How to Get into Shape: Enjoy Yourself

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Outside Magazine, May 2005

Fitness Special
Play's the Thing
Fit should be synonymous with fun. So stop working out and start acting like a kid again. With help from fitness experts, pro athletes, and groundbreaking coaches, we'll show you how playing your favorite games leads to a lifetime of high-energy health.

By Ted Spiker


	THE PLAYER: Jeremy Bloom (Photograph by Cliff Watts)

Want to get in shape? Don't think about it.

Last winter, freestyle skier Jeremy Bloom completed a phenomenal run of six wins in a row on the World Cup moguls circuit, including a title on the same course he could face at next year's Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. This dream streak continues a career that includes a world-championship bumps crown in 2003. Given the intensity of competition at that level, you'd probably assume that the 23-year-old Coloradan has to focus on skiing to the exclusion of everything else.

But you'd be wrong—Bloom is an all-around athlete, and his idea of an off-season from skiing has been to put on a football helmet and catch passes for the University of Colorado, which he did in 2002 and 2003. Why attempt to compete in the elite ranks of both football and skiing? "Because it's fun," says Bloom. "I love both sports, and playing them kept me healthy and mentally fresh all year."

Bloom doesn't play both anymore—he recently lost a famous dispute with the NCAA, which ruled that his pro

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skiing career meant he couldn't maintain amateur status in football—but he still finds ways to turn training into a good time. Two years ago, he tackled and won the Superstars competition, an event that puts top athletes from various sports head to head in a multi-event format. The challenge certainly wasn't on Bloom's training schedule, but it didn't matter. Superstars was just another fun thing he wanted to do—and win.

Somewhere between the treadmill and the dumbbells, the unused gym memberships, and the fad exercise programs, many of us have lost what Bloom cherishes: an attitude toward health and fitness that's rooted in the concept of schoolyard recess.



	KICKBACK SWAG: The CASCADIA trail-running shoe from BROOKS uses medial and lateral posts to prevent tweaked ankles, plus a low-profile foot position for better feel for the earth below. $90; www.brooksrunning.com (Illustration by Jonathan Carlson)

Remember when exercise was easy? Back then, you experienced the joy of playing a game, gathering friends together at the park or court, laughing whether you won or lost, and losing track of time.

But as we grow older, something happens. "Many of us have adopted a mandatory-labor approach to exercise," says Doug Newburg, 44, a performance consultant at the University of Virginia Medical School, in Charlottesville. "We now work out because we have to, not because we want to."

Natalie Durand-Bush, 34, an assistant professor of sports and health psychology at the University of Ottawa, in Ontario, Canada, agrees. "Unfortunately, all anyone cares about are the results," she says, adding that this mind-set eventually leads to a fitness meltdown. To find that out, Durand-Bush interviewed multiple Olympic medalists and asked for the secrets of their success. She learned that play was far more important than most people realize. "Even when their training grew more serious leading up to a competition," she says, "the athletes balanced it with play—if they enjoyed something, they'd do it."

Enjoying yourself sounds like good advice to us, and it's a spirit that permeates the pages ahead. To help you achieve a lifelong commitment to fitness, we found high-intensity workouts masquerading as games and lots of ways to make old sports fresh again. We dug up smart fixes to boring regimens. And we sussed out the cream of this year's gear crop—because everybody knows nothing makes you go out and romp like a sweet piece of new equipment.

So put away those scripted training plans and stale workouts. Want to stay in shape and love it? Then it's time to get serious about having fun.

Next Page: To stay with your game and maintain long-term commitment to fitness inspired by sports, you need to enjoy what you do and set attainable goals to keep yourself motivated. Below is a sport-by-sport guide to putting these elements for success into enjoyable practice. Let the games begin.

TED SPIKER is a fitness writer and an associate professor of journalism at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

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