Find a gym, go. If you dont like it, find another. Keep going. 3x/week. Forever. Be humble, be curious, be friendly.
Start every gym session by running. If you cant run, jog. If you cant jog, walk. Exercize is _by far_ the most useful thing you can do for yourself. Other problems (like being lonely) become easier to fix or just fix themselves.
Exercise can be extremely beneficial. It can even be a diversion away from the pain of social isolation. I don't understand the odd stipulation of starting every gym session in any particular way.
For me a 5-10m jog at medium pace is a good way to warm up. Don't get tired, barely get out of breath, just stretch your muscles and get your body ready for the rest of the session.
I prefer neither. That's my point: one of the beauties of exercise is that there are so many ways to approach it. One of the most important keys to a sustainable exercise program is tailoring it to what works for the person doing it, not what works for other people. A person is far more likely to do what they enjoy doing rather than forcing themselves to do what other people enjoy doing.
I've done the whole "no stretching" thing before weightlifting when I was younger. It's led to injury every time, and that injury leads to 3-month breeaks.
Trading 10 minutes per session for a greatly increased chance of sticking with it indefinitely is the choice I make.
If you're lucky enough to not need stretching, or you do something like yoga so as to be pretty limber all the time, more power to you!
You were injured EVERY time you lifted without stretching? Sorry to be blunt, but I don't believe you. You were injured when you were younger and didn't stretch. That's two veriables, not one. If you actually injured yourself as often as you say you did when you were young and perhaps lifting weights without the necessary care, in addition to stretching, you probably also paid stricter attention to your form.
I lift weights with zero stretching. And the vast majority of people who've attended the gyms that I've gone to don't stretch.
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/34/5/324
No, I mean that within a few weeks of starting without stretching I'd get injured.
Form is definitely part of it, but I went through a few cycles of "start going to the gym, do sessions without stretching, get injured, take time off".
Stretching has increased the time between injuries. And moreover, when injuries have occurred after stretching it has been very obvious why the injury occurred (bad form or too-high weights) whereas before it felt like form was fine, weight was fine, but injury occurred anyway.
Yeah, don't abuse things, but I strongly believe that light physical exercise really reset a tons of stuff in your body and mind. Even if exercise is not the goal, it helps taking some distance and reach clarity.
> Other problems (like being lonely) become easier to fix or just fix themselves.
I think that if I succumbed to my first instinct and simply filled this response with the text equivalent of hysterical laughter I'd get another warning from dang to add to my collection. Instead I'll just say that personal experience disagrees with this statement emphatically.
My experience is that exercise is a great way to get in shape, and other problems in your life require their own solutions that are also hard work. Nothing ever just fixes itself.
Start every gym session by running. If you cant run, jog. If you cant jog, walk. Exercize is _by far_ the most useful thing you can do for yourself. Other problems (like being lonely) become easier to fix or just fix themselves.