For last few weeks I have decided to not follow any plan and to not count calories but to do most of things just for fun as I saw no point in following a program as I will have to rest few weeks starting on Friday. To my surprise I think I look better now (and others noticed that too, I have gotten few compliments). Sure I could have bigger arms, less fat etc but I think I look pretty good. For sure it helped that my idea of fun includes swimming y going to gym, that I am generally active and do not like to overeat, but I sleep less, eat bit more junk food and sometimes I skipped workouts. Do you think having fun has something to do with results (or maybe just perception on results)?
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Happiness is more important than fun.
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I have fun planning the training and designing the training, but executing the training is always misery.
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I think it has to do with perception. I am on the same road as you now. I used to obsess about bodybuilding, i had a coach, i stuffed in 7000kcals a day, used grams of gear, had diarrhea 3 times a day, always bloated, always sick from eating. I was always too small, not gaining weight, never had time to just walk, didnt want to spend any calories on any activity, because i already couldnt gain weight, etc.
I had the powerlifting phase when i was always pushing PRs, calculating every step, pushing AMRAPs, always stressing if ill be able to lift more than last time, always broken, always exhausted, always sleepy from constant CNS torture.
Now i just do the lightest 531 variation, with the lowest TM i have ever had(cuz i love strength movements) and i look at it as a next 10 year plan, so i have no rush, i never do any amraps or 1rep maxes, because i am planning to go slow for years and maybe then ill test something, i dont care.
For bodybuilding i just do what ever exercises i feel the best in the muscles i want to train, in a style that i feel the most(rest-pause). I only do a few sets total because i know i am not getting any bigger anyway, so why bother. I do an incremental progress on my 531 work, i pump some triceps and rear delts, and then i just do cardio circuits, or run on an incline, or something to get a good sweat going.
I eat as much as i want, which by my caloric expenditure means i am always in some 200-500kcal deficit, so i have lost some 15lbs already but i am leaner and i look much better and bigger. I have cut my gear by 75% so i am also much more healthy.
And i actually start to enjoy gym and life again.
Sure i am smaller than i was and weaker than i was but the thing is that when i was focusing on those thing i always felt the same way about my strength and size. So it doesnt matter if you bench 315 or 405, if you are never happy anyways.
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What an awesome topic!
I think maybe there’s a direct and indirect component.
Direct: the more fun you have, the more of yourself you’ll put into whatever you’re doing. I think intentionality makes a difference (not exactly the same thing as intensity).
Indirect: you’re not stressing yourself out, which is definitely a factor in how we look.
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Satisfaction is the most important thing for results
Some people are suitably satisfied by objective progress (and possibly suffering) alone
Some people are satisfied when the training process is fun
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When I’m training, it’s one of the best parts of my day. I’m feeling the muscles working and I’m getting a ridiculous pump. If people fall in love with the process and fall in love with the satisfaction of the hard work that comes with lifting, I feel as though they’re much more likely to be successful in achieving their physique in strength goals and more likely to stick with it long term.
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I work a hell of a lot harder on a programme i believe in and enjoy. I think that has a lot to do with results.
I also think that when i’m a little beat up in the gym after a while, some rest and junk food always makes me feel and look a bit better.
But happiness (as others have said) probably has more on an effect than we think on our overall appearance and body functions etc.
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I like this topic because my philosophy around this stuff has shifted dramatically this year. I believe it will continue to shift and the pendulum can always go one way or the other depending on the place I feel I’m at.
As @j4gga2 said, for many people progress is what makes them satisfied. Progression with a long-term view is their “fun”. Every new PR has a little dopamine hit that keeps them trodding along… and I think we all need an element of this in us to stay consistent. This was me but not in a healthy way. I didn’t care that I was getting fatter, I added a rep! I didn’t care that my digestive problems would peak as I once again chugged another boatload of liquid calories down to reach my required intake. That moment of adding those +1s to the log justified it. I naively thought that the gym could only give to my life, not realizing how much it could actually take from it.
Balance is key. It’s all fair and well having all this stuff happen in the gym… but how are we outside the gym? How important are those little PRs or that little bit of muscle growth when you put so much into it that you wake up slightly off-kilter because you’re mentally or physically fried from either the workouts themselves, or the stress of having to go and spend another couple of hours doing something you hate? You’re not going to stop until you reach the goal. Then where do you go?
When I force-fed myself up from 125lbs to 200lbs, “fun” was the relief of not being the skinny weak guy anymore. “Fun” was escaping my other problems and sinking my teeth into learning all I could. I don’t regret any of it. I still remember how great it felt to have control over my body, and how powerful I felt that I could change it.
Now that I’m older, my “fun” is defined differently. It’s not just about how this or that is, it’s how relaxed and calm I am, how much I look forward to waking up every morning, how much I enjoy the workouts, how I give myself the freedom to have a nice lunch with my girlfriend without worrying about the macros, and how I will say yes to things I’ll likely enjoy without worrying that I might lose a week of progress.
The more important that extra rep is to your well-being and enjoyment, the more critical you will be of yourself… the results can therefore be dampened. When there is more balance to your well-being, you can be more pleased with the results even if they are slightly worse because the enjoyment is shared amongst many other things. This leaves you free not to magnify on any one thing, leaving you more content with all things.
