Hey guys,
I’m looking for a sport to do because I’m super skinny and I’d like to gain at least a bit of muscle. I’ve done cycling and bouldering in the past, but neither made me any less skinny.
The problem with sports is it’s very hard to do any sort of exercise with ADHD because beyond giving you no stimulation, it gives you negative stimulation, like when doing the plank. What’s more, it usually requires a ton of logistic prep/going somewhere, which itself is boring and becomes a barrier.
One thing I can see motivating me is doing it with other people (I enjoy chilling with people and having banter), but for that I might as well go to a pub/society where there’s no pesky ball I have to kick around. Team sports like football never really appealed to me for some reason anyway.
Has anyone had success making sports fun?
Do a strong lifts 5x5 program.
Focus on your body through the entire repetition and make the next one better.
The numbers going up on your lift value will be the game until your body starts showing you the score also.
I say this as a on the spectrum adhd man
How do you overcome the gratification hurdle of stopping scrolling to go and focus on your muscles hurting?
The StrongLifts 5x5 app I use has a timer between sets, I do my set then sit and scroll and then it dings at me to do the next.
Lather rinse repeat until I’m done, it takes no time at all and I still get plenty of scrolling in lol
Ahh that sounds like a good idea
Treat the rest as a dedicated, specifically-timed “thing to do” instead of just “time I need to kill until I pick this weight up again.”
Timers are helpful, as people mentioned, but stretching, evaluating how that last set went/ how next set needs to go, changing weights, and walking around to catch your breath are great ways to stay mostly on track.
And if you check Twitter after switching songs or something? That’s fine. Working out slowly > not working out, so unless you’re annoying other gymgoers with 20-min squat-rack scroll sessions , I wouldn’t sweat a mental lapse.
EDIT: Ope, I think I misread your comment to mean “between sets” and not just “going to the gym,” my b.
It HAS to be a habit. Go to the gym because it’s novel and you want to try it out, then try your damnedest to make it a routine. Make it feel weird to not work out. If you fall off the wagon, try again.
If neurotypicals fail to be consistent (see every New Year’s resolution), you can give yourself enough grace to stumble, too.
Don’t bring your phone for the first few weeks. There’s something physiologically gratifying about lifting heavy.
And your muscles don’t really “hurt” during or immediately after completing a set. They are stressed, but you should recover after a few minutes to do your working sets. Eventually, you’ll be out of gas and your muscles won’t be able to coordinate a lift, but you’re sort of going for that. And then a day or two later, if you lifted to too much, you have some muscle soreness. That always sucked for me.
Set a timer? Whether you ignore it or not is another issue, but I was more likely to stick to rest times with a timer than without
Strong lifts. The built in timer is great. Just don’t look at anything else on your phone. I put on Audible and just lift.
Yeah, furthest I ever fit with a fitness program is 5x5. It’s such a small amount of individual activities, they’re always challenging because of the increasing weights, and it feels like there’s a really clear goal that you’re moving towards (not just ‘go to they gym until your fit’).
Focusing on getting the movement right kept me fully occupied during the actual rep and there’s only a few different exercises each day so it didn’t take too long. For getting started, I would just do a intense bounce / dance around the room to warm myself up (I had weights at home so I didn’t need to worry about getting the gym or other people seeing me). With warm and focused reps and a bit of a cool down, I could generally do the whole thing in under 45 minutes, so even if I had spent the day lazing around I could often trick myself into “shit, it’s almost six and I need to meet the guys in an hour, I guess I’ll just quickly rush through my reps” (and then I would be late of course, but that’s normal). A workout buddy would be the other ideal for accountability / motivation.
I support the idea of weight lifting, but think 5x5 is too much actually. I prefer the Starting Strength program. 3x5 is enough to show results without overtraining. I found 5x5 to be really time consuming, which becomes a drag on motivation to keep working out. Also, you can overtrain and injure yourself.