Exercise is hitting. My brain gives up way before my body does. Even when I try and listen to music or watch shows while exercising, I just can’t keep at it.
Has anyone found an ADHD friendly way to exercise?
In my youth it was rock climbing. You can’t really quit something if it means falling to your death 🤣
But seriously anything that keeps your brain occupied. For me it was competitive sports. Basketball, ultimate frisbee, anything like that. Now that I’m old, it’s getting up from my chair to go pee. I also like what I consider “exercise games” like Beat Saber.
Tl;dr… anything that tricks your brain into seeing it as fun and not exercise.
FitnessBlender has a few “People who get bored easily” workouts. As an ADHD-er I often followed them. I still work out, but I don’t follow the videos as much.
The only long term one I’ve been able to cope with is biking. About a 40km to 65km bike ride over a day. I was able to keep my speed to either hyped up music or slowed down music to keep my speed and I felt like I was doing something, not just standing in a room and the constant looming feeling of not making progress.
The other one I’ve tried lately has been badminton. It can be nice and competitive as well as friendly too!
When I started going to the gym, the only way I could get myself to go was to watch a show on my phone while working out. The catch is, I told myself I was only allowed to watch the show while I was working out. If I want to know what happens next, I had to get on a treadmill.
I fell out of the habit last summer and getting back into it has been a huge struggle.
This works as long as the show dopamine is higher than the difficulty getting to the gym. Very few shows hold my interest THAT much past the first couple seasons.
I got really caught up in the “make number bigger” cycle of lifting, and each 5lbs I added to any lift was a huge dopamine spike. Obviously you can’t keep increasing weight forever, but I found that the steady and easy dopamine hits from noob gains were enough to establish it as a habit in spite of my attention span
Swimming does wonders for me. You can think about tons of stuff while swimming, it exercises many muscles at the same time, easy to get the hang of it and tiring if you do it enough!
100% this. Biking is such a game changer. I’ve never enjoyed any physical fitness effort as much as I enjoy biking. Running hurts too much for me to enjoy it but point is, doing something outside with changing scenery keeps me in the zone. Plus if I ride out 10 miles and get bored, I have to ride 10 miles back home.
I’d also recommend group fitness classes. If there’s an instructor telling me what to do, rather than me trying to self-motivate, I work out much more effectively and enjoy it more.
Do it with a friend! It worked great for me: my friend and I both tend to get distracted easily but working out together helps us keep each other on track and also the workout goes by faster when you have someone to talk to. Also we motivate each other to push ourselves as well!
Find yourself a gym buddy, it might be what you need!
Someone else mentioned VR games, if you can afford the gear I second that recommendation. Some games can be quite the workout, and it doesn’t feel like I’m convincing myself to exercise because I’m just playing video games.
Third this suggestion. Haven’t played much more than beatsaber, but its more of a workout than a bike ride for me. Of course its what you make of it. I personally like fast songs and I intentionally try to use my arms to swing at least partly. If you just use your wrists, you’ll probably get less of a workout. There’s also maps focused on fitness (lots of wall dodging and squats) if you want to do those (I typically find them less fun, so I don’t really play them).
OTOH, if you can make commuting by bike your normal means of commuting, that can be a way to be consistent in getting exercise. Even if using an ebike and only getting light exercise.
get a mountain bike and a hyper dog… at least that’s what i did and i lost several pants sizes this last year…
(i have an australian cattle dog and they’re the best… but also very difficult if you’re not fully prepared… also the only breed that’s part dingo)
Personally I hated team sports and things like going to the gym, but bouldering is really fun for me. It doesn’t feel like it’s forced or repetitive and you can choose what you want to do and it feels more live solving puzzles than sport. Am only a 5A+ so far but having fun.
What also helps is the atmosphere is very chill in the boulder gyms near me.
Great suggestion. I hate lifting weights, but bouldering is a ton of fun. Any sport sport that’s physical is honestly a good idea. Doing something fun for exercise is like eating those limon hot Cheetos, you don’t actually feel the burn until you stop.
An exercise bike has been great for me. I can pedal while I read, solve a word puzzle, or watch something on YouTube. I often will do my email that way with a computer - I bought a bike with a build-in desktop. (I think it’s called “exer-work” or something like that.)
I also lift weights regularly. I manage to do that by promising myself that I only need to do one set of whatever I feel like lifting. Most of the time I want to do more once I get started, but sometimes I don’t. Setting the bar really low (no pun intended) is how I have managed to form & keep the habit.
Find a job that requires physical labor and you won’t need to work out. That’s what I did and I dropped 15 lbs by my second* week on the warehouse floor.
I’m in a similar boat. Do you ever find yourself thinking back to the labour days? If there wasn’t such a difference in pay, I might consider the switch. The only career that I know of that has pay parity is oil rig work, but I don’t want to fuck up my body before it’s time.
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