I wasn't allowed to participate in sports or any exercise as a kid because of my heart. Kids like me were unkowns and as such they weren't sure how much physical activity we could sustain. Plus, I couldn't anyway because I had to stay home and watch my sisters.
I wasn't athletic. I am very clumsy and lack hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.
I like to exercise now, but by exercise I mean walking. I walk 6-8 miles during the summer, and I'm going to try to walk a few once school starts in 2 wks (ugh). It'll be tough to keep up with it.
I don't like lifting weights, running, going to the gym, etc. It's just not fun for me.
Post by tacosforlife on Aug 4, 2015 8:53:01 GMT -5
I played softball as a kid although I quit by HS because band took up all my free time.
For years, I hated exercise. But now I generally enjoy it, and I can absolutely tell a difference in my mental health. Swimming is my zen place although I'm not doing any competitions. I just swim for me. My current routine has a lot of variety - running, walking, swimming, lifting, and yoga.
I put no and yes. although I did play some sports as a kid, I was definitely NOT an "athlete". I did rec ball and occasionally swimming and dance. I was terrible at everything.
I do enjoy exercise now. But that's a love/hate relationship too. I need it for my mental health.
I did not enjoy exercise as a child. I did it because my parents wanted us to be active and because all of my friends played sports, so it was a chance to socialize. I didnt hate it, but didnt love it.
It's only been in recent years that I've really started to love exercising (started to enjoy it third year of law school but really got consistent with working out/exercising after DS1 was born, so three years ago).
This is me exactly. LOL. Exactly. My parents made us do sports so I did them. I only really enjoy it now.
I also took up golf as an adult which I really like.
I grew up fat, though I did participate, rather unwillingly, in sports. My roommate dragged me to crew practice in college and I never looked back. Now I lift and teach kettle bells classes, and I enjoy it.
Not an athlete when I was younger. I got a D in gym class in 5th grade. I like exercise now both for how it makes me feel and how it makes me look. I actually am athletic after all and I wish that would have been nurtured in me more as a child.
Post by bernsteincat on Aug 4, 2015 9:09:10 GMT -5
As a kid, I did play softball, and I played church league softball as a teen, but that was it. Not athletic and didn't enjoy exercising.
Now I enjoy walking and running and doing 5ks, Zumba, still playing church league softball, and I've taken up golf. Not that in to weight lifting, but I'm not averse to it, either. Still don't consider myself an athlete by any stretch, but I do enjoy getting out and doing things much more than I used to. I think it's because I don't get much fresh air sitting in our office every day, so I crave sunlight and a breeze, lol.
Yes and yes. I really started getting into it in middle school, and xc skiing shaped my life.
I still love outdoor sports. I'm not saying that it's always 100% easy to get off the couch after a long day at work to get my run in, but in general I plan weekends and even vacations around outdoor sports, especially skiing and mountain biking.
I would never keep any of this up if I had to do it all in a gym.
I've been very active since I was about 11, working out 4-6 times per week with soccer and track until I graduated from college.
Now I still love playing soccer and play once a week, would play more if I had time. I run and lift weights about 3 times per week to try to stay healthy but I don't highly highly enjoy it like I do soccer.
I was not an athlete in Jr or High School. I thought about trying out for track in Jr High and chickened out. My PE teacher pointed me out to my homeroom teacher and said I should try out for track (he was the high school track coach) and I flat out said no.
Fast forward to now and I run several times a week. Irony. LOL I preferred doing choir in Jr and High school.
I've been a competitive swimmer since I was 7. I took about 5 years off in my 20s, during law school and my first few years practicing, but got back into it.
All the PRs in my sig are since 2013 or 2014 except the damn 10k run which is from college. I'm planning to do a 5k open water swim later this month, when I'm 28 weeks pregnant. It will not be a PR for speed, but has to count for something.
I ran competitive track in elementary school and loved it then. After we moved and left that school district I was never involved in any sport activity after. It was a combination of not being interested in later years and my parents not being able to take me or pick me up. I failed PE my freshman year because I refused to dress out.
After high school I was in the military and was forced to exercise. I hated it. I had my first child while in the military and started taking kickboxing and step classes on base to get back into shape and started to like exercise a little. Not fully though because I was still forced to run and do other physical activities I didn't enjoy.
I've grown to like exercising now. I do CrossFit and I'm a runner. I've been doing CF for over 2 years and running for just under a year. I have a love/hate relationship with both but I do enjoy the time I have to myself, socializing, and the feeling I have after a workout. I have competed in CF competitions, weight lifitng competitions, and I sign up for races often (5k-1/2 marathon). This shirt sums my feelings about exercise.
Post by EloiseWeenie on Aug 4, 2015 9:40:05 GMT -5
I said no and no.
I never made any of the school sports teams I tried out for, thankfully the arts accepted me, LOL. I did summer swim team, and danced, but that's all I enjoyed (and sometimes didn't enjoy). I rowed in college.
I still don't like to exercise. I'd love to swim- but there are no public pools around and the private ones we have are summer only (and $$$). I like to walk with my friend/neighbors, but the thought never comes in my mind to just go for a walk alone, LOL. If the kids ask to go on a bike ride, I'm game.
eta: I surfed all the time in my 20s, which I loved.
Post by marriedfilingjoint on Aug 4, 2015 9:40:59 GMT -5
I was very Daria in gym class. I ran track in middle school because my friends encouraged me to. I hated it, had shin splints all the time and wasn't running the right event at all. I was intimidated by the athletes in high school so I didn't continue track, but I got talked into soccer and started running again to train for soccer season. I ended up learning to love running (distance running) and have run off and on since then. DH introduced me to weight-lifting which I also love.
