the modern social sports club. Its dual
goals are sports and charity through fun,
community-building competition. Since
2002 the club has created a coed network
of 60,000 “young professionals” and has
raised more than $525,000 for charities
chosen by the winners of touch football,
soccer, floor hockey, volleyball, kickball,
touch rugby, dodgeball, basketball, softball, and whiffle ball leagues.
risk money to achieve a goal. Go to stickK
.com, register for free in the “exercise & fitness community,” and then select a goal and
an amount you’ll risk to reach it (say, run
15 miles a week or lose $250). Then safely
surrender your credit card info. Each week
you’ll report, on the site, whether you’ve
kept your commitment (prone cheaters
should use a “Referee” who can go online
and report for them). If you can’t fulfill the
contract, your cash will go to a charity of
your choice (good), an anti-charity — like
a political issue you oppose (better), or a
sworn enemy (best). Research by stickK
.com suggests that this scenario makes you
three times more likely to succeed.
T E A M WO R K
It’s one of those obvious truths that we
often forget: Play is not work. It follows, for
many hardworking guys, that the best way
to stay fit is to do something fun. When
you’ve been in an office all day, the thought
of running around a basketball court or a
soccer field is simply more appealing than
doing virtual hill climbs on a treadmill or
mile after mile on an exercise bike.
Why It Works: “Lots of guys dislike the
we’ve all been here: after a month or so, going to your swell new
structure and perceived purposelessness
gym has become not just a chore, but a thrice-weekly Bataan death march. Free towels and
of using equipment in a gym that goes
well-lit elliptical trainers aren’t enough motivation to exercise. “When it comes to working
nowhere,” says Zizzi. “Many of us are more
out, there are intrinsic motivators — a belief in staying healthy — and extrinsic motivators
motivated by engaging in purposeful
— being spurred by competition,” says Sam Zizzi, a professor of sport and exercise psychol­activities, like team sports, which also don’t
ogy at West Virginia University. “A lot of guys prefer to be pushed.” To that end Zizzi has
seem like work. The drawback is that as
helped us compile four of the best methods for getting you back into your gym shorts.
we age, it’s more difficult to make these
sports a ‘regular’ activity. We need three
to five of these sorts of sessions a week to
Why It Works: Zizzi says all of this office,
­really get fit. An effective plan is using your
gym, and online betting can kick-start good
gym time during each sport’s ‘season’ to
habits: “This arrangement would work well
focus on being prepared for your compeif you have a good friend [to wager against]
tition. This strategy gives meaning to the
who you trust and you need the extra edge
purposeless bench press or leg press, and
C O L D, H A R D CAS H
of competition to get you started on a new
it will help increase your on-field speed
goal or health behavior. This technique
and strength, while helping prevent injury
You can’t buy big muscles. Even if you
probably would increase motivation, at least
in the valued recreational activity that you
inject hormones like HGH you still have
in the short term, because
choose.”
to do some actual heavy lifting. But ecoof the increased social supPut It Into Action: If you’re
nomics can help you get fit. What we’ve
DO IT FIRST THING
port, accountability, and the
a serious athlete, there are
learned from that fashionable branch of
Zizzi cautions against
making exercise the
forced priority the money
plenty of city club teams
the dismal science known as behavioral
last thing on your toplaces on the goal — assum— from Ultimate Frisbee
economics is this: People don’t always do
do list. He says you’re
ing the amount wagered is
to indoor soccer — attuned
what they claim they want to do, and inmore likely to stay
meaningful to you.”
to your highly competitive
centives can often get them to do things
motivated if you prioritize workouts. That
Put It Into Action: In 2008
needs. But for the middlethey might otherwise shirk.
means that you should
two professors and a grad
to lower-intensity workout
So why not just wager your way to bethit the gym as often as
student from Yale started
crowd, there are progrester gym results? Office bets and simple
possible in the mornings — or at least before
stickK (the second K is legal
sive places like ZogSports
stakes between gym partners — do 20
that five o’clock
shorthand for “contract”),
($85–$165; zogsports.org),
consecutive pull-ups by May 1, or buy your
fatigue sets in and you
which creates “commitment
in New York City and New
buddy dugout seats at a Yankees game —
really just want a beer.
contracts” that allow you to
Jersey, which epitomizes
are two approaches.
