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Comment by trms | Hacker News Reader

Definitely. In no world is 1 better than 100. In my personal experience, though, when I tried to set myself a goal of doing "100 pushups a day", I'd end up doing none since the effort seemed insurmountable. Telling myself that I'd only do 10 would make sure I'd keep doing that in the long run.

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Tony Horton of P90x fame insists, "just press play"

Basically, just get it started and see what happens. Even on the days I really don't feel like working out, just doing the bare minimum to get started will usually get me doing the full thing.

And if I'm really not feeling it a few exercises in, I tell myself, alright, just go really hard on this next one and you can end early. Usually, I don't even end up quitting. Just take it in little steps.

That's a brilliant analogy. It reminds me of something I've read in Scott Adams' book on habits. [0] In the days he was supposed to work out, he'd just put his shoes on and see what happened. That would lead him to the next action, until 99% of the times, he'd end up exercising.

[0]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17859574-how-to-fail-at-...

I also enjoyed that book. I have a friend who has never been taught a lot of basic life skills and this is the book I would recommend to them, because it covers a bit of everything. It explains that eating well is important for our mental health, it explains that one should pay attention to how much of the talking they do in a conversation and make sure others have a chance to talk, etc. It hit on a wide range of good topics and I found it helpful.

I'm a bit surprised how politically charged some people seem to be about this book though. You can see it in the Goodreads reviews, a lot of people giving it one star because it said something they don't like politically. This is not a political book. I don't remember any political commentary from my reading of it, but apparently people have found a sentence here or there that seems to maybe suggest support for a political view they disagree with, so they give it one star. But, it's only a few people doing this and overall this is one of the highest rated books I've ever seen across several sites.

This is extremely on point. I was almost not going to post my comment including that book precisely because of the public's feelings towards the author.

When you decouple the ideas in the book from the author though, and weigh them on their own merits, they hold up, at least for me, and that's all that matters.

I do a slight take on that which I found worked for me quite well during these pretty tiring times.

Usually my normal workout would be 30-45 minutes of a guided class (peloton, etc). But in days where I'm just not feeling it, I select a bite sized class (~10 minutes). If after that short class I'm still feeling lethargic, then I call it a day, still being quite satisfied that I completed a "full" class. But usually I find that after "pressing play" my energy levels are restored and I end up adding another 20 minutes class on top.

I feel this adds the benefit of knowing that there's a clear early "exit path" in which there is no act of quitting, since you do something till completion.

I have absolutely found this too. On days I don't want to lift after a run, I just make myself start one set. And then I usually get going and do my whole routine. Of course, that fails on days I don't run at the gym (like today...)

Getting that start is really hard. My goal was one perfect push-up, and my method was to just do the best I could with the phone photographing, every morning. At first I couldn’t even get off the ground. Within a month I could do one and get partway through a second. Now (a few months in) I can do 9, sometimes 10 perfect ones.

I read this on some blog. Since i was a 100 push-up guy 15 years ago, my approach was to try to maintain perfect form, even if I barely got off the ground. I forwarded the blog post to a friend who took the opposite tack: just get off the ground and then focus on perfecting one thing (back position, then arms…) until it was perfect before moving on. We ended up in the same place after a month. This is why the camera helps.

(My then 14 yo decided to learn chin-ups...within a couple of weeks he could do 30 and carry on a conversation

With regard to your friend's approach, that's how I became a competent swimmer. I took 4 weeks of lessons a few years back (I could swim, but I wanted to be better). Each week we focused on a part of the form for the freestyle stroke. By the end I was able to swim decent distances (about 1/2 mile, later a shoulder issue ended my swimming for fitness goals) without totally exhausting myself before the end because of bad form forcing extra work.

If you equate world with a person ... because I believe each person is a separate world/universe.

You should only compare world where you do your amount of pushups with your world. Doing 1 pushup a day consistently is a lot better than world where you don't do any. Take into account that "metaphysics" of your world might never allow 100 pushups in a day ... well metaphysics of someones else world allows 100 pushups a day easily but that is different world with different metaphysics. Where I would say "metaphysics" equate to "physics" in terms of well "single person universe".

There is at least one world where 1 is better than 100: The one where you actually stick with it. Getting out and walking (when I was fat and out of shape from a decade of being a programmer and video gamer) was better than getting out and running because I couldn't maintain running. Even a slow jog at that point was unmaintainable because it was more frustrating than anything. Walking was just walking, boring at times, but I was moving. Running came later.

As a former coach, I would recommend avoiding absolute takes such as this since they can easily sound right but be wrong. Just as you exemplified yourself, it is often better to start out small and then work your way up. Much more so for people with no athletic history, joint and/or weight problems, etc, doing just a few reps of easier exercises regularly rather than going all-in-and-bust on day one is the healthy way to go.

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