Without a Doubt, the Right Doubts Can Keep You Exercising

By Kevin Kolodziejski 

Unless you do all your cycling in Senegal or some other sweltering spot, here’s what I want to know.  How do you handle what those near the equator never experience, what I call the less-than-holy winter trinity? You know, lack of sunlight, slippery roads, and bitter cold.

Here’s something you already know. Exercise is one of the best things you can do for your health. It’s knowledge that leads you to break a sweat far more days than not.

But what do you do when that less-than-holy winter trinity forces your cycling and all other exercise to be done indoors day after day after day — and your desire to perspire flies so far south it’s surrounded by a flock of Arctic Terns? And while you may not know Arctic Terns are migratory birds that breed in the place for which they are named and when it turns cold fly straight past Guatemala, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Argentina to inhabit ice slabs floating around Antarctica, psychologists do know what’s happening to you. It’s called “decisional conflict” and is defined as “the struggle between continuing toward a goal or disengaging.”

Let the Shrink-Speak Begin

Disengaging, my friend, is simply shrink-speak for quitting. If decisional conflict persists and intensifies, it leads to an “action crisis,” which can make quitting seem to be the only solution to the conflict and stress you’re experiencing.

Fortunately, there’s a shrink out there who’s done a study that could be a real boon if that aforementioned unholy trinity ever creates an exercise action crisis in you. Dr. Patrick Carroll, professor of psychology at The Ohio State University at Lima, who authored a study published online in the journal Self and Identity last December about what can keep an action crisis from sabotaging any goal.  The gist of which can be summarized this way if you’re keen on repetitive word play. That it’s actually good for people to have doubts if those doubts are doubts about their doubts.

Now whether such witticism tickles your fancy or not, here’s what the doc had 267 people do: respond to statements using an action crisis scale, with the key one referring to an identity goal — more shrink-speak for a long-term objective centered on who you want to become in life. “I doubt whether I should continue striving for my goal or disengage from it.” Then the doc played dirty for the greater good of science.  He lied to the participants.

Let the Lying Begin

He claimed to be involved in a second unrelated study and asked half to write about a specific situation in their lives when they felt confidence in their thinking. The other half were asked to write about a specific situation when they experienced doubt in their thinking. Carroll lied because he didn’t want the participants reflecting upon their identity goal until after the writing assignment. At which time the participants were asked how committed they actually were to it, with response options ranging from “very” to “not at all.”

What Carroll discovered was that the participants who had written about a time they felt confidence in their thinking and were labeled doubtful according to the action crisis scale were less committed to achieving their identity goal when compared to participants who had had written about a time when they experienced doubt in their thinking and were also labeled doubtful according to the action crisis scale. What this tells Carroll is what he told Jeff Grabmeier in a university press release about the study: “inducing doubts in one’s doubts can provide a formula for confidence.” To help you engender some of that good stuff, let’s go back and add details to the opening scenario.

Let the Embellishment Begin

Let’s say that you really have no aversion to exercising indoors at the gym . . . well, that is until you’re forced to do so day after day after day because of bad weather.  Then a different less-than-holy trinity begins to eat at you. The equipment hogging, the savage grunting, and especially the less-than-aromatic intermingling of industrial cleaners, air fresheners, and body odors that seems the worst around the water cooler.  And you’re feeling a bit burned out to boot.

So after your usual day off, you take another. You rationalize this because you spent 90 minutes shoveling a good eight inches of heavy snow before leaving for work late, which means you’re working late again, but the fact of the matter is you can’t bear the thought of going back to the gym no matter what time of day.  When you still feel that way the following day, guess what my friend? A full-blown action crisis is underway.

You are now seriously wondering if you’ll ever go back to the gym. But there are ways to employ prior doubts to get you back there.

Let the Reminiscing Begin

One of the ways I keep the following scenario from ever occurring (even though there are many mornings getting my workout started is a major undertaking) is by paging through past workout journals. I search for entries that begin with doubts about trying to exercise hard that day —or even exercise at all — but then end with a red-ink addendum that despite my misgivings the workout went better than I could’ve ever imagined. I’ve logged dozens of entries like that throughout the years, and rereading them and then reminiscing is the mental equivalent to swilling five shots of espresso.

But if journal writing is something you don’t do, simply give yourself a talking to.  Not a tough-love tirade, just a decaffeinated request. To remember that all-is-right-with-the-world feeling that comes just after a just-right ride or any just-right dose of any exercise. How your thoughts afterward now seem clearer, your meals seem tastier, and tasks easier.

There’s no doubt that, regardless of the weather, recalling this afterglow will overcome any and all exercise doubt.

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Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.

A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.