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Kettlebell How to make swings less boring ...

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How about sell her on 5x20 instead of 10x10. Teach her one handed and do 10 left 10 right or if she's really bored do 1L, 1R, 1L, etc. I work up to 32kg doing 20 at a time partially due to not ready the book correctly and partially to save time. Doing that and pushing towards the 5 minute goal while gasping for breath is not boring, hahaha. Get her a kettlebell kings adjustable comp bell and she can work her way up.
 
Is it just me, or does this rub the wrong way?
From the latest StrongFirst newsletter:
​
​
We take the ‘fun’ out of the ‘fundamentals.’​
​
Do you remember Miss Trunchbull?

She was the steely grade school principal in the classic children’s film Matilda. Miss Trunchbull had competed in the Olympics as a thrower and could outlift most women and men. She famously stated: “If you are having fun, you are not learning.”

Well said, Ma’am.

Recently a gentleman posted a question on our forum: “How to make swings less boring?” He was having a hard time getting his daughter to do swings and more swings.

Another community member, a teacher who must have interned with Miss Trunchbull, had the answer: “Create an environment where she learns how to sustain boredom.”

StrongFirst is proud to take the ‘fun’ out of the ‘fundamentals’ with our new StrongFirst Fundamentals 3-Pack: kettlebell + barbell + bodyweight video courses.​

I, for one, am all for putting the "fun" back in the fundamentals...

Mind you, the Gradgrinds and Trunchbulls do have a way of straddling and strangling this issue:

 
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DuncanGB said:
Is it just me, or does this rub the wrong way?
Click to expand...

It doesn't rub me the wrong way or offend me.

But as marketer, I would love to do an A/B test on two email campaigns, one saying "we take the fun out" and another talking about "how to make it fun" and see which does better.

Prime facie, I'm not necessarily convinced that bootcamp-esque "suck it up" messaging widens audience appeal. Thus, it would be interesting to test.

But...this is getting way off topic...
 
DuncanGB said:
Is it just me, or does this rub the wrong way?
From the latest StrongFirst newsletter:
​
​
We take the ‘fun’ out of the ‘fundamentals.’​
​
Do you remember Miss Trunchbull?

She was the steely grade school principal in the classic children’s film Matilda. Miss Trunchbull had competed in the Olympics as a thrower and could outlift most women and men. She famously stated: “If you are having fun, you are not learning.”

Well said, Ma’am.

Recently a gentleman posted a question on our forum: “How to make swings less boring?” He was having a hard time getting his daughter to do swings and more swings.

Another community member, a teacher who must have interned with Miss Trunchbull, had the answer: “Create an environment where she learns how to sustain boredom.”

StrongFirst is proud to take the ‘fun’ out of the ‘fundamentals’ with our new StrongFirst Fundamentals 3-Pack: kettlebell + barbell + bodyweight video courses.​

I, for one, am all for putting the "fun" back in the fundamentals...

Mind you, the Gradgrinds and Trunchbulls do have a way of straddling and strangling this issue:

Click to expand...

Yeah, it does rub me the wrong way. By far my first priority in my training is whether it is fun. Life is short and in many situations we don't have free choice. In choosing training drills and programs we do. One of my favorite quotations is by GK Chesterton: “It is not only possible to say a great deal in praise of play; it is really possible to say the highest things in praise of it. It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.”

Discipline is a fine thing, taken in moderation. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and do what you have to do. However, I don't really want to live my life on the basis of forcing myself to do things I'd rather not do. And I certainly would not like to live my life with the mindset that every moment and decision is a test that I have to pass by forcing myself to make the less pleasant choice.

It's good to have discipline when you need it, but I'd rather be able to avoid needing it as much as possible.

One of my life rules is: "Set the alarm for the time you want to get up and get up when it rings. The snooze button does not exist."

I get up at 3:45 every workday. This is not at all a matter of discipline, and takes zero willpower. I have to be at work early, don't like to feel rushed, and like some quiet time to shower, dress, walk the dog, make and eat breakfast, have coffee, read the newspaper, and mentally prepare for my day. So I get up early enough to do those things. Instead of considering this discipline, I look at it as doing things the way I prefer (as opposed to discipline being forcing yourself to do something you would prefer not to do).

IMO, the key to sticking with a program is picking a program you can stick with. Make it what you want to do, instead of what you need to force yourself to do, whether it's committing to specific structured program, or designing a framework for more freestyle programming (or anywhere in between).

