement in creatures typically correlates with the size of the brain.
Anecdotally, I’ve been doing the Cambridge Brain Sciences[1] tests every so often over the past few months to see how various things affect my score (mainly because I wanted to see which nootropics were most effective) and the best scores always occurred on days where I got exercise and the worst scores were in days where I didn’t and also got little sleep.
My absolute best scores (99.5 percentile, although the next days scores were much, much lower and my average has been about 50-60ish) were on a day when I got approx 1.5 hours of brisk walking (throughout the day, not all at once), 8+ hours sleep the night before and I had been taking nootropics. I imagine diet also plays a part, but I’ve not yet experimented. I’m also not sure f sleep or exercise affects me most positive, but together they certainly make a huge difference.
Nothing conclusive, for sure, but it does make me think that exercise/movement may play a big part.
Highly recommended book BTW, IMHO a must for anyone who learns as it explains scientific brain research in layman's terms. It explains how we humans are ruled by our brains. When you understand your brains better, you can make better use of them. In conjunction with Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy Baumeister, a golden couple.
I loathe endurance exercises - I regularly combine a book -and- music to get me through the treadmill.
However, I love meditating and archery (which I do traditional style, which is honestly a form of meditation itself.)
I stopped riding with the cycling club because it became too much of a social obligation, I like doing 60-70 miles on my own, stopping for a coffee somewhere and just watching world go by.
I don't even record my routes anymore, just distance and speed.
And don't get me wrong, I bike quite often. I find for myself, I basically have to obligate myself to some distance. If I have a bus pass, I'm not doing that 400 ft climb home. If I don't have somewhere to go, I'll just read a book instead. And I claim that I do enjoy biking.
"Thrill Of The Fight", "Holopoint", "GORN" or similar games are a lot of fun and are at least a moderate workout. I've literally just finished a half-hour session of GORN, I'm fairly sweaty, and I wasn't bored once.
(I also recommend similar things in IRL with Actual People, but I'm aware that those tend to be both more intimidating and harder to fit into a pre-set schedule.)
Now I run outside for sometimes five times as long as I was running back then, without podcasts or TV shows, and I never get bored. I do run slower, though. Try going slower next time! And going outside in a straight line or long loop. I get very bored/frustrated if I have to do laps to make my distance. Of course YMMV too.
Apart from the gym, I play soccer three times a week and it is nothing by fun. Switching volleyball session during the winter.
One of the best things I did both for my health and productivity was exercising + sports.
Is my posture correct? Are my feet hitting the ground well? Is this a good pace? And lots and lots of self talk about not shirking the next effort (30s hard running, hill run etc etc).
Not shockingly, people good at setting somewhat mundane objectives and iterating on them are good at both intelligence and exercise. They probably feed each other. :)
Fair enough :)
I do my best thinking while running, and make use of it to solve problems, write articles, etc.
Lifting weights, however, remains painful and boring :-( and I think that is because it requires mental focus. Running does not, you can just drift off into something that interests you.
You can also get your exercise from exciting activities like sports or Dance Dance Revolution (but your experience may vary!).
Plus there's the whole creativity thing when the mind is at rest.
Yep. So listen to podcasts during. Seminars About Long Term Thinking and In Our Time being my favorites.
Boring, because you frequently have to do something in addition to exercising to make the time spent exercising interesting. See the myriad of sibling comments.
Painful, because my exercise as a youth (competitive swimming) badly damaged most of my major joints, making anything but the lightest of impact workouts painful (which leads, sadly, back to point 1).