on exercise

Over the past few months I have become a gym person. It’s not something I ever really saw myself doing, as I hated most acts of exercising in the past. Well, I didn’t mind riding my bike, or bouldering… but anything involving machines or weights just never clicked for me. I would stick with it for a couple of weeks at most until I found some reason to skip a session and from there I’d avoid going back altogether for months or years at a time. But recently I realized I didn’t have good reasons to put off exercising regularly any longer. And I definitely need to, having put on a fair bit of weight since the covid lockdowns.

So I’ve been going to the gym three times a week, doing full body every time. I try to ride my bike at least once a week outside of the gym too. I’ve signed up for a thirty mile bike ride this summer. I can feel my energy levels getting higher, even as I do more things, physical or otherwise. It’s been great.

That increased energy has also helped me (re-)realize everything works like this. If you want to get better at anything, you have to do the work. If you don’t use a skill, it will wither. Art, writing, cooking, communication, anything. The exercise is the point. Practice makes perfect. AI slop isn’t a substitute for doing the work. If you’ve done a thing many times before, AI may make you faster at it, but you’ve put the time in already. If you haven’t done the time, it’ll speed you up, up to a point. And then you hit the wall. That same plateau you hit anywhere else when you aren’t doing the work consistently and intentionally.

ps. I’m using the Strong app to track workouts and it’s wonderful. No frills with a clean ui, very cool to see my progression at a glance.