Study Finds Best Way to Reach Fitness Goals Is to Stop Being Such a Damn Wuss
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The best way to achieve fitness goals is to “get off your ass and stop being such a damn wuss,” according to research published today in the New England Journal of Tough Love. The findings seem certain to roil the sports psychology community, which has spent decades studying intrinsic v. extrinsic motivation and espousing things like accountability, incremental rewards, and short- and long-term goals.
“This research basically means you can take all of (that previous research) and toss it aside,” said Arley Ermey, Ph.D., the study’s lead author. “If you’re having trouble motivating yourself to get up and out the door for that run, bike ride, or yoga class, the single best way to make it happen is to stop being such a pathetic loser and do it already.”
“Stop being such a pathetic loser and do it already.”
“Seriously,” Ermey added. “Quit whining and go. Now.”
To conduct the study, Ermey and her colleagues recruited 762 healthy subjects, each assigned to one of three groups: Sedentary, active, and intermediate. Each group got instruction in traditional methods of motivation, such as “exercise with a friend” and “announce your goals on social media,” and then told to record their workouts for the next four weeks.
At the end of that period, each subject had logged an average of three exercise sessions. In addition, each subject recorded an average of 14 reasons they couldn’t or didn’t work out, including “Too cold,” “Too hot,” “Too busy,” “Tired,” “It’s raining,” “It might rain,” “Got distracted by cat videos,” “Will go tomorrow,” and “Just not feeling it.”
Subjects who reported the most success were, in the researchers’ words, “the ones who just stood up, did what they needed to do, and moved on, because they aren’t total wusses.”
Ermey said she was “saddened, but not surprised” by the results.
“I’ve known for a long time that humans, as a group, are soft and would rather make mealymouthed excuses all day than take that proverbial first step,” she said. “This study appears to confirm those beliefs, and that is the bad news.”
“The good news is that it’s easy to correct this,” she concluded. “Just stop being a wuss.”
