Working Out When You Hate It

If they ever have a telethon for type A personalities, my sister Rachel would be the poster child. An investment banker, she flies to dozens of meetings a week. She eats what she can scrounge from vending machines, her shoulders are hunched forward as if bent over an imaginary desk and her skin looks like it hasn't seen outdoor light in about a decade.

When she's not worrying about her two young kids, the mortgage on her apartment or the future of her embattled firm, she worries that she ought to be doing something to reduce her stress, correct her posture and strengthen her body. That something, she fears, is yoga.

"The breathing, the relaxation, the excruciating poses," she sighs. "I know it's exactly what I need." There's just one problem. She hates yoga.

"It makes me want to crawl out of my skin," she complains. "My mind races when I'm supposed to be relaxing, and I get anxious thinking about all the time I'm wasting holding downward dog. But if I hate it, does that mean I really need it?"

This is a question I've heard before. We all have something we dread doing. Sometimes, it's a whole category of thing (anything competitive, anything cardiovascular, anything "mind-body," etc.). Sometimes, it's a specific exercise (push-ups, lunges or those horrible squat-thrusts they made you do in gym class). I get asked repeatedly, "If I hate it, does that mean I really need to be doing it?"

The answer, I've decided, is yes... maybe. Obviously, my sister needs to learn to value time spent nourishing her body and spirit. And clearly, yoga would be an ideal way to accomplish her goals. But yoga is hardly the only solution to her problems. She could, for example, assemble a program of strength training and cardio that would do the same thing. She could try Pilates or dance or mountain climbing. There's always another way.

The important question to ask here is, "Is there something to be gained by pushing through the hate?" While there are always alternatives, sometimes there's no substitute for sucking it up and doing it anyway. Ask yourself what it is that you truly hate about it. Chances are, what you hate is not the activity or exercise, but the potential for failure. When you just don't want to do something, it may well be because you fear, deep down, that you aren't very good at it. Being human, we go through life protecting our weaknesses. We favor our good hand when we write, we show off our "best features" in clothes, and further our knowledge in subjects we've already mastered. Little wonder, then, that when it comes to physical activity, we embrace what we know we can do and shy away from anything that might expose an ugly fissure of weakness.

Of course, hiding weakness is not the same thing as eliminating it. So avoiding an encounter with your awkward, fumbling, struggling self is ultimately futile. You'll stay comfortable, but you'll stay stuck. It's far better to expose your weakness and get stronger. Do the lunges. The worst that can happen is that your legs will be sore the next day. Take the tennis clinic. You'll swing and miss a lot, but if you keep trying, you'll improve. And Rachel, get your butt to a yoga studio. When you get really good, you can shame me into stretching.

Talk with other women about sticking with it.