A person in white coat and stethoscope wearing a virtual reality headset. by unsplash. Virtual physical therapy: not an oxymoron anymore
fitness · injury · Physiotherapy · research

Virtual physical therapy: not an oxymoron anymore

catherine wLeave a comment

I love me some physical therapy. it has helped me come back from orthopedic surgery, injury, accident, wear and tear and repetitive motion-induced pains.

One of the things I love the most about PT (physio in Canada) is how much I learn about my body through interacting with my physical therapist, adjusting and changing exercises over time. We always talk about what’s become easier, what is still difficult, how different body parts and functions are changing over time, and how that affects my health and fitness goals and practices.

Last year, I spent 5 months in PT for sciatica that had gotten to the point where climbing stairs was painful, hip pain woke me up at night, and even walking right after driving hurt. Yes, I know, driving is the one of the worst things for our musculoskeletal systems. Whatcha gonna do…

By the end of that rehab period, I felt so much stronger and happier and functional and knowledgeable about my vulnerabilities, needs and resources. Yay! Thanks Julian and Louis!

Here’s the thing: PT/physio seems like exactly the kind of healthcare that needs to be in person, with two bodies present: patient and physical therapist. Recovery trajectories aren’t linear. They involve dips and surges, all of which require on-the-spot adjustments to exercise regimens.

So you wouldn’t think that anyone would even consider outsourcing PT/physio to something like AN APP.

But guess what? They have. Yes, I’m aware of the We’ve-got-an-app-for-that approach to healthcare, but I just got a most unwelcome update when my state employee healthcare overseers, MassGIC, started hawking a new app (this one is called Hinge Health), with the promise of ease, flexibility and no copays. They also included this on their website:

From their webpage: transforming how MSK pain is treated. and delivered. I don't think that's what they meant to say.
From their webpage: transforming how MSK pain is treated. and delivered. I don’t think that’s what they meant to say. But hey, I’m a fussy humanities professor…

To be sure, not all apps for all uses for all healthcare are ill-concieved. In a 2024 qualitative study of use of exercise apps for people managing osteoarthritis at home, both patients and therapists report convenience of the app over paper copies of exercises, increased accountability through digital reminders and ease of recording at-home exercise sessions. However, patients also reported problems with the quality of the apps, technical problems and security concerns about their personal data. Therapists reported concerns over compensation for interacting with patients over apps (that is, they frequently weren’t reimbursed for time spent with them) and overall a preference for paper exercises over app use.

For this company, I did a little sleuthing, and found that 37% of reviewers on TrustPilot, an independent reviewer site, gave it one star (i.e. bad bad bad). They cited aggressive marketing practices and also billing the patients when the service was explicitly covered by their insurance. Recall that having no copays was the primary appeal for patients. Sigh.

Technology continues to transform the way healthcare is delivered. I know this. And there are lots of advantages: increased access for those in less-resourced areas, ease and flexibility of access to information, tracking and accountability, and sometimes even cost.

One one size does not fit all. Some of us want and need in-person interactions with qualified health professionals for our care.

Also, when technology is poorly handled, those qualified professionals are either forced to do less or uncompensated work (e.g. emails, app chats, etc) or entirely supplanted by unqualified workers who must rely on canned materials to try to answer the complex questions of patients.

Which gets us to a bigger problem: trust.

I want healthcare that I can trust. And in order to trust it, I need to trust the healthcare providers. And in order to trust them, I personally need to see them in person, at least most of the time. Which sometimes can include telehealth, and sometimes may include email or patient portal messaging, and sometimes maybe even an app. But I need to know that my healthcare providers will provide me the access I need. Arguing with my phone is not how I want to spend my recovery.

I know, phone, it's not you, it's them... Thanks Konstantin S from Unsplash.
I know, phone, it’s not you, it’s them… Thanks Konstantin S from Unsplash.
Nat finds comfort in nature
Sat with Nat

Nat finds comfort in nature

natalieh (she/her)Leave a comment

I grew up in a rural neighborhood bordering on woods. I spent a lot of my childhood playing, resting and walking in nature.

