Scientific research shows that negative beliefs about our capacity for exercise can reduce our endurance and increase our discomfort. This will naturally make it much harder to summon the will to work out in the future.

We can also look out for ‘catastrophic thinking’ while we go about the exercise, and try to interpret feelings of exertion more objectively. If you have a dim view of your fitness, you might currently interpret the natural aches and pains and feelings of fatigue as a sign of your own ineptitude.

There is no substitute for auto-suggestion, or self-belief.

Understanding the power of mind-over-muscle might lead us to reconsider some of our core underlying beliefs about our fitness. For manifold reasons, we might assume that we simply aren’t cut out for exercise.