Top Secret: The Most Effective Exercise Program Ever

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TL;DR The most effective exercise program is the one you will do.

Exercise Selection: Do what you enjoy.

Yep, it's that simple.  The exercise that you enjoy doing is the best exercise.  Exercise should not be suffering.  If you don't enjoy your exercise, it won't take much to get out of the habit.  We need to set ourselves up for success, not build in excuses (like misery).

There are limits to this of course. If your favorite form of exercise is snorkeling around coral and you live in Wisconsin like I do, you may not get much exercise.

Your goals are also important in choosing your exercise.  If you want big bulging biceps, daily jogs will not do you much good.  If you want to run a marathon, powerlifting 3x a week won't get you there.

If you have a very general goal of just getting into better shape, there is pretty much no limit on what is useful. If you don't have a lot of experience exercising, you may need to experiment.  Try things out and see what sticks.  Just to name a few, hiking, biking, lifting, strongman, CrossFit, swimming, yoga, tennis, basketball, rock climbing or paddling.  It really doesn't matter, they are all far superior to couch surfing.

Motivation: Customize your environment to what drives you.

The real tip I'd like to give here is to figure out is which of the four Rubin tendencies influences you when it comes to exercise?

• Upholders respond readily to outer and inner expectations
• Questioners question all expectations; they’ll meet an expectation if they think it makes sense
• Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike
• Obligers meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet expectations they impose on themselves

-Gretchen Rubin

If you are an upholder, you only need to set an expectation and most likely you don't need any help.  Questioners need to answer the question "Why should I do this?".  If you are an obliger, you will need to set up an external obligation such as a class, partner or at least an accountability partner who you check in with.  Rebels, as usual, are extra difficult.  One recommendation would be to find something unique as your exercise modality (e.g. one-handed bodyweight exercises) to shows how you are different.

My personal example would be the following.  In most things, I'm a questioner, but when it comes to exercise I'm an obliger.  I love lifting weights but don't much like running.  My current goal is to lose bodyfat, so adding in more cardio will be very helpful.  So what I've done is, I have a like minded training partner for lifting. This means I don't miss any weight training days because he expects me to be there.  For the running, I've set up after work running group. As the organizer, I am extremely obligated to attend. In both of these cases, I've used my obliger tendency to blast right past any excuses I might have for skipping a workout.  My goals and enjoyment map the route and my tendency is the ignition that gets me started.

Execution: Putting it all together.

The finding your personal combination of goals, enjoyment, and motivation style is a great way to get off your butt and get after it.  You may have to do some experimentation and introspection to figure out exactly what you enjoy and what gets you going, but it will be worth it. After that work is done, you won't have to exercise, you'll want to exercise and enjoy it.

Set yourself up for success and go kick some tail!