How to Stick with it
For most guys it’s the difference between keeping fit and
falling out of shape, but staying motivated is easier than you
think — with the right incentives. by charles bethea
64 m ay 2 0 0 9
clockwise fr om top left: s ha nnon stap leton/reuters ; g reg Ceo /
the i mag e ba nk/get t y images; phil ashley/stone+/g et t y i mag es
m e n ’ s j o u r na l
fro m top : courtesy otis ; dav i d frazi er /stone/get t y images
Mind&Body
A Marine Corps drill
instructor barks at
a recruit at Parris Island, South Carolina.
COMPETITION
Everyone knows that distance sports like
running, cycling, and swimming are great
forms of exercise, but many men find sticking with them difficult due to the monotony of pounding pavement. There’s a
cure: Sign up for a race. Performing well
at a competition — or at least not embarrassing ourselves — can be a powerful
motivator for those of us with any remaining pride in our physical abilities.
Why It Works: “Creating a realistic longterm goal, like competing in a race six
months from now, gives purpose to other­
wise arbitrary-seeming machines and
weights at the gym,” says Zizzi. “But a
long-term goal needs to be approached in
small steps that won’t overwhelm you. So
break up the period before a race or competition with realistic weekly or biweekly
goals that work within your daily schedule
— say, running 12 miles this week and 15
the next. Be sure that you allow yourself
some flexibility here. Too many constraints
may lead to frustration at the difficulty
— both physical and logistical — of the
training regime, which will undermine or
even destroy your motivation.”
Put It Into Action: Dr. Jon Woo’s one-week
Camp Marafiki ($1,000; kenyausa.com),
which takes place every August in Santa
Fe, New Mexico, is the top distance-running camp in the Western Hemisphere and
a great introduction to goal-setting and
learning the strategies involved in racing.
Amid the sagebrush and desert landscape,
you’ll learn from at least five world-class
instructors, including two-time U.S. marathon champion Mbarak Hussein.
h u miliation
Few of us have ever had to experience a
real, honest-to-goodness military boot
tive, it will have programmed you with
camp (or real combat, for that matter).
regular exercise habits.
But if you have, you can vouch for the
Put It Into Action: Jay Johnson’s Boot Camp
high level of motivation that basic surFitness, which operates in 14 Texas locavival exercises provide. As it turns out,
tions, including Dallas and Fort Worth, is
however, the relatively relaxed, civilian
typical of the boot camp experience: Logs,
versions of these training grounds — fittractor tires, sandbags, and firehoses, as
ness boot camps — are effective exercise
well as an innovative drill he calls the “SUV
motivators for regular guys, too.
push,” are all incorporated into Johnson’s
Why It Works: “Boot camps,” says Zizzi,
camp, which you’re supposed to attend at
“are really good at jump-starting guys —
least three times a week, for 60 minutes,
particularly competitive guys who have a
over the course of a month. No workout is
history of playing high school or recrerepeated, all are tailored to your fitness level,
ational sports — whose exercise routines
and, apparently, the bellowing is gentle.
have grown stale. They provide a novel
Not surprisingly, Johnson spent three
approach and a structure that’s geared
years as an army drill intoward accountability —
structor, and at his camp,
both to the group and the
MAKE IT QUICK
according to the website,
instructor. It’s tough to
Keep your workouts
short. One study sugthey “only yell motivating,
make this approach a pergests that short bursts
positive affirmations, upliftmanent solution to an
once or twice a day —
ing quotes, and we convince,
active lifestyle.” Many peohalf an hour at the
not confront.”
ple find the overtly aggres­
most — have the same
benefits as longer
As more and more boot
sive, often humiliating
workouts. The longer
camps open across the namilitaristic approach tirethe exercise routine,
tion, finding one close to
some, frustrating, or just
according to Zizzi, the
more you’ll dread havyou shouldn’t be too tough.
plain silly after a little while,
ing to do it, and the
Just Google “fitness boot
and cease to be sufficiently
harder it’ll be to keep
camp,” and that should do
motivated by it. But if a
at it week after week.
the trick. n
boot camp has been effec-