It’s all very well knowing the benefits of exercise, but some barriers are harder than others to smash through when it comes to forging a new workout routine. Time and money are two obvious issues, but arguably the most difficult to navigate has to be low self-esteem. 

We know, for example, that many women feel too self-conscious to run wearing shorts – even on the hottest day of the year. Imposter syndrome stops loads of us from stepping foot into a weights room. And now, a new Asics study has found that a whopping 68% of Brits who don’t exercise feel too embarrassed to go to the gym because they don’t think that they fit the mould of a ‘typical’ exerciser.

That’s a truly depressing statistic, but when you discover that 33% of people say sports adverts put them off exercising, it starts to make sense. There may be more body diversity on fitness social media and magazines, but most gym wear and running brands still rely on athletes and ‘aspirational’ bodies to sell us products.  

The study goes further, finding that 42% of people say that seeing other people’s achievements on social media makes them feel like a failure before they’ve even started exercising. In other words, it’s the results-obsessed nature of fitness right now – visualised by athletes in ads and campaigns– that are putting people off.

So, what can we do about it? Well, Asics has teamed up with the mental health charity Mind to call out what they’re calling our ‘performance-obsessed exercise culture’. 

That’s why they’re launching the New Personal Best project – a drive to move away from stats, times and numbers. The study found that over half of respondents said they’d be more likely to exercise if they could see everyday people represented in sports ads, and as such, the project will feature real people moving for their mental health.  

Two of the people featured are Rachel Ashe, founder of Mental Health Swims, and Biola Babawale, founder of Cycle Together.

“I’ve always had this feeling that I don’t fit in,” Ashe tells Strong Women. “I felt like I had to pretend I was fine to the outside world so as not to inconvenience anyone. In 2018, my mental health was at an all-time low and I couldn’t hide it anymore. I had to take time off work and felt pretty hopeless about the future. 

“Thanks to medication and some great talking therapy, I started to feel a bit better, but I had lost my confidence and felt really isolated because of it. I wanted to find a community that I could connect with and a space where I could feel understood by others who had similar experiences to me.” 

And so, in September 2019, after Ashe put a shout out on social media, the first mental health swim group met on Caswell Beach in Swansea. “I was so surprised when over 20 people turned up, but I think the reality is there are lots of people out there feeling lonely and wanting connection. It’s hard to believe we now have over 140 locations across the UK and beyond. 

“Swimming outdoors is a wonderful way of being mindful, almost without having to try. The water in the UK is always cold so the process of getting into the water involves you being completely aware of your body. In the water we are weightless which makes it a great leveller.  

“Swimming outdoors opened the world up to me. I used to be grey with depression in winter but now I can feel immersed in nature all year round. There’s something hugely empowering about bobbing about in the sea when other people are having winter walks along the beach wrapped up in all the layers. I think I can say I am recovered now - I still have a complex mental illness but I live a full and happy life alongside it. “ 

Babawale, on the other hand, spent much of her childhood “tearing it up on the BMX track” down her local park. Like many girls, she gave up cycling in her teens but came back to it properly in 2018 after coming across Velociposse, a cycling group for women and non-binary people. The turning point in her cycling career, she says, was picking up a knee injury from training too hard during a period of significant life upheaval.

When asked if there’s too much emphasis these days on competing and pushing harder on an amateur level, Babawale responds: “Absolutely!”

“Before I got injured and stepped off the training rat race, the culture and dialogue was about the stats, leaderboards and doing increasingly hard sessions. It’s still difficult not to get sucked into this mindset when I go to my local park. Every training session, the outcome used to be binary: either you failed or succeeded in beating the Queen of the Mountain – a title given to the fastest female cycling to reach the top of a climb or hill. If you didn’t, then you felt like a failure.”

Today, Babawale is conscious that it’s natural to have performance peaks and troughs. And when partnered with a bout of poor mental health, “this fixation on numbers is just another thing to fail at”.

Post-injury, she’s stopped looking at her smart swatch, power meter and social media leaderboards and is now focusing instead on the challenge and enjoyment of cycling in the “here and now”. “If I beat a number or don’t, who knows? Who cares? The fact is, I’m out there getting it done and having a blast while doing it.” 

Hayley Jarvis, head of physical activity at Mind, says: “For people who don’t exercise, taking that first step can be daunting, especially if they’re also experiencing a mental health problem. When you add the pressure of performance so often seen in sports marketing or on social media, for some it can feel impossible to get started as they don’t feel like they’re ‘good enough’.

“On the other hand, getting active can play a vital role in helping us stay well and live well with mental health problems. Research suggests regular physical activity can reduce the risk of depression by up to 30% and healthcare workers are increasingly prescribing it as the first line of treatment for mental health problems such as mild to moderate depression.

“Mind’s belief in the power of movement to support better mental health is very much shared by Asics, so we’re proud to see some of our ambassadors as the faces for this campaign and we hope their stories will inspire others to start getting active themselves.”

Asics is now calling on Brits to share their own personal best images on social media, whether that’s a soft hike with friends, making it to your first yoga class or getting into the weights room for the first time. Every image shared using the hashtag #NewPersonalBest on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or Twitter between 10 October and 10 December 2023 will raise £5 for Mind.  

Images: Getty; Adam Hinton; ASICS