This takes a bit of honest self-reflection to figure out, but it's a lot easier, and takes a lot less willpower and discipline, to do something you really want to do. Then, once you make the decision, you can set your mind that there isn't any more decision making from that point forward (or at least for a reasonably long period before you reevaluate). If you have to make a new decision every day to stick to a program, that takes a lot more willpower and discipline than just deciding once. It's very liberating not to have to make a choice.

Maybe this is all just a semantic game I play with myself, but I think there's actually a substantive difference between having a little person inside your head cracking a whip and yelling, "You HAVE to do this!," and having a little person inside your head saying, "Now you GET to do this!" Partly it's a difference in mindset, but more than that it's figuring out how to make compromises (almost everything in life is a compromise) that are easier to live with rather than harder to live with.

But then I also think that a big part of the disconnect here is not fun vs no fun, but more "what do you consider fun?" Another favorite quotation is by Theodore Roosevelt: "Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."
 
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Steve W. said:
Yeah, it does rub me the wrong way. By far my first priority in my training is whether it is fun. Life is short and in many situations we don't have free choice. In choosing training drills and programs we do. One of my favorite quotations is by GK Chesterton: “It is not only possible to say a great deal in praise of play; it is really possible to say the highest things in praise of it. It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.”

Discipline is a fine thing, taken in moderation. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and do what you have to do. However, I don't really want to live my life on the basis of forcing myself to do things I'd rather not do. And I certainly would not like to live my life with the mindset that every moment and decision is a test that I have to pass by forcing myself to make the less pleasant choice.

It's good to have discipline when you need it, but I'd rather be able to avoid needing it as much as possible.

One of my life rules is: "Set the alarm for the time you want to get up and get up when it rings. The snooze button does not exist."

I get up at 3:45 every workday. This is not at all a matter of discipline, and takes zero willpower. I have to be at work early, don't like to feel rushed, and like some quiet time to shower, dress, walk the dog, make and eat breakfast, have coffee, read the newspaper, and mentally prepare for my day. So I get up early enough to do those things. Instead of considering this discipline, I look at it as doing things the way I prefer (as opposed to discipline being forcing yourself to do something you would prefer not to do).

IMO, the key to sticking with a program is picking a program you can stick with. Make it what you want to do, instead of what you need to force yourself to do, whether it's committing to specific structured program, or designing a framework for more freestyle programming (or anywhere in between).

This takes a bit of honest self-reflection to figure out, but it's a lot easier, and takes a lot less willpower and discipline, to do something you really want to do. Then, once you make the decision, you can set your mind that there isn't any more decision making from that point forward (or at least for a reasonably long period before you reevaluate). If you have to make a new decision every day to stick to a program, that takes a lot more willpower and discipline than just deciding once. It's very liberating not to have to make a choice.

Maybe this is all just a semantic game I play with myself, but I think there's actually a substantive difference between having a little person inside your head cracking a whip and yelling, "You HAVE to do this!," and having a little person inside your head saying, "Now you GET to do this!" Partly it's a difference in mindset, but more than that it's figuring out how to make compromises (almost everything in life is a compromise) that are easier to live with rather than harder to live with.

But then I also think that a big part of the disconnect here is not fun vs no fun, but more "what do you consider fun?" Another favorite quotation is by Theodore Roosevelt: "Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."
Click to expand...
Thank you so much for this post!
I agree with you 10000000%
Not only training should be fun, but it is proven that having fun while training increases dopamine wich among other things:
-accelerates learning
-creates new neural connections
-improves mental focus
-improves willpower

So in this particular case i'm going to have to disagree with the assessment that training should be boring, from a practical standpoint, as well as philosophical.
The only reason I train with kettlebells is because I LOVE them, and the only reason I come to this forum to learn is because I LOVE this community!
 
Erik Hournou said:
So in this particular case i'm going to have to disagree with the assessment that training should be boring, from a practical standpoint, as well as philosophical.
Click to expand...
East-West: Tao-Epicurean or Zen-Stoic?

Boring / Fun: two very different experiences depending on which camp you find yourself better suited to...

[Who's to say that the masochistic mountaineer does not get as many, if not more, dopamine benefits than the jauntiest of jugglers?]

Steve W. said:
Partly it's a difference in mindset, but more than that it's figuring out how to make compromises (almost everything in life is a compromise) that are easier to live with rather than harder to live with.
Click to expand...
Trade-offs and how one relates... how much one is capable of changing how one relates to something...

I begin an A+A session a happy-go-lucky Epicurean-Daoist but, as the repeats pile up, start to enjoy the Zen calm of grim Stoicism descending...

[When it comes to Ms. Trunchbull's School of Strength, however, you'll find me juggling in the park]
 
watchnerd said:
The Mind Pump guys had this to say about having fun:

Click to expand...


