Work out against boredom

27 Sep, 2023

When I was a kid I was particularly energetic. As a matter of fact, now in my thirties whenever I reflect upon my energy levels until my late twenties, I realize I never really got tired. Filled with a neverending stream of energy, being exhausted or even mildly tired was something that happened to other people. Summer was particularly illustrative because, with the presence of school absent from the equation, I would spend my day outside running, biking, playing sports, and going to the beach.

The situation didn't change over my twenties when I'd combine going to university, working out for 2-3 hours, taking a shower, and partying at night, all to be fresh the day after.

Provided I was this overexcited rabbit, my parents in their infinite wisdom signed me up for a whole slew of different physical activities during my childhood years: gymnastics, judo, taekwondo, swimming, football, and tennis among many others. The ones I list were those where I lasted at least 2 years, with gymnastics & tennis in particular where I stayed almost 5 years on each. The reason why I switched so much was because I've always had an appetite for the new, and would get bored easily. There is value in crunching and drilling on a sport to get to the elite level, and putting in the hours and effort was not an issue for me. I just felt that whenever I "figured out" a sport to get to the point where I felt comfortable in it, I wanted to try as many things as I could. I still loved the sport, I just wanted to experiment.

I have no regrets about not sticking to any sport, the kind of lessons I extracted from each one have proved invaluable for me. Gymnastics provided flexibility, strength, and agility, judo a sense of discipline, taekwondo more agility and a flexible body, and tennis explosiveness, speed, and cardio.

Now as a dude in my thirties, I have both a bit less energy and less free time. I still feel very strong and energetic. Sometimes I feel my mind tricking me into thinking I am too tired to do any sport but when I start working out my body re-activates and can go for big stretches of effort.

However, the adult day-to-day life is what it is: more responsibilities and less leisure time, unless you explicitly allocate for it. The small bits of time I can devote to doing sports are sparse and cannot commit to a fixed schedule for any sport or club. Thus, I have to fit the workout in whatever slot I can steal from the day, normally going to the gym because I want to keep my muscle mass and strength over the years, and going for a run or biking would not cut it.

As I've never been quite a fan of just going to the gym and lifting weights (nothing wrong with that), I lean into my taste for fun and different activities and blend it into a muscle-building routine. Albeit not oriented towards hypertrophy or pure strength, I take advantage of all the material that is available in the gym to perform functional exercises that encompass the whole body in every session.

There is common material easy to find in any gym: barbells, dumbbells, and machines. Nowadays it is also possible the gym has some kettlebells laying around, perhaps some sandbags, battle-rope, or even medicine balls.

Pure bodybuilding workouts bore the hell out of me, as they lean into the basic movements with few repetitions and going for heavy loads. I know how to do squat, bench-press, barbell-row, deadlift, and all the basics. The common beginner strength routine is amazing for starters but it can get boring very easily, especially for someone who craves variety.

My solution? I devise a bunch of workouts that revolve around a single piece of material. I try to incorporate compound, dynamic, and overall fun and quirky exercises that you might not see often in the gym. If I get bored, I switch workouts. I also make combinations of different exercises in a single workout if both the materials are available.

It is better illustrated with some examples. The following are some of the workouts I came up with and perform often. I always follow a 6 exercise, 3 sets x 10-12 reps structure so I can structure them easily and plug & play my exercises and swap them if there's no material or it's being used in the gym. I also a pool of exercises that I keep swapping into the workouts to keep things interesting and not get my body used to anything.

Calisthenics (Bodyweight)

There's a lot of variation here, I am putting in a basic full-body workout, no complex stuff (muscle-up, front-lever, etc...), no progressions, nothing like that. in /r/bodyweightfitness there's a crazy good amount of information to complete your research.

Kettlebells

Sandbag

Other kinds of workouts with Barbells or Dumbbells can be easily found online as well. Mix, match, and enjoy yourselves doing sports. Sprinkle some swimming or other low-intensity cardio. Go for a walk, play padel with your coworkers, anything to keep your energy up. There are way too many people who drop lifting weights in the gym because they find it miserable. Do the sport you like and you'll keep yourself interested.

Cheeeeeeers.