Today I still find comfort in watching a river flow and listening to the birds.

Seated in St Croix, New Brunswick, Canada overlooking a patch of the St Croix River. On the far side is Vanceboro, Maine, USA.

Yesterday my paternal grandmother, Joyce, was laid to rest. We had a graveside service.

People, especially those in my family, are sometimes hard for me to understand. They are complex and ever changing. I don’t often know what to do or say, especially when I’m sad.

Someone once told me grief is love with no place to go. I have an abundance of love looking for a home and I’m thankful for family and friends who are happy to receive it.

I solace walking, looking at plants and insects. It’s something I never tire of. My plant and insect friends are unbothered by my tears and messy feelings. They just accept me where I am at. I’m so grateful.

A blurry shot of Blue-eyed grass, one of my very old plant friends.
How to get a beach body: have a body, go to the beach—#RoundUp
fitness

How to get a beach body: have a body, go to the beach—#RoundUp

Sam BLeave a comment

Every spring, like clockwork, the “Are you beach body ready?” messages roll back in — and so does our urge to talk back to them. Over the years, a lot of us here at Fit Is a Feminist Issue have weighed in on the myth of the “perfect beach body” and the body-image baggage it drags along. With swim season upon us again, here’s a round-up of past posts on the beach body and body image, in case you need a little reinforcement before you head to the water.

Funny, not funny—turning around those “beach body” blues — by Tracy
Tracy revisits the only beach-body advice worth keeping (“1. have a body 2. go to the beach”), the infamous London tube ad campaign, and why every spring’s “summer body” messaging still fills her with despair — and why she’s well and truly over it.

Sam is beach body ready — by Sam
Responding to Tracy, Sam shares her favourite anti-beach-body memes and reflects on why the messaging mostly rolls off her now — partly the perspective that comes with aging, and partly never having felt the “beach body ideal” was aimed at her in the first place.

Bring on the brokini! — by Sam
A case that breaking down narrow body norms should include men too. Sam celebrates playful men’s swimwear — and “elderly, larger, furry men in speedos” — because making room for all bodies at the beach makes more room for hers.

What should I wear for swimming when over 50? Whatever I want! — by Catherine
Catherine takes aim at swimwear marketing that treats women’s aging bodies as problems to be sucked in, smoothed over, or draped in yards of fabric — and asks for the genuinely radical option of simply wearing what she likes in the water.

Take your batwings and fly far far away — by Sam
Sam unpacks the daily ad for “modest” swimwear that promises to hide women’s “lives well lived,” and pushes back on the idea that you build confidence by naming parts of someone’s body a problem. Spoiler: we have arms, not batwings.

Inclusive objectification anyone? — by Tracy
Tracy asks whether a more “inclusive” Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is really progress, or whether widening the pool of who gets objectified still leaves all women measured by how sexy they appear to a straight male audience.

Bodiless Swimsuit Ads Reinforce Body Norms Too — by Elan
Elan notices an eerie new trend in swimsuit ads — suits displayed on legless, armless, photoshopped-out “bodies” — and argues that an absent body is the ultimate normative body, erasing the real, varied ones we actually swim in.

Belated Happy Bikini Day! — by Diane
Prompted by a Sandra Boynton cartoon and a friend happily rocking her bikini, Diane gathers the blog’s history of bikini-body and swimsuit-fit posts into a celebration of wearing what you like, whatever your shape.

red heart shaped paper cut out Exercise, Reluctantly: What to do if you hate working out?
fitness

Exercise, Reluctantly: What to do if you hate working out?

Sam B1 Comment

But you want to get the health benefits of exercise.

There’s no pill, just yet. See An exercise pill is in the news again, would you take it?

We’ve written about hating exercise before.

See some past posts:

🏋🏽 Hate exercise and just want the health benefits?

🏋🏽 What’s love got to do with it?

🏋🏽 Hate exercise? You might just be much more unfit than you think

🏋🏽 Amanda Lynn hates exercise but she also thinks walking might be a feminist act

This morning this post came across my social media newsfeed. I like it.