TL;DR: It’s not a question of whether fun is important for results, but whether results are worth it for the cost of fun. Fun will make adherence easier, but sometimes a bit of misery is where the most growth will happen. Measuring out the right amount of fun and misery is a formula individual to each of us, and a formula that will change based on where you’re at in life. The best thing about all this is having the free will to decide when to apply more of one than the other.
I’m at the tail-end of a really bad cold where I haven’t interacted with anyone for almost a week so I apologize if this was a bit of a waffle.
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I like what @j4gga2 said - satisfaction is probably the right word.
For myself, I always liked the pushing really, really hard part of the training. Especially when I left the Army, my workday is just so mundane and tedious (and I have a bit of a temper) it’s always just been very helpful for me to have that opportunity to blow off steam.
For awhile, I liked the basic weekly overload programs. I had a lot of room to get stronger, and that extra rep/ weight/ etc. was an opportunity for me to put it on the line.
After I couldn’t progress like that anymore, I got way into the 90s-style bodybuilding training (I should say “back into” because that’s also how I grew up). This was awesome for a long time because you can absolutely leave it on the floor with some of these sets.
Lately I’m having trouble pushing anything harder than last time, just because I’ve done it so long, so more of my brain thinks about the volume… which is, again, boring, so I phone it in and get little out of it. I find I then tend to eat like a 5-year-old, because apparently I’m going to go get that dopamine hit somewhere, so I get fatter while I’m at it.
Our resident Warrior Poet threw a conditioning challenge at me, which has been fun again. My conditioning was already in the toilet, so I’m seeing rapid progress, and I “like” leaving my lungs on the floor.
I guess my whole point here is that satisfaction, for me, comes from “leaving it out there,” but that still tends to jive with what I haven’t been doing, which drives periodization, which takes this concept from emotional to physiological. Lawyered - no further questions - case closed!
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My $0.02 kind of echoes what others have said: it’s probably different for everybody. I don’t go to the gym to have fun; I go to get results and to punish myself for being a POS. If you’re a good person who deserves it, it probably is more productive to have fun.
I’m probably the wrong person to ask about this, though, as I’m not sure I have fun doing anything. Haha I’m too competitive and it seems like everything has to have a reason. I probably shouldn’t have even chimed in. Sorry.
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Any chance you were just a bit overtrained (systemic fatigue) and this fun phase is just allowing for adequate recovery, glycogen replenishment, etc? Sort of an accidental (but needed) deload?
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I’d echo what the other posters said - fun is subjective and changes, but the church of iron is always there. If fun is punishing yourself, if it’s winning against yourself or on a stage, if it’s the quiet time you need with headphones in, if it’s where you met your friends, I think having fun is important to keep us going.
I’ve had a free gym day for a couple of years where I forget about my program and do whatever dumb shit I feel like. Vanity muscles, sure. One set of max deadlifts, sure. Try out new exercises and look like a dork, sure. Just hang out in the steam room or sauna for 30 minutes and not lift, sure. I purposely don’t decide until I walk in the door to have a fun day.
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This is so counterintuitive, but after seeing it happen to dedicated lifters before, it’s believable!
Maybe the muscle you already grew has just made it easier to maintain a great body comp without having to work so hard for it. Or maybe, like Chris said above, your body needed a serious deload. Or maybe you’re now the type of person who can maintain leanness and muscularity without as much effort as before because you enjoy exercise and don’t eat beyond your limits.
Ever see that picture of people at the beach in the 70s?
They’re all pretty lean. Yet there were no calorie tracking apps, no keto or carnivore diets, and if I’m not mistaken, only outliers really spent significant time in the gym. Building muscle wasn’t as common a goal then as it is now. Yet they all looked healthy.
Prioritizing enjoyment and ending up with a better physique seems kinda like the holy grail of fitness. I’d much rather do that than prioritize an arbitrary hardcore goal and end up not looking like I lift. lol
All that to say, way to go! I hope it continues to work in your favor.
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I don’t think I would continue training if I didn’t enjoy the way I feel training. I’m not a big fan of the planning and designing the training part – if I had unlimited money I’d hire a coach and just do what he/she told me!
We are very much opposites, haha.
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Your workouts are the most fun! (For us to watch.)
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All have made valid comments. Depending on your perspective, “fun” has different implications. I just cannot imagine that very many of us would be weight training if it didn’t have some component of “fun” attached to it.
Strictly defining “fun”, it is a temporal “feeling.” As @zecarlo suggested “happiness” is not temporal. It would be much more preferred.
As @j4gga2 says, “satisfaction” might be the most important “feeling.”
As to the OP looking his best when was having more “fun”, I think @Chris_Shugart hit the nail on the head. Overtraining can “flatten” you out, especially if you are under nourished and/or sleep deprived.
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Totally agree. If you love it, it doesn’t require much discipline. Consistency is huge in long term success.
I see many newer lifters doing these grind sets to get the reps on an exercise like squats. They want so bad to stick to the linear program they are doing. To be getting a PR every workout. But most of them don’t last very long. They either quit or switch to something sustainable that is also less mentally taxing and more fun.
I think as long as there is a balance with doing something sorta intelligent that fun is just fine. Can’t just do the same weights every week for a decade because it is fun and expect progress.
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I see this with myself time and time again, and still choose to ignore it when the bug hits me up. It’s a good reminder for folks with your experience to reiterate!
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