There’s all kinds of gear and videos and crap out there so you can exercise while you sit at home, exercise with your baby, exercise while you do the dishes, exercise while you have a heart-to-heart with your teen about the dangers of using crack, and so on. Some of it is fine, but most of it is totally stupid. To be perfectly honest, I think the optimal set-up is to exercise while you, um, work out. I mean, I get that we have busy lives and multi-task the hell out of everything all the time, so god forbid you have a spare moment when you aren’t doing three things simultaneously, but I really think giving something your full attention is meaningful.  And I think it generally means working out harder.

This is starting to sound both pro and con for one of my cardinal rules of fitness: SOMETHING IS BETTER THAN NOTHING. (All caps means it’s profound and important, or that I my pinky has a tic and I accidentally hit the all caps button. Or that I’m yelling. One of those.)  I use this rule when I have only twenty minutes and I start thinking, “Eh, forget it, I don’t have time to run.” Then I remember that even a short run does more for me than not running at all. It really helps me regularly, because I’m not very bright (you know, the whole college thing) and I tend to forget something as simple as this.

See, I’ve been to the gym and seen the lines of people on treadmills reading or staring at a TV or talking on the phone even, and I understand. Distraction lessens the pain. If it works for you, then good, do it. But I think it can potentially lessen the intensity of the workout. For me, I can do music and that’s about it.  I like being focused and intentional whenever possible for exercise.  I’m simple and easily distracted too, so I have to do it this way or I’ll find myself reading People and going, “Oh that Britney is such a wildcat” instead of say, sprinting. I also rarely work out when I’m training other people, aside from racing them or jogging alongside or doing a few spur-you-on reps. I’m not that good at splitting my attention, and obviously my first responsibility is to the person I’m training, I need to check form and be rah-rah or grrr-grrr or whatever, and I’m not so much doing that if I start feeling my own workout. Perhaps that will be my answer to the comment I get often, “It must be so great to be a trainer because you get to work out all day when you train people.” No, I really don’t work out all day, which is why I can only do two reps of everything for demonstration purposes only.

Anyhow, stuff like this weighted bracelet thing or extra-tight slip so you get exercise while you dick around town just seems goofy to me. But I might be biased because they use the word “buns” in the copy, as in “tighter buns.” Really? Are we in the late 70’s-early 80’s? Like, “Oh that Magnum P.I., he has such nice buns.” Ick. Gross.  But whatever, maybe you can’t live without your ass-firming slip, and it’s just one more way to get fit for you. My idea if you want to work out all damn day long is to set a timer and every hour do ten push-ups. Your office mates will love it, no one will think you are a freak at all.

Rambling also burns calories, I believe, and that is one thing I practice often.

Lately, I’ve been unmotivated to exercise. This negotiating with myself is taking up all my time, and I’ve got to stop.

I’m guessing we all have an inner voice that tells us things related to starting and doing physical activities, and probably more than one. Mine sometimes tells me that I need a workout, or that I need more sleep, or that everyone is out to get me, but I only listen to the last one.

Oh, a’right, I have a few different voices in there, some of which encourage me to work out from time to time. My “you should work out” voice is less of a disciplinarian and more an anxiety-riddled freak, nothing at all like me. What a lie.  But I’ve been blessed with a brain that can only be silenced or calmed by physical activity, and damn if that doesn’t get me to the sweat buckets as often as vanity, habit and professional curiosity. (”Could I run as fast as that seven foot guy?” The answer is no, no I can’t.)

Once I’m exercising, my best workouts involve a sudden and wonderful silence of all voices. Voices do break through sometimes, and tell me I can’t do something, that I’m a fraud and not good enough, or that this is all too hard, or that I’ve really done a sufficient amount for the day and five minutes is longer than anyone should ever be expected to work out. The problem is that all of these voices carry a certain amount of legitimacy because they sound like me, perhaps because they are me, and now I have officially bought a villa on insanity island, please come stay in my timeshare.

Okay, I will say I’m aware these are not in fact voices, but actually me just dicking around in my head. But like most people, I can convince myself of all kinds of things, and I have self-doubt, confidence and ego all competing inside of me. But I do think so much of what we can do athletically is really about what is between our ears.

Take an isometric hold, for example—like holding the squat position. Do you stop because your quads actually give out and you fall to the floor? Maybe. But more likely you believe you cannot endure the burning sensation in your quads any longer. Well, when I first work with people, if they haven’t done anything physically challenging they will often give up as soon as they feel the first pang, because we believe the sensation of discomfort or pain is a signal that something is wrong. And it can be, but by training you learn to discern different kinds of pain—injury from muscle fatigue—and know that discomfort doesn’t mean the end of the road. At that point all kinds of things, from how you think about yourself to your perception of pain come into play. In other words, the sensation of pain in the quads remain, but how you interpret that sensation, and determine what you should do about it, those are trainable things.

You can train your brain just like you train your muscles, only it’s a bit trickier because your brain doesn’t just have one message to send. It has all kinds of things it can tell you, and some are more helpful to your athletic performance than others.

I am totally curious about the kinds of things people say to themselves and use to motivate and work hard and what the voices that fuck with you say. Does self-loathing actually motivate anyone, or does it have to be all positive? Is there a theme to the inner blah blah? Do other people actually zone out, or is there something triumphant that takes over on good workouts? Tell me please.