Instagram post outlining a short workout plan titled 'I hate working out', including gym visits and exercise recommendations.

It’s summer here on the blog and we’re on the move and on the go. Due to various holiday plans the bloggers have, I’ll be sharing more of our older posts. You know, like the CBC in summertime! Lol. Enjoy!

eating · fitness

No Meat May

Diane Harper1 Comment

I know May is over but I thought it was worth talking about this anyway.

Why do this challenge? It can be a fun way to increase your use of meat alternatives. If done right, vegetarian or vegan eating can help you increase your intake of fibre and essential nutrients, and help reduce the production of greenhouse gases.

I am not a vegetarian, let alone a vegan, but I am increasingly a less-meat person. I have often been inspired to eat meat-free dishes because I have found a a few great vegan websites to help me use vegetables from my CSA basket. But this year, I owe particular thanks to my friend Sandra.

Sandra loves to cook. It’s one of the shared interests that brought us together as friends. She did No Meat May and posted about it almost every day. Sometimes I was inspired to try her recipes. Sometimes I shared vegetarian recipes I thought she might enjoy. Sometimes, there was no recipe. Just vibes. (Sandra’s description of one of her soups)

I have focused on home cooking because that’s important activity to me. However, Sandra has a full-time job, volunteers with a cat rescue, and has a social life. She sometimes buys take-out and uses frozen or pre-made dishes/ingredients. Those meals also looked great. There are many reasons to do that, from time constraints to disability or simply dislike of cooking.

We’re now solidly into June and I’m still happily eating mostly beans and cheese for my protein (but I have two tofu recipes planned for later in the week). Thanks for the inspiration Sandra!

A selection of Sandra’s no-meat May meals: soups, salads, vegetarian Sloppy Joes, and Welsh rarebit.
fitness

Happy World Bicycle Day 2026!

Sam BLeave a comment

Here at Fit Is a Feminist Issue many (but not all) of us are big fans of bikes, and we’ve blogged lots about our love of bicycles and about the connections between bicycles and feminism.

“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel, the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”—Susan B. Anthony, 1896

In that spirit, here are some of our favourite bicycle posts from the archives:

bicycles with roses in baskets
Photo by Zeynep M. on Pexels.com
Flying & Falling into a New Decade
aging · femalestrength · injury · mindfulness · running

Flying & Falling into a New Decade

MinaLeave a comment

The morning after I turned 60, I headed out on a run with my youngest brother who was in town. What a treat! And he pushes my pace. For the first bit, I felt fleet and strong. Flying. The kind of run where your feet barely seem to touch the ground, tiny levitation rockets in my shoes. And that was just a feeling, since my feet were clearly on the ground when I tripped over a tree root.

I went down hard, catching myself on my shoulder. The result: a badly wrenched shoulder and a pivot from a brisk 9-mile run to a nauseous crawl toward CityMD, arm cradled against my body.

Everything in me wanted to scream until my lungs gave out, why me? Beneath that was a darker feeling, too: that the universe had smacked me down, put me in my place. I had wanted too much. I had been too pleased with myself about still being strong, still being fast, still being the person who runs the morning after her 60th birthday. So, the universe decided to show me who was boss.

I was already prickly about 60. About a month ago, a young man I passed in the final kilometers of a 21k (he could not have been older than his early 30s) said, with dismissiveness: well, maybe when I’m 60. I didn’t hear past that snippet. I kept running. I hear versions of these casual dismissals of people based on their ages often. The unquestioned assumption that age is a one-way street, that it diminishes us.

Even with a hurt and hurting shoulder, I questioned. With difficulty.

The list of things I could barely do at first was graceless in its mundanity. Open a bottle. Get dressed (oh yes, including pulling up my pants after going to the bathroom). Brush my teeth. Grab a glass in the cupboard. Never mind trail running or mountain biking. Did I mention I was three days from leaving for two weeks in the Canadian Rockies? I had planned solitude and mountain time to contemplate my new decade.

Close-up of a human arm showing visible bruising and discoloration on the skin, with a wooden background.

