fitness · habits · motivation

Go Team! January 22: Skip the icky bits

Christine Hennebury

If there is a part in your workout that makes you dread/avoid the whole thing, consider this your permission to ditch that part.

Now, I understand the need to challenge ourselves and I get that sometimes the hardest parts of our workouts are composed of the things our bodies need the most.

BUT!

There are plenty of ways to exercise any muscle group and plenty of ways to challenge ourselves/meet our needs without forcing ourselves through things we hate.

After all, most of us aren’t training for anything in particular – especially when we’re just starting out- so we probably don’t have a reason to stick to specific movements.

And, since many of us are just trying to establish a habit of moving our bodies on a regular basis, it makes sense to ditch any exercises that get in the way of that.

We’ll have plenty of time to add those exercises in once our habits are firmly established. We just can’t let those dreaded moves become an obstacle right now.

(If you *are* more firmly established in your habits and you still have trouble with some icky bits, I bet you could find different exercises to work the same muscles without getting on your nerves.)

So, go ahead, skip the icky bits and forge ahead with the rest of it.

Here are your stars for today’s efforts:

GIF description: 4 gold stars of varying sizes, two are just outlines and two are filled in. The outline stars are moving backwards and forwards, the filled-in​ stars are rotating.
It’s hard to shake the idea that exercise has to be hard so we’re getting 4 gold stars for our work today. GIF description: 4 gold stars of varying sizes, two are just outlines and two are filled in. The outline stars are moving backwards and forwards, the filled-in stars are rotating.

Published by Christine Hennebury

I'm a writer/storyteller/director/creativity & lifestory coach with a black belt in ITF Taekwon-do. I read voraciously and I write like my fingers are on fire. I'm the founder and Chair of the Association for the Arts in Mount Pearl and I'm a former president of the St. John's Storytelling Festival. I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie.

4 thoughts on “Go Team! January 22: Skip the icky bits”

  1. Here’s to not doing crow pose, the world’s most pathetic burpees and struggling to hop up the mat to forward fold! I try not to skip most of the icky bits, because I want to try so that I get better (and if I skipped all the things I struggle with, there would be no workout left, some days). However, I give myself full permission to do things badly, so long as they are safe and won’t lead to injury.

    1. I love that you give yourself permission to do things badly and I definitely relate to ‘if I skipped all the things I struggle with, there would be no workout left.’

      I guess there’s a line to draw ‘Icky but possibly useful’ and ‘So icky that it prevents me from working out at all.’ You clearly have a good sense of which kind of icky you are working with! 🙂

  2. You’re so right.. I always tend to force myself to do the things I hate and this just put my moral into 0.. I’ll take into consideration your helpful advice. Thanks a lot for your article 🙂

    1. I’m glad my post resonated with you.

      Obviously, sometimes the stuff you hate is helpful but if it makes you resent your workouts then it makes sense to try something different.

      Good luck!

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