I hated sports as a kid. I was chubby and then overweight/obese and then bulimic. I weighed 200 pounds by age 11. My family made fun of me constantly, and I was uncoordinated to boot, which didn't help. My gym teacher in elementary/middle school constantly compared me to my two older siblings, who were athletic. My brother was the star of the football team, and my sister played basketball. I played nothing, and I seemed to get hurt doing anything in gym class. He harassed me constantly and made fun of me. When we moved my freshman year of high school, I refused to try out any sports and basically coasted through gym class.
I like to do specific types of exercise now (yoga, cycling, swimming to an extent but I have issues with wearing a swimsuit in public) but still loathe any organized sport. I am too embarrassed to play soccer, volleyball, etc. at family/friend GTGs. I am worried people are staring at me and talking about how fat I am. I am well aware of how ridiculous that is. It's a hard hurdle to get over. I've just gotten to the point of wearing t-shirts and sometimes tank tops in the summer without a cardigan thrown over it because of how embarrassed I am of how I look. I've struggled with an eating disorder for over a decade now, and it's something that is constantly a work in progress.
I played volleyball in middle school and high school and also swam in high school, but strangely I am uncomfortable calling my self a child athlete. I enjoy exercise now, but only because I've found things that I enjoy.
I played various sports from about 9 through high school including soccer, softball and track. I liked them enough to keep playing and practicing, and have some fond memories and feelings about the friends and places I played still today. I exercise as an adult intermittently but often have to talk myself up and out the door to do it. I rode my bike this morning, but less because I wanted to get up and more because I need to keep riding in preparation for a 50k fundraising ride in 11 days. It did feel good though after about 5-10 minutes, and I of course like the results of consistent exercise. I'd like to continue to focus on "active" activities and less on "working out", I enjoy that frame of mind much more.
I was and still am very uncoordinated. After struggling with team sports as an elementary aged kid, I stopped doing any athletic endeavors for a long time. In my early twenties I took up running to lose weight. Now, I find myself almost 30 and competing regularly in triathlons, duathlons and running events.
Post by jeaniebueller on Aug 4, 2015 9:48:17 GMT -5
I answered no and yes. I wasn't athletic at all as a child/teenager. I took ski and tennis lessons and did little league cheerleading (worst experience ever, OMG!) but had no confidence and hated it and certainly didnt' play any team sports. When I was a sophomore in college, some friends joined a gym and I decided to as well and read up on strength training and that began my interest in being active. Now, I run 3-5 times a week and occasionally weight train. I like biking, cross country skiing, kayaking, really anything active. I am terrible at sports (lol), a slow runner, will never win any awards, but its really fun to me to try. A HUGE change from who I was as a child. I am trying to do better for my kid and introduce the love of being active at a young age.
I did no sports. I don't know if it was a generational thing (growing up in the 70's I don't know anybody who did organized sports eta: outside of school teams) or a regional thing (like, most people in my town didn't)... Or, maybe my mom's weird issues made it so I didn't do sport. Who knows.
Gym class was it. And I sucked at it. Maybe the kids I didn't know well WERE all doing sports and I wasn't...
In adulthood, I've struggled to find something athletic I like to do. Skiing and snowboarding are stunningly beautiful, but GAWD do I suck at them. (Example, after my first skiing lesson my instructor said to me, "wow, you're a really good sport!"). Hiking is okay. Did Bikram Yoga almost obsessively for a while, and liked it, but didn't love. Various classes: Zumba, Nia... yeah, okay.
Currently, I'm doing C25K, which has had ups and downs. I'm only on Week 5, though, so I have no idea if I'll be able to stick with running in the long term. One thing that bodes well for it: all those fun kind of runs... run through bubbles! Run dressed like Wonder Woman! Run through mud! Might be enough to keep me interested.
Post by CallingAllAngels on Aug 4, 2015 9:52:11 GMT -5
I have a love/hate relationship with exercise and always have (played soccer, rode horses and swam as a kid). Now, I exercise 5-6 days a week. I can't decide if I hate it or if it's my happy place. I like the way I feel after. That's gotta be something, right?
My family did not have the time or the money to get me involved in sports.
They also weren't athletes themselves, so it wasn't a priority.
As I got older, I was jealous of my friends who played sports, but felt it was "too late" to start competing with kids who had been playing since they were 3.
As an adult, I've found activities that appeal to me. I run, I have a really fun intense weekly class at the gym, I try to incorporate active activities with my kids-- bike rides after dinner, hikes at local parks.
I did cross country and long distance track. Although, I have no desire to ever run again (I feel like I ran enough to last me a lifetime), I still enjoy exercise and staying active.
I tried a couple of different sports a season here and there but I would not call myself an athlete. I hate exercise now and hated it then. I don't like sweating.
I played golf competitively and also danced competitively for my entire childhood.
I wouldn't say I enjoy working out now. I really enjoy hiking, and that is a workout, so in a sense, yes, but I hike more for the peace and calm it gives me than for the workout. That's just a happy side effect.
Besides hiking 4-5 times a week (when weather cooperates), I don't do any other exercise.
I haaaaated gym class. It was stupid. But I was a three-sport athlete in junior high and high school, and did track and cross country in college. And I've found running love again. I like group exercise classes, too. I guess I feel like if there's purpose to the exercise, I'm going to enjoy it. Doing something just to do it pisses me off (which is probably why I hated gym class).
I said yes and yes, but I only did sports through middle school. I was in competitive gymnastics and loved it, but hated competing so I quit. It can be a sort of all or nothing sport, and not one that we actively encouraged for our kids. I wish I picked up another sport instead, but I had plenty of non athletic activities to keep me out of trouble. I started running post college, but didn't start racing until my 30's.