When I pass a group exercise session on my way to the climbing wall, I hear the fitness instructor yell over the pumping music: “Are we having fun yet”? It was quite obvious that the participants worked hard to finish their reps but none of them smiled when they struggled to complete their workouts. I was wondering why they should have had fun? Why did not the instructor ask, for example, if the exercisers were working hard or if they felt their muscles were working? I am still so preoccupied with the need to have fun in exercise classes that I ask one of my climber friends what he thinks of having fun while exercising might mean. He thinks of fun in climbing in terms of three different types: type 1, type 2, and type 3.

Type 1: you knew it was going to be fun, it is fun while you do it, and afterwards you want to do it again. Light, fluffy, joy.

Type 2: you weren't sure it would be fun, it probably wasn't entirely pleasant while you did it, but you will remember it forever as one of the best times of your life, and you could be convinced to try it one more time.

Type 3: you weren't sure it would be fun and it certainly was not. Nothing could make you try it again. But you can see how someone else a little crazier than you could enjoy it.

As he goes on to emphasize, most people do not feel the need to know about types 2 and 3 and this method of categorization only works if one respects the subjective nature of fun as an emotional ‘state’. So, he thinks that climbing is not always fun but seems to still assume that it should be fun most of the time, otherwise one will not do it again. Fun obviously needs to be an integral aspect of exercise experience. So what can it mean to have fun?

Already in the 1950s, Huizinga theorized that a search for enjoyment, life meaning, and fulfilment through play, movement, and physical activity are part of the essential fabric of Man. This Homo Ludens or “Playing Man” crystalized the idea of “play as an act of freedom, distinct from ordinary life, and disconnected from material interest or profit.” Exercise is definitely distinct from ordinary life, but is it devoid of material interests of profit? To follow Huizinga, we need to first know why the exercisers are taking their exercise classes. Previous research has demonstrated that many exercisers do not workout as ‘an act of freedom’ but are there to lose weight, to tone up, to stay fit, or to avoid related illnesses such as cardio-vascular disease, diabetes, or osteoporosis. In Huizinga’s sense, they don’t really seek enjoyment. So why does the instructors still want them to have fun?

Another theorist often connected to a need to have ‘fun’ is Csikszentmihalyi. He coined the term ‘flow’, which he described as an optimal state of consciousness and heightened awareness achieved when the challenge of the task is perfectly matched to the skill level of the participant/ . Put more concretely, ‘flow’ is connected to ‘fun’ because individuals are fully immersed in the present moment and in the task at hand to the point where they often lose perception of time. People in a state of flow often talk about how they feel fully alive and how their senses and perceptions are amplified.

An exerciser would then have fun when immersed in what she is doing. The ‘fun’ of ‘flow’ would thus be connected to the present and the experience of moving or exercising itself, rather than to the various ‘positive’ future outcomes to be reaped from exercising (e. ., weight loss, body shape, health). To create possibilities for flow experience, the instructors should continually make sure that the exercisers keep their minds into what they are doing. ‘Mindful’ exercise practices such as yoga or Pilates often emphasize such , but if the emphasis shifts into weight loss or developing long and lean muscles as a result of exercise, the possibility for a ‘flow’ experience is lost. It does not always seem very obvious that instructors are attempting to guide participants toward a flow state, but they still want them to have fun. Is there fun without flow’?

Sport and exercise psychologists talk about fun as a way to motivate people to exercise. We know that many women don’t like to exercise or need someone to push them to go to a class or to start an exercise routine. Even if we know that exercise is good for us, we need extra to take on a workout. As one exercise psychologist puts it: her task is to make people do something they don’t want to do, something that is not fun. We like to do fun things. So, if we can be asked to think that exercise is fun even if it is not, then we will work harder. It is quite paradoxical that we are asked to have fun when we clearly are not enjoying ourselves. We exercisers know this, but thinking of fun might help us to complete our exercise routines.

These examples show that ‘fun’ and ‘flow’ have been subordinated to the goal of motivating people to stay physically active and fit. When we think of fun as a motivational tool for a positive exercise outcome, we have, nevertheless, lost the fun or enjoyment in Huizinga’s or Csikszentmihalyi’s sense. If we follow these theorists, we would need to either make exercise something that people engage in as an act of freedom or something that they like doing. Therefore, it is possible to argue that exercisers who like to workout, also enjoy it and have fun. In addition, one would need to focus on what one is doing to optimize possibilities for flow experiences. If one likes to exercise, it is perhaps easier to think about what one is actually doing. Committed exercisers might already do this, but what about the ones who are ‘unmotivated’? How to make them like exercise and actually think what they are doing in their classes? How can they have fun?

While ‘fun’ and achieving ‘flow’ might be seen as important motivational tools to keep people physically active, I would argue that the way we currently practice sport and physical activity is perhaps not the most conducive to helping exercisers have ‘fun’ through ‘flow’ or to develop connections with their bodies. This is because achieving ‘flow’ has been subordinated to other ‘fitness’ and ‘health-related’ outcomes (e.g., losing weight, achieving a certain body type). To think of fun differently as a ‘flow state’, it is important to think of the actual movements one is performing. We can also question if it is necessary to do the ‘stuff’ that one hates the most? We have plenty of different exercise forms and types of physical activity. For example, I prefer climbing because I love the fluidity of the movement, the technical skills involved, and the ‘puzzling’ out of various problems and technical difficulties. It allows me to exercise outdoors in the mountains, and to be relatively independent in comparison to team sports or sports which require an ‘adversary.’

We can also challenge the necessity of having fun. Does and can every aspect of exercise be ‘fun?’ My climbing has aspects that are not always fun, but I still climb because the overall enjoyment, sense of personal fulfilment, and friendships I have made through it far outweigh the times when I am not having fun. According to Huizinga and Csikszentmihalyi, enjoyment or flow cannot be connected to obtaining results. They are not means to an end. But does this mean that one cannot enjoy any end results? Can this be a form of enjoyment?

It is not that easy to define what having ‘fun’ means or should mean and perhaps there lies the real question. As Jackson (2000) argued, fun remains “a slippery fuzzy term”. I agree that ‘fun’ is subjective, contextual, and relational, but is ‘fun’ only a matter of personal preference, ‘taste’, or subjective state of ‘flow’? Our experiences and understandings of ‘fun’ are also deeply cultural. In other words, our ‘individual’ experiences and understandings of ‘fun’ in sport and physical activity are also connected to preferred social meanings and preferred ways of understanding the body and movement, and people, and relationships in a gym or a yoga studio. I do not mean to promote more boring forms of exercise or ask people not to have ‘fun’. Rather we might reflect having or not having ‘fun’ more carefully as we go out to participate or teach, so that we allow for broader ways of understanding the body and movement and practicing physical activity and sport to emerge.

Because no one knows exactly what having fun means, perhaps next time we can answer an instructor asking if we are having fun: “No, but we are working hard and focusing!”

Works cited

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1998). Optimal experience: Psychological studies of flow in consciousness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Huizinga, J. (1950). Homo Ludens. Boston: Beacon Press.

Jackson, S.A., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1999). Flow in sports: The keys to optimal experiences and performances. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Publishers.

Copyright: Zoe Avner, University of Alberta