I had to borrow rolling luggage, because I could not haul a pack on a wrenched shoulder, and I always travel with a pack on my back. My mountain bike stayed in my middle brother’s garage in Calgary. Still, the first full day there, I wrestled myself into a sports bra, shirt and hiking pants and ventured out. Cautiously. Arm in a sling. A few days later I packed the sling in my little backpack (which didn’t hurt to wear, it was getting the straps on that was the trick). Gradually, I transitioned to trail running shoes and worked myself up to a slow trot. Always aware of my arm.

For the past three weeks, I’ve been managing the background noise of persistent pain.

This is not how I pictured opening this new decade.

And yet. And yet.

Curbed in my go-go mountain enthusiasm, I moved at a pace that allowed me to bask more in all the signs of coming spring. The runoff streams that got deeper with every warming day, so that I had to find new ways to get across that particular bit of trail each time. I had space to think about what it means to cross this threshold.

Because it is a threshold, even if I am, rationally, the same person the day after my birthday as the day before. I have sat with my complicated feelings about being a person in my sixties now for three weeks and something is shifting or emerging from underneath all the accumulated detritus of the years and the immediate distress of the physical setback. It’s a feeling, a sensation, a way of being that is harder to name than fleet or strong or flying.

Out on the mountain trails each morning, even moving with more caution than usual, a feeling spread in me, as the sun moves quietly into the world each day. Grounded, yet light. Buoyant, yet stable. It feels like I have the right to be here without further justification or proof of worth.

This whatever-it-is-ness feels like an arrival. Or a coming home. Belonging. Did I arrive at this feeling because of the fall?  Maybe. If I choose that version of the story, then I can silver line the fall and injury. Forced to slow down, woman discovers inner strength. Another part of me resists the patness of that explanation.  Maybe I just fell. Because I run on trails and other uneven surfaces. A lot. Life happens.  

My shoulder is healing. Not as quickly as I’d like. And when has any injury healed as quickly as we’d like? The pain is still there. Background noise every day. Wearing. And it is retreating. I can increase my effort. Mindfully. The mountains will still be there for next time. My bike will still be there.

I am still here.

Landed in a new decade. Not as elegantly as I might have liked. Penguin-style, which is to say, with awkward grace.

a photo of the author telling a story on stage. Christine hopes to follow her own advice
ADHD · advice · self care · stretching · traveling

Christine hopes to follow her own advice

Christine HenneburyLeave a comment

By the time this post goes live, I’ll be on a plane on my way to BC for the Storytellers of Canada- Conteurs du Canada conference.

I’m looking forward to the conference and to seeing my friends and telling/talking about stories for DAYS but I always feel apprehensive before I travel.

I’m not afraid to fly or anything like that. It’s the disrupted schedule, the lack of control over my day, the eating at weird times, the crowds of people, the change in time zones…that’s what gets me.

And all of that is fairly unavoidable.

BUT

Then I remembered that the last time the conference was in BC my travel schedule was waaaaaaaay worse and I was miserable on the way up but I actually did ok on the way home.

And, sure, part of it was the fact that I was on my way home but, after the frustrating trip on the way there, I had decided to take really good care of myself on the return trip and it made a huge difference.

So, what did ‘taking really good care of myself’ mean in that context?

  1. I brought some really filling snacks so I had a bit more control over when I ate.
  2. I made sure to keep my water bottle full.
  3. I did stretches and yoga frequently and did some walking in each airport.*
  4. I meditated a fair bit on the plane (and listened to my favourite cello music)
  5. I planned something to do for each hour of the trip (I didn’t have to do it but having a plan made me less fidgety and irritated.)

And that plan seems really appealing to me right now.

In fact, once I thought about it, I immediately started feeling better about the long trip and I could focus more on the fun that awaits me on the other end.

So, let’s see how my plan works out, hey?

I’ll update you later tomorrow.

*Yes, I always *could* stretch or walk at any point but this was me being proactively deliberate about it.

fitness

Snacks, Science, and Spring: May 2026 on the Blog

Sam BLeave a comment

How many posts? May ends as one of the blog’s biggest months so far in 2026 — 35+ posts across five weeks.

