My #1 secret to sticking with exercise long-term

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Hey friends — I’ve gotten a few interesting reader questions in comments, DMs, and the Substack chat lately and thought I’d solicit a few more for an Ask Me Anything. You all really came through! Though I have to admit I was hoping there might be a few more softballs — like, really, no one wants to know my cats’ names or like my favorite snack or something? — but I also kind of love how deep and tough many of these questions were. I’m going to break this into two parts, so let’s dive in to the first set of questions, and I’ll come back next week with the second half. This week, we’ll talk about soreness, getting back into exercise after an injury, how to work your triceps, and my surprising approach to getting yourself to stick to a workout routine long-term.

Also: I recorded myself reading through all of this so if you’d prefer more of a podcast format, please feel free to take a listen! You can do that in the Substack app, or in your favorite podcast player.

I would love tips for how to avoid soreness, and what to do to reduce duration of soreness once it hits. When I do get sore, it's always multiple days, often close to a week, and I'm curious what I maybe could be doing to reduce the duration?

And from another reader: I’m curious for your take on soreness — when I had a bad relationship with exercise I wanted to always be sore because then I could feel like I accomplished something = good person = people will like me. Obviously trying to separate myself from that thinking, but is it good to be sore?