Do You Need to Love Exercise to Stay Fit?
For a huge part of my life, I never really had to think about how to fit movement into my day. As a professional dancer, I could spend eight hours in a rehearsal room before performing a show that evening. Later, as a choreographer, I was still on my feet demonstrating, creating and moving for hours at a time. Then, of course, working in fitness meant exercise continued to be a big part of my life.
These days, however, things are a little different.
I’m not performing eight shows a week anymore, and there are plenty of days when I find myself sitting at a computer answering emails, editing content or working on different projects. Suddenly, I understand something that I probably didn’t fully appreciate when I was younger: when movement isn’t automatically built into your life, you have to make a conscious decision to put it there.
And here’s the other thing I’ve realised. You don’t need to absolutely love exercise every single day to stay fit and active.
Some days I’m excited to train. On others, I’d quite happily do something else. However, over the years I’ve learned that staying active isn’t really about constantly feeling motivated. Instead, it’s about finding forms of movement that fit your life and, importantly, recognising that what works for you can change over time.
Your Relationship With Exercise Can Change
The way I exercised in my twenties is very different from the way I exercise now, and I think that’s something we sometimes forget when talking about fitness.
Our lives change. Our bodies change. Our responsibilities change. Therefore, it makes sense that our relationship with exercise might need to change too.
Perhaps you used to go to the gym several times a week but now struggle to find the time. Maybe you once loved running but your body no longer enjoys it quite as much. Alternatively, you might be approaching fitness for the first time and have absolutely no idea what type of exercise you enjoy yet.
None of those things mean you’ve failed at fitness. They simply mean you need to find what works for you now.
In fact, trying to force yourself back into a routine that suited your life ten years ago can sometimes make exercise feel much harder than it needs to be.
You Don’t Have to Love Every Type of Exercise
This is probably one of the biggest things I’ve learned from working in fitness.
There is no single form of exercise that everybody has to enjoy.
If you hate running, you don’t have to become a runner. If the thought of spending an hour in a gym fills you with dread, find another way to build strength. Equally, if you love dancing around your living room but don’t think it counts as “proper exercise”, it absolutely can.
Walking, strength training, Pilates, yoga, aerobics, dance and low-impact workouts all provide different ways to get your body moving.
That’s also one of the reasons we have such a wide range of programmes on InstructorLive. Rather than telling everyone they should exercise in exactly the same way, I think it’s far more useful to give people choices.
If you haven’t found something you enjoy yet, keep experimenting. You might be surprised by what clicks.
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Motivation Won’t Always Be There
Even after spending most of my life dancing and working in fitness, there are days when I don’t particularly feel like exercising.
And I think it’s important to say that.
We often see incredibly motivated people online telling us how much they love training, but that can create the impression that people who exercise regularly wake up every morning desperate to work out.
Most of us don’t.
Motivation naturally comes and goes. Therefore, if your entire fitness routine depends on waiting until you feel motivated, staying consistent can become difficult.
Instead, I find it much more useful to make exercise part of your routine. Perhaps you know that Monday, Wednesday and Friday are your workout days. Maybe you go for a walk after lunch or complete a 20-minute home workout before you start your day.
Once movement becomes something you regularly do, you don’t have to negotiate with yourself quite as much every time.
Your Workout Doesn’t Have to Look Impressive
Social media has certainly changed the way we see fitness.
Open Instagram or TikTok, and it doesn’t take long to find somebody completing an incredibly intense workout, lifting an enormous weight or promising dramatic results from the latest training method.
However, your workout doesn’t need to look impressive to anybody else.
A 20-minute strength session counts.
A beginner Pilates class counts.
Choosing a lower-impact workout because that’s what your body needs that day counts too.
Ultimately, the purpose of exercise isn’t to create something that looks good on social media. It’s to do something positive for your own health and fitness.
And, particularly as we get older, I think that becomes much more important.
Twenty Minutes Is Better Than Nothing
One of the biggest barriers to exercise is time.
If you think a workout has to last an hour to be worthwhile, it becomes very easy to look at a busy day and decide you simply don’t have enough time.
However, shorter workouts can make exercise much easier to fit into everyday life.
That’s something we’ve really embraced at InstructorLive, with many of our programmes offering sessions of around 20 to 30 minutes. Instead of needing to travel to a gym, complete an hour-long class and then travel home again, you can simply choose a workout and get moving.
Of course, there may be days when you have more time and want to do more. However, on the days when life gets busy, doing something is often far better than deciding there’s no point because you can’t do everything.
Over time, those shorter sessions still add up.
Find Your Reason for Exercising
I also think our reasons for exercising can change as we get older.
When I was dancing professionally, being fit was part of my job. I needed my body to perform, rehearse and get through eight shows a week. Fitness had a very specific purpose.
Today, my reasons are different.
I want to feel strong. I want energy. I want my body to continue doing the things I ask of it, and I want to remain active for as long as possible.
Your reason might be completely different. Perhaps you want to keep up with your grandchildren, feel more confident walking up the stairs, improve your strength, have more energy or simply feel better in yourself.
Whatever it is, finding a reason that actually matters to you can be much more powerful than exercising because you feel you’re supposed to.
Fitness Should Fit Around Your Life
Ultimately, exercise shouldn’t have to take over your life in order to be part of it.
There will be weeks when you exercise more and weeks when you exercise less. There will be workouts you love and others you decide never to do again. Your fitness level will change, your goals will change and, inevitably, life will sometimes get in the way.
What matters is finding your way back to movement.
My own relationship with exercise today is very different from when I was dancing professionally, and I actually think that’s a good thing. I’m no longer training because I need to get through eight shows a week. I’m exercising because I want to feel strong, have energy and keep doing the things I love for as long as possible.
So, do you need to love exercise to stay fit? I don’t think you do.
You simply need to find ways of moving that you enjoy enough to keep coming back to.
And perhaps that’s a much more realistic way to stay fit for life.
