Month: March 2022

fitness

Ask Fieldpoppy for March (Part 1)

fieldpoppy

(I initiated this “Dear Fieldpoppy” advice column a few months ago; today’s questions were so rich it ended up in two parts — part two will come this afternoon).

Dear Fieldpoppy,

As we re-enter the space previously known as The World, I am feeling utterly overwhelmed. I have so much work to do. I still have lots of care needs to attend to. It feels unbearable and I cry a lot of the time. Which makes me dehydrated. Which makes it worse. What suggestions do you have for balancing the impossible as we “return to normal not normal”?

Signed, dehydrated

Dear Fieldpoppy: I’ve lost my mojo and cannot for the life of me find it. I don’t even mind if I get back half of what I used to have, but even that seems out of reach. Suggestions?

Signed, what is mojo anyway?

First thing, for both of you: a big glass of water. I’ll join you. Let’s make a mindful ritual out of it.

pitcher of water with lemons in it, from @juliazolotovaph on unsplash

Run the tap so it’s nice and cold, get your favourite big glass or water bottle. I like a giant blue hand blown glass that looks like a chalice. Get some ice if that’s your jam (it’s not mine). Put something you like into the water, like a skoosh of cranberry juice, or an orange slice and a blueberry.

Sit down, and be with the water, like the mindfulness exercise where you contemplate a raisin for an hour. Put your finger in the glass and feel its wetness. Think about where it came from, and the miracle that is clean water coming out of your tap. Feel the glass, real in your hand. Lift the glass, intentionally, and slowly wet your lips and drink, slowly. Feel it going down your throat.

Now, put your feet on the ground, intentionally. Like mountain pose, but sitting down. Feel the floor under your toes. What are the sensations? Sit a little bit more upright, feeling yourself in your body with dignity, with grace.

What a goddamned amazing body it is. Today is the official two year anniversary of a global fucking pandemic. There is a goddamned war in Europe. People and spaces you relied on have turned out to think very differently than you. This body has kept you alive through the most uncertain, frightening, disorienting, exhausting time we never imagined we’d deal with in our lives. You are here. You have water in your hand and solid floor under your feet. You are a miracle.

Now, breathe. Breathe in some love for that body and soul of yours. Breathe out love for the world. Breathe in — one, two, three, four. Slowly. Breathe out — one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Do it again, and again. Pay attention to what is there — gratitude, love, resentment, sadness, worry, joy, loneliness, fatigue — these are all the miracles of being a human. A human who has held it together through stress you never expected to have to hold. What a goddamn miracle.

As the world “opens up again”, there is no “again.” It’s all new. We aren’t who we were two years ago, the world isn’t what it was two years ago, our bodies aren’t what they were two years ago. We see ourselves and the people around us differently. We’re older. We’ve been folded in on ourselves, literally and figuratively.

A white woman in child’s pose on a blue mat with images of constellations from unsplash @Luna_ActiveFitness

Now — emotionally — and literally — put yourself in child’s pose. Start there. Listen to what your body is telling you. Accept it. Be with it. Root up slowly, curiously, quietly, to find what is actually available to you in this new world. Listen to what your body is whispering at you. What is there, now? What do you need, now? Use your beginner’s mind — you won’t ever get the same mojo “back,” you won’t be able to balance the “same” things you balanced in the Before Times — but there is a new strength, energy, mojo, balance available. New care, new connections, new kinds of love. Listen for it. Let it be enough. Savour it. And see what grows in those new, smaller, tentative spaces.

I breathe in love with you.

Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede (she/they), who lives and works on the land now known as Toronto, which is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, and is covered by Treaty 13, singed with the Mississaugas of the Credit. Cate is a coach, consultant and general thinker about relationships and meaning making. You can read earlier versions of the Ask Fieldpoppy column here, here and here.

An image of curling sheets of ice with players on the ice watching the curling rock. Scoreboards on the back wall. In Praise of Rec Sports Volunteers
curling · team sports

In Praise of Rec Sports Volunteers

elan.paulson3 Comments

I like to express gratitude for things (like scrimmage) when I think more deeply about the positive impact they have had on my health and well being. Today, I want to praise recreation sports volunteers.

Elan smiles holding up a bottle of syrup, with the curling sheets behind her
Elan with her syrup.

I recently attended my first Sugar Shack curling tournament, called a bonspiel, as a member of the St. Thomas Curling Club. The bonspiel is named after the Eastern Canadian sugar shacks (in French, cabane à sucre) where sap is collected from sugar maple trees and boiled down into delicious maple syrup.

On bonspiel day, I played two games with my team, enjoyed chatting our opponents in the lounge afterwards, was served a delicious chilli lunch, and left with a big ol’ bottle of maple syrup. It was a great way to spend a winter Saturday.

