Works for Me Wednesday: Making Workouts More Palatable
* This post may contain affiliate links or sponsored content. *
While I love the benefits of exercise and I do, in fact, really enjoy strength training, I don’t love walking on the treadmill, riding the stationary bike or using the elliptical machine. I love the results, but working out in one spot for 30 minutes can make that half-hour seem twice as long.
I’ve tried listening to my iPod, but I still get bored. And, I’m a bit of a news junkie, but CNN does nothing for making a workout go by more quickly. I love to read, but I can’t focus while walking, riding, or torturing myself on the elliptical.
I’ve found that the key, for me, is finding something really engaging to watch. My absolute favorite, right now, is Cash Cab. If you’ve never seen Cash Cab, you don’t know what you’re missing. Did I ever mention that I’m a trivia junkie, too?
Another thing that really works for me is a good movie. I can pop one of my favorites in the DVD player and watch it over the course of three or four days, in 30 minute increments. (Can you guess which one I watch most often?)
While working out at the Y, I’ve discovered that I have some ADD tendencies. They have six TVs. You can plug your headphones into a jack on the cardio equipment, then, select the channel you want to hear. Each channel also has closed captioning. Nine times out of ten, I’m watching HLN…but I’m usually watching and reading the closed captioning on another channel.
What do you do to make workout time more enjoyable?
Join Kristin at We Are THAT Family for more Works for Me Wednesday tips.
(Oh, and, if you guessed Twilight, you’d be right!)
Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.
I love listening to very engaging podcasts, such as This American Life. It helps the time go faster.
I also like that my husband will exercise at the same time as me, so we chit chat during exercise. This doesn't always make the time go fast, but if we get into an especially good conversation, we're done with exercise before we know it. That's the best!
And soon you can add New Moon to the list! I agree, it really helps to have some distraction when working out.
I surf the internet and read my favorite blogs – I'm on my stationary bike right now with my laptop on a tv tray next to me.(Admittedly, I comment alot less this way – point and click, easy – typing, not so much.)
Twilight? 😉
I love Leslie Sansone's WATP DVDS…she chatters and it is fast moving enough to keep me going…she has tons of different ones and sometimes I use light weights to kick it up a notch!
I called the treadmill – the dreadmill! 😛 NOT my favorite form of exercise. My favorite is actually walking outside or riding bikes with the family. However, since we have piles of snow where I live that is NOT possible right now! 🙂
I watch tv shows from Netflix. An hour long show is about 43 minutes. Perfect for my walking. And a 30 minute show is about 22 minutes and so I'll watch 2 of those.