This is great! I totally agree with the second guy, in the pink shirt. That's my kind of "fun" and I think most people here probably feel that way which is why they spend time on the forum talking about training. Focus, achievement of mastery, attention to detail, learning while doing, enjoying the process... that IS "fun". But that doesn't describe most people. So I think the "StrongFirst is proud to take the ‘fun’ out of the ‘fundamentals’" quote is capturing that aspect. What we think is fun isn't what most people think is fun. We are different than the mainstream.

I know that most people (like, everyone in my extended family, haha) aren't that "into" exercise, and that is NOT fun to them. They want to do whatever minimum dose of exercise keeps them healthy and they don't want to put focus and brainpower into it -- which certainly describes me for other important things -- for example, cooking. And they might be the opposite. So in that case, lighthearted fun is really important to keep them in the game.
 
Anna C said:
This is great! I totally agree with the second guy, in the pink shirt. That's my kind of "fun" and I think most people here probably feel that way which is why they spend time on the forum talking about training. Focus, achievement of mastery, attention to detail, learning while doing, enjoying the process... that IS "fun". But that doesn't describe most people. So I think the "StrongFirst is proud to take the ‘fun’ out of the ‘fundamentals’" quote is capturing that aspect. What we think is fun isn't what most people think is fun. We are different than the mainstream.

I know that most people (like, everyone in my extended family, haha) aren't that "into" exercise, and that is NOT fun to them. They want to do whatever minimum dose of exercise keeps them healthy and they don't want to put focus and brainpower into it -- which certainly describes me for other important things -- for example, cooking. And they might be the opposite. So in that case, lighthearted fun is really important to keep them in the game.
Click to expand...
Yeah... I don’t know how many times people in my family, co-workers, or casual acquaintances shake their heads and say something along the lines of... “...and you do this for FUN???”
 
offwidth said:
Yeah... I don’t know how many times people in my family, co-workers, or casual acquaintances shake their heads and say something along the lines of... “...and you do this for FUN???”
Click to expand...

Yeah, I get that a lot.

Or:

"Aren't you too old to do this?"
 
I am with the newsletter sentiment 100%.

I'm in this to improve myself. Fun isn't part of the equation. My "fun" lies in getting better.

-S-

DuncanGB said:
Is it just me, or does this rub the wrong way?
From the latest StrongFirst newsletter:
​
​
We take the ‘fun’ out of the ‘fundamentals.’​
​
Do you remember Miss Trunchbull?

She was the steely grade school principal in the classic children’s film Matilda. Miss Trunchbull had competed in the Olympics as a thrower and could outlift most women and men. She famously stated: “If you are having fun, you are not learning.”

Well said, Ma’am.

Recently a gentleman posted a question on our forum: “How to make swings less boring?” He was having a hard time getting his daughter to do swings and more swings.

Another community member, a teacher who must have interned with Miss Trunchbull, had the answer: “Create an environment where she learns how to sustain boredom.”

StrongFirst is proud to take the ‘fun’ out of the ‘fundamentals’ with our new StrongFirst Fundamentals 3-Pack: kettlebell + barbell + bodyweight video courses.​
Click to expand...
 
In contrast to finding Miss Trunchbull's words - "If you are having fun, you are not learning" - quoted without a shred of irony, it was a pleasure to read in the most recent StrongFirst newsletter this, so to speak, uplifting quotation:

In The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, the great scientist Richard Feynman wrote: “Each generation that discovers something from its experience must pass that on, but it must pass that on with a delicate balance of respect and disrespect, so that the race does not inflict its errors too rigidly on its youth, but it does pass on the accumulated wisdom… It is necessary to teach both to accept and to reject the past with a kind of balance that takes considerable skill...”​
​
Edit: Surely this beats taking "the fun out of the fundamentals"
 
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DuncanGB said:
In contrast to finding Miss Trunchbull - "If you are having fun, you are not learning" - being quoted without a trace of irony, it was a pleasure to read in the most recent StrongFirst newsletter, so to speak, this uplifting quotation:

In The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, the great scientist Richard Feynman wrote: “Each generation that discovers something from its experience must pass that on, but it must pass that on with a delicate balance of respect and disrespect, so that the race does not inflict its errors too rigidly on its youth, but it does pass on the accumulated wisdom… It is necessary to teach both to accept and to reject the past with a kind of balance that takes considerable skill...”​
Click to expand...
Feynman was a very interesting character. Even if you are not a physics geek, his two books of anecdotes about his life, "Surely, You're Joking Mr. Feynman" and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" are well worth checking out.
 
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