Why telling people to exercise more rarely works – and the more effective alternative

The article below is an excerpt from my newsletter: Well Enough with Harry Bullmore. To get my latest thoughts on fitness and wellbeing pop your email address into the box above to get the newsletter direct to your inbox.

Exercise is good for you. Brilliant, in fact, by nearly every objective measure. For this reason, the world is full of fit people telling less fit people to do more exercise – but this rarely works. Why?

There’s a quote I love from my chat with experienced trainer, author and all-round sensible chap Ben Carpenter.

“Fitness professionals are hardcore exercise enthusiasts who often don’t know how to empathise with people who are not also hardcore exercise enthusiasts.”

This causes a massive divide between those who exercise and those who don’t.

Those who exercise regularly (group A) often built this habit as a child. Exercising regularly is their default, they are good at it, it feels fantastic, and (as with anyone who has ever hit a dopamine goldmine) they are keen to encourage others to do it too.

But for those who don’t exercise regularly (group B), it doesn’t feel good or natural at first – quite the opposite, actually. This is especially true when a member of group A recommends they start with a high-octane exercise class or hardcore workout programme.

No one is in the wrong – we are all just playing the cards we have been dealt. But there is a solution: start where you are, not where you want to be.

To do this, it is important to realise there is no one-size-fits-all fitness plan. The same workouts will affect people differently depending on individual factors such as genetics, environment and training experience.

This means, when a fitness figure or influencer tells you, “You can look like me by doing exactly as I do,” you would do well to question it.

Instead, it’s best to find a fitness routine that meets you where you’re at. (I think this plan from coach Darren Ellis offers a good framework for getting started, alongside a few options to scale it to your specific needs.)

If you currently don’t do any exercise, adding any new healthy behaviours into your regular daily routine will likely see an uptick in your fitness fortunes. For example, an extra portion of fruit and veg, a walk or a short mobility session.

If you’re a seasoned runner or gym-goer wanting further fitness progress, you need to upgrade the intensity of your existing workouts. For example, quickening your paces during interval sessions or adding a few extra kilos to the barbell for your next set of squats.

In both situations, picking appropriate workouts for you and progressing them in line with your fitness levels is the key to long-term success.

It’s also worth noting that exercise doesn’t always feel good at first, especially if you bite off more than you can chew.

I remember listening to elite coach Chris Hinshaw describe a running session he did with a former professional powerlifter who wanted to learn how to sprint. Powerlifters are juggernaut figures who excel at lifting heavy barbells, but they are often less adept at moving their own bodies.

So, Hinshaw gave his client a beginner sprinting drill he knew the athlete could excel at. “The first bite of the apple has to taste good,” Hinshaw later explained. Spurred on by his early success, the motivated athlete continued to work on his sprinting.

Perhaps hypocritically, given the intro, I am now going to tell you that exercise does ultimately end up feeling inexplicably good. My recent interview with 47-year-old Irishman David Keohan reinforced this belief.

“In my 20s I was into art and music and drinking and smoking,” he told me. “I was obese and unhealthy, mentally and physically. Then you get to your 30s and your body says, ‘Hold on a second, we need to start doing something about this, kid’.”

So, he went and bought a pair of trainers, fending off questioning glances from the man behind the till. Within six months he had run his first marathon. In the next few years he became a world champion at lifting kettlebells. Then, during Covid lockdowns, he started lifting huge boulders in his garden and stumbled across the lost Irish culture of stone lifting (this is one of my favourite recent interviews).

“I got bitten by the bug of feeling good,” Keohan continues. “Before, I never knew what feeling good felt like, if that makes any sense? But once you start to feel good, it’s amazing, and you realise how bad you felt for the last 10 years.”

Now, you don’t have to lift 170kg stones in your back garden to get in shape. This is an extreme example. But it does pay to do something slightly challenging (for you) on a fairly regular basis – whether that’s a short walk or a gnarly workout.

Because eventually, I’m afraid to say, exercise does have a tendency of making you feel rather good.

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