Fun for ever! The simple way to build a fitness habit you’ll actually love

If you can find a workout you always look forward to, you’re far more likely to stick with it and keep fitter for longer. Trainers give their pointers – and pitfalls. Only an idiot would claim to love every form of exercise. At 61, I believe it’s the only way to delay the body’s slow crumble, but ugh, so much of it is unpleasant, or dull, or just not for me. I don’t think I will ever not hate Bulgarian split squats. I’m bored to tears by the static bike. Football, rugby, tennis, cricket? Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt.

But that’s OK, because there’s a lot that I adore. Running. Lake swims. Yoga. Skiing, snowshoeing, anything snow-related. Just bloody walking! And above all, calisthenics – dangling from gymnastics rings, standing on my hands, trying to hoist and fold and balance myself in ways that demand far more strength and control than I can usually muster. I will never be cool, but “cali” is. I’m rubbish at most of this stuff, but that doesn’t stop me putting in the hours. I will practise handstands in the hall when the rest of the family are slumped in front of the TV, or get up before dawn to run through pitch-black woods – not because I have to, but because I want to. I’m hoping to be doing this for at least another 39 years.

Fun is the key, as far as I’m concerned. Sooner or later, you will stumble across some kind of movement that makes you happy, whether it’s powerlifting, ping-pong or pole dancing. To stay as fit as you can, for as long as you can, you need to grab it and hold it close. “For me, fun is the No 1 thing,” agrees Kelly Cho, whose tough but beginner-friendly calisthenics classes pack out the Waking Dreams studio in east London. I’m such a fan that I’m reluctant to mention them in case I never get a place again. “Motivation is not going to be there all the time,” Cho says. “The only thing that’s going to carry you through is the love.”.

“Leaning into what you enjoy is super important,” says Lucy Joslin, another inspirational instructor, who teaches cali at Mission a few miles away. “When it gets hard, when it’s cold outside or raining, or you’ve got to get up at six in the morning to do it, it has to be something you enjoy. It has to bring you some kind of joy – otherwise what on earth is it all for?” On top of teaching, Joslin works out six days a week. “I’d be really happy if I had three hours a day just to go to the gym.”.

“Life is full of shoulds,” says Tiffany Soi, a yoga movement coach and former competitive rock climber. “There’s all this stuff we have to do. You can tell yourself that something is good for you, but if it becomes a kind of grinding routine, it’s very easy to lose that sense of engagement and motivation – and you stop doing it. But people want to play.”. Now 38, Soi has been climbing since she was 20. “And I’m planning on doing it till I’m at least 100.”.

“Fun matters” shouldn’t be a radical idea, but a lot of the fitness industry doesn’t seem to get it. All too often what you get from a personal trainer is what they know how to teach rather than what you might stick with. You’d better hope that what makes you happy is three or four sessions in the gym every week. “I hear so many horror stories of how people were first introduced to exercise,” says Michael Ulloa, an Edinburgh-based personal trainer. “People can be won over by different forms of exercise if they are shown a healthy and enjoyable way to undertake them, but I would treat that as an add-on once you’re consistent with exercise. Get your body moving regularly, see how it feels doing it for a while, and then you can worry about any extras that might further improve your health.”.

That said, there’s a point where those “extras” become compulsory. Whatever your passion, in the long term you’ll need to do something on top to support it and look after the stuff it neglects. This might be your bone and muscle, your heart and lungs, your mobility or your balance. Even the funnest activity can’t cover all the bases. If you’re into football, say, then off the pitch you should be doing everything you can to prevent knee injuries, and to strengthen your upper body. If cali’s your thing, your upper body is taken care of, but your legs may need resistance work, in the form of weighted squats, perhaps, or one-legged squats. And let’s not forget the cardio ….

“Things go wrong when the thing we love to do becomes the only thing we do,” warns Laura Williams, the owner of Mat Pilates ATX in Austin, Texas. “Whether it’s pickleball or ballroom dance, the activities we love will create asymmetrical movement habits and strength imbalances that might lead to acute or overuse injuries.”. Williams, 54, is talking from experience: dancing has been her passion since 2008, when she took her first “Broadway jazz” class. “But dancing began creating a lot of pain for me in my early 40s,” she says. “I went to physical therapy, did my exercises, and got stronger and the pain was managed. When I asked my physiotherapist if I had to do these ‘boring exercises’ for the rest of my life, she said, ‘Yes, if you want to keep dancing as much as you do – or you could do pilates.’” Williams enjoyed that so much that she now teaches it as well as practising it. “And I am still dancing.”.