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Is drumming my only exercise?

**ABSTRACT**:  Over the past few weeks I have been examining the amount of days in which I partake in some sort of physical activity. I knew that I typically only exercised through playing my drums, and even then it would have to be a day where I was very active rather than slowly learning a song or practicing a technique. Hoping to exercise regularly, and to add in more forms of exercise, I set out to track my progress.

**INTRODUCTION**:  Since I stopped taking P.E. as a class, I began to get into the habit of not exercising. I was no longer required to go to the gym, so I never took it upon myself to go. I had the desire to do so, but junior year took away much of my free time. Since then, the little time I have had I have largely spent playing video games, watching television on Netflix, or playing my drums. I could be exercising, but I don’t. I hoped to examine how often I exercise and analyze why I exercise so infrequently.

**IMPLEMENTATION**: The intent of this project was for me to motivate myself to exercise. Therefore, my approach towards motivating myself was through focusing on the idea of self-improvement. It was largely psychological. Simply thinking about this project would lead me towards thinking about when and what I could do to exercise. The data I would record would simply consist of the dates I exercised, and what that exercise consisted of. I defined exercise to be any activity that caused me to sweat. I looked to begin with the one element of exercise that was regularly in my schedule; drumming. I believed that my first step should be to practice drumming more often. Afterwards, I would try to find what exercises I would be able to incorporate into my daily routine. Then I would try to implement these exercises regularly. Unfortunately, I never quite passed the first 2 steps. I struggled to motivate myself to even play my drums, something I love to do, more often.

**RESULTS**:

Examining the data of my research, I was disappointed to find that I had only exercised a total of 5 times in the 24 days I was involved in this experiment. 4 of those days, I exercised by drumming. On only 1 day did I exercise in a way that was not typical. This was at Sky High, as part of the bioscience senior night. I wasn’t surprised to see that I did not exercise often, as it has been my routine for the past 2 years. What I was surprised at was seeing how infrequently I play my drums. It appears as though I will play one day and then I would do so again on a day soon after. I wouldn’t get around to playing again until at least a week later. This is just a conjecture, due to the limited time frame of this project. **CONCLUSIONS**:  In all honesty, I am lazier than I realized. I exercised infrequently even when this project was intended to keep me focused. Upon reflection, I believe that was a major reason for my unsuccessful attempts. I would fall back into my regular routine and lose focus on what I was trying to do. I believe that I may need someone who can remind me and push me to exercise or some other way to keep exercise on my mind. If I changed something in this project I would attempt to see the effects that having another person, that also wants to exercise regularly, would have on me. The big question for me is why don’t I play my drums that often? It’s something I love doing, so I need to look at what I don’t enjoy about it or what hinders me from playing. First, I hate tuning my drum set. It’s somewhat illogical but I hate that, because I don’t play for such a long period of time, I have to tune my drum set just about every time I play. When I already only have a limited time period to practice, I don’t want to tune, which takes up a small but significant amount of time. Why is my time limited? Well, aside from the fact that I have to be free from school or homework, I realized have a timeframe in which I practice. On a weekday, I won’t practice while my mom is still working (she runs a daycare in the home). I also won’t practice after 9. While that leaves 4 hours, I may just be dissuaded by other factors at that point. By that time I’m home, relaxed, and may not be up to playing. I have been saying for the past year that I need to exercise more. I hope that after seeing this data I can motivate myself to get up and out of my room. **COMMENTS**:  I don’t have much to say other than that I am disappointed to have been so unsuccessful and I need to make a change. It is nice to see the data in front of me though.