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Contents

  • Essentials
    • What's New
      • What's New
      • A World Without Limits
    • Creating A Sim
      • A New You
      • Personality
      • Family and Aging
      • Making Catherine Browne
    • Creating a House
      • Creating a House
      • Building Basics
      • Buying a Lot
      • Build Mode
      • Furnished Lots and Pre-Set Lives
      • Households
      • Cheat Sheet
    • A Day in the Life
      • The Essentials
      • Wishes
      • Skills
      • Careers
      • Mood Maintenance
      • Relationships and Socializing
      • Meet the Brownes
      • Getting Settled
      • Making the Most
      • Keep On Keepin’ On
    • Traits
      • Traits
    • Moods
      • Mood
      • Moodlets
      • Positive Moodlets
      • Neutral Moodlets
      • Negative Moodlets
    • Wishes
      • Wishes
      • Lifetime Wishes
      • Wishes List
      • Lifetime Happiness Points
    • Skills
      • Skills
      • Athletic
      • Charisma
      • Cooking
      • Fishing
      • Gardening
      • Guitar
      • Handiness
      • Logic
      • Painting
      • Writing
    • Careers
      • Careers
      • Business
      • Criminal
      • Culinary
      • Journalism
      • Law Enforcement
      • Medical
      • Military
      • Music
      • Politics
      • Professional Sports
      • Science
      • Part-time Work
      • School
    • Opportunities
      • Opportunities
      • Skills Opportunities
      • Careers Opportunities
    • Relationships and Aging
      • Relationships
      • Friendships (and Enemies)
      • Romance
      • Socializing
      • Family and Aging
      • Having a Family
      • Death
      • Service Sims
    • Tour of Sunset Valley
      • City Life
      • Places of Employment
      • Shopping and Commerce
      • Community Spots
      • Fishing Spots
      • Places to Go Collecting
    • Design Corner
      • Truly Custom Content
      • Winsome Farmhouse
      • Le Grand Palace
      • FoxGlen Manor
      • The Cherry Tree Houses
      • Richmond Manor
    • Object Catalog
      • Object Catalog
      • Living Room
      • Kitchen
      • Dining Room
      • Bedroom
      • Bathroom
      • Study
      • Kids’ Room
      • Multi-Room Objects
      • Outdoors and Landscaping
      • Object Interactions
    • Community
      • Sharing with the World

The Sims 3 Guide › Essentials › Skills

Athletic

Want to feel the burn? Develop the Athletic skill to positively affect your Sim’s health in a variety of ways, from body shape to longevity. There are two types of exercise: strength and cardio. Using the weights improves muscle definition, while cardio drops pounds.

Use the Skill Journal to track your progress and complete the challenges. The journal is full of excellent information that will help you shape each Sim’s story.

Acquire by: Take Athletic Class, Use Exercise Equipment, Swim, Read Athletic Book, Workout with TV, Workout with Stereo

Development tools: Shut-In Treadmill, Exercise Queen, Pool, TV, Stereo

Available Ages: Teen, Young Adult, Adult, Elder

Development Benefits

Developing the Athletic skill is essential for the Professional Sports career, but is also useful for the Law Enforcement career. If Sims want to excel at work, they must honing this skill on home equipment, at the gym or pool, or on the machines at the stadium. Sims can also exercise at home with the TV or a stereo, but the workout is not as effective as one with dedicated equipment. The higher the Sim’s skill, the longer they can exercise without earning the Fatigued moodlet.

Here are the benefits of developing the Athletic skill:

Level 1: As soon as Sims hit the first level of this skill, they can choose to jog to locations as exercise.

Level 3: Sims can earn the Pumped moodlet from extended workouts once they reach level 3.

Level 5: Once Sims reach level 5 of the development ladder, they also run faster when directed around town on foot via the Go Here interaction.

Level 6: At level 6, athletic Sims learn the Train interaction, which lets them help other Sims improve their Athletic skill. It requires an exercise machine. When another Sim is getting trained by a level 6 athlete, the exercising Sim loses weight and gains Athletic skill faster than if they were exercising alone.

Tip

Use the free equipment at 28 Hour Wellness Gym to save some money when you first move into Sunset Valley.

Note

athletic Sims are more likely to win fights, so if you have a real sporty Sim on your lot, Burglars beware!

As the Athletic skill is developed, Sims earn new “tones” for workouts. These special tones modify a workout, which can lead to earning or avoiding certain moodlets. The Don’t Break a Sweat tone is good for minimizing the amount of Hygiene decay so the Grungy moodlet doesn’t kick in as soon. Use these tones to get the best possible workout for the current situation:

Don’t Break a Sweat (Level 1): Bad Hygiene is a real problem with extended workouts. Use this tone to work out without a heavy Hygiene decay.

Good Pacing (Level 3): Good Pacing lets you increase the length of a workout before the Fatigued moodlet takes effect.

Push Self (Level 5): Use Push Self to increase the speed of building muscle, dropping pounds, and gaining skill. However, after Push Self is used, Sims wake up with the Sore moodlet.

Quick Burst (Level 7): Quick Burst allows your Sim to get a lot of body shape change and skill much faster than usual, but the Sim gets fatigued and sore much more quickly as well. Working out with other tones until fatigued will always yield more skill and body shape change than working out until fatigued using Quick Burst, but Quick Burst give you faster skill gains.

Tip

Pushe Self induces the Sore moodlet, but a massage dispels the negative moodlet.

Caution

Use Quick Burst to push your Sim into the next level of the skill, but hit the showers before engaging in any social activity or going to bed. Quick Burst increases the Hygiene decay.

Work out with the TV at home to improve your Athletic skill.

Skill Challenges

Body Builder: Body Builders have dedicated at least 60 hours to strength workouts. This dedication pays off, because they are never fatigued after strength workouts.

Marathon Runner: Marathon Runners must run at least 500 kilometers before they earn this title. However, accomplishing this incredible feat guarantees them a longer, healthier life.

Fitness Nut: Fitness Nuts have spent 75 hours focusing on cardio workouts. All that time experiencing the burn means they are no longer fatigued after cardio workouts.

Note

Earning the Body Builder title unlocks the Flex social, which impresses romantic interests in conversations.

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