Who blogged? Sam, Catherine, Christine, Nat, Diane, Nicole, Elan, Martha, Mina, and our newest blogger, and long-time commentator, Winnie.

Some of the May themes:

Diane’s recovery arc continued. April ended with Diane writing from the hospital. May picked up right there. Walking Walking Walking documented her cardiac rehab journey — routes mapped around the neighbourhood, a trip to the tulip festival with Florence, and the grumpy energy of walking because it’s what’s permitted. By mid-month she’d turned a corner: Go Sports Ball! found her on her way to an Ottawa-Montreal PWHL playoff game, writing about women’s professional hockey having a moment.

Nat enters retirement. Nat is now a month into retirement and still figuring out where the time goes. Little and Often, the SAG post for the Flèche, and the Victoria Day gardening blitz (13,000 steps without meaning to) all tracked the early weeks. Then this week, Nat ponders the unpaid time economy — a reflection on how retirement reveals all the invisible labour women do: logistics of longevity, care for family, community fundraising, and the simple question of where “free” time actually goes.

Elan from the Azores. Scouts and Sweeps in Group Fun told the story of an e-bike adventure on the volcanic island of Faial — fog, battery anxiety, 330 metres of elevation — and became a meditation on the invisible labour of the people who hold a group together.

Christine on momentum and hips. Moving more makes Christine want to move more and the hip mobility experiment — trying six different YouTube videos to see which ones her hips actually like — practical, honest, and non-prescriptive. That’s Christine’s way.

Feminist pushback on fitness culture. Sam unpacked the viral “fits in a bandeau” meme in What “Fits Into a Bandeau” Actually Means. Nicole took aim at boutique gyms requiring membership applications as a new form of fitness gatekeeping in A Gym as Private Club? No Thank You. Sam’s Two Things That Made Me Go Grrr at the Gym This Morning (gendered equipment labeling and motivational signage) and Who Are You Working Out For? continued that thread.

The research thread. Both Catherine and Sam brought fit, feminist takes on current research — engaging with the evidence critically rather than just amplifying headlines.

Catherine, a public health ethicist by training, put that expertise to work in Bad News/Good News About the Hantavirus Outbreak — an explainer on the Andes virus outbreak that traced through what the science actually showed, who was genuinely at risk, and where the media coverage was getting ahead of itself. Sam dove into two new meta-analyses in Exercise Snacks: What the Latest Research Actually Shows — following up after the studies kept floating across her fitness-heavy social media feed. The post broke down what the evidence actually supports (improved cardiorespiratory fitness for inactive adults; real short-term blood flow benefits from breaking up sitting time) versus what it doesn’t, and closed with the line “I trust research that tells me what it doesn’t know, not just what it does.”

metal arc
An arc.Photo by Vitalii Kwink on Pexels.com

Month-in-review posts are assembled by Claude with prompts from Sam and edited by Sam. If you spot any errors, let us know.

200!
226 in 2026 · cycling · fitness

200!

Sam BLeave a comment

Sunday marked my 200th workout in the 226 Workouts in 2026 Facebook group.I’d set my own goal as 400, and I can’t quite believe I’m halfway there just five months into the year.

Now, that’s largely because I count long dog walks and now that my knees are better, Cheddar and I have been doing more of those. See, for example, Sam and Cheddar’s Big day at the beach.

I don’t count every dog walk. Purely utilitarian trips around the block don’t count. My personal rule is that they have to be long enough to trigger my Garmin activity tracker–that’s 15 minutes. But what I like best about the number of workouts in a year group is that you get to decide what counts.

For me, if counting a thing is motivational, I count it. I counted all of my physio sessions before and after knee surgery too for the same reason.

Workout 200 was a morning ride around Lunenburg in which Sarah and I seemed to be recreating our last year’s trip to New Zealand by riding up and down very steep streets,  followed by sketchy single track overlooking the ocean! We walked our bikes both on some hills in the town of Lunenburg and on a rocky stretch on the path on top of the hill beside the sea. Old times!