Only after the bonspiel did I reflect on how smoothly the event ran, even with COVID restrictions still in place. Volunteers from the club took entry fee payment, assigned our teams’ sheets and times, and sold 50/50 fundraising tickets. They served food, cleaned up glasses and lunch dishes, and sanitized tables as people moved in and out of the lounge throughout the day. They kept scores, calculated winners, and gave away prizes. This amazing group of volunteers helped to make the event seamless and enjoyable for participants.

When have I noticed volunteers who support rec sports before? I think back to playing Pee-Wee softball as a kid, imagining there must have been many adults putting in time and effort to make our ball games happen each week. Among the volunteers was my mom–wrapped in blankets to brace against the Calgary spring weather–keeping score every game. She and other caregivers used the little free time they had to ensure we kids could run around outside and gain some important team skills.

In fact, it’s a bit overwhelming to think about the sheer number of volunteers that make children and adult rec sports happen worldwide. In villages, towns, and cities everywhere, people are showing up to sit on boards, apply for funding, coach teams, serve as referees or linespeople, organize events, take tickets, run concession, clean up afterwards, do the accounting. Some positions are paid, but I bet in most cases the time and effort outpace the financial compensation.

I could make a wild proposition and suggest that all volunteers should be paid. (For more of my economically unrealistic ideas, see my post on free exercise). But then I wonder whether the spirit of volunteerism–why people serve in the first place–gives people something that money couldn’t quite match. Maybe it’s not about the compensation: folks volunteers to support their family and friends, participate in a social activity, and give back to a sport that they love.

The word “volunteer” is from the Latin voluntarius “voluntary, of one’s free will,” which according to the etymology website was first used in the 14th century to refer to feelings rather than to action. To volunteer is an act the heart; one must have the will to serve others before the work itself gets done. Volunteering for rec sports is a labour of love.

I am so grateful to all those people who have volunteered in rec sports for my benefit (past and present); they laboured so I could have fun. How might I repay them for their efforts? Going forward, I could send notes of thanks, donate money to support volunteer programs, or carve out time to volunteer for rec sports myself.

At next year’s Sugar Shack bonspiel, it might just be sweeter to give out maple syrup than to receive it.

a hand hovers over a plastic tabletop curling sheet
Some curling lounge fun (i.e., more curling) with my team and our opponents between games.

What’s your take on volunteering in rec sports? If you volunteer, why do you do it?

commute · cycling · fitness · holidays

Welcome to Fool’s Spring!

Sam B1 Comment

It’s March! Here in this part of Canada, southern Ontario, that means it’s Fool’s Spring. A friend pointed out that this is missing a category. Just before Real Spring, it should say The Pollening. That’s the season in which, each year, I wonder why I am on the verge of tears all the time and then only after I’ve found things to actually be sad about, realize it’s spring allergies.

Yesterday it was 14 degrees and sunny. Today it’s below freezing, just and there’s freezing rain outside. But there are birds chirping in the morning, even today. And the roads are gradually clearing of snow and ice.

This year I didn’t ride through the winter–mostly because we were under a ‘work from home’ order for pandemic reasons during the most challenging time–and I’m looking at getting my adventure road bike geared up for commuting again. (I’ll take the Brompton out once the roads are completely clear of grit.)

In years past I started riding again in March. See here and here.

So this week I’ll get the commuting bike out, swap the tires, and drop the good road bike off to the bike shop for a tune up. In a few weeks we’re headed south to Kentucky to meet Jeff on the boat at Land Between the Lakes recreation area and maybe do some gravel riding. Route suggestions welcome!

And after that I hope to be back regularly riding outside here in Guelph.

fitness

Paralympics and other athletes with disabilities, and representation

Diane Harper1 Comment

The past few weeks had me thinking about athletes with disabilities. They have been in the news a lot lately. My thoughts are rather jumbled because this is a group of athletes I rarely think about. It’s a shame; there are some great athletes doing amazing things, and as a good feminist I should be considering all kinds of diversity, not just the people who identify as women. In approximate chronological order:

Terry Fox – this Canadian icon was in the spotlight in late January when protesters in Ottawa decorated/desecrated (depending on your perspective) the statue of him right across from Parliament Hill. Fox famously ran the equivalent of a marathon a day all the way from Newfoundland to Thunder Bay in in 1980, to raise money for cancer research. That was 143 marathons, before the cancer that cost him a leg returned and killed him a few months later, at the age of 22.

Steve Fonyo, another young man who lost a leg to cancer and finished Terry Fox’s cross-country run to raise funds for cancer research, died a couple of weeks ago. He struggled with addiction and had several criminal convictions, which have tainted his legacy. He reminds me that a person is much more than their disability, or how they respond to it.

Both those young men achieved something I never dreamed of doing. Both were inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame. But from the 1985, when Fonyo completed his run, until 2004, I don’t recall hearing of a single athlete with a disability. 2004 was the year Chantal Peticlerc had an astounding Paralympic Games in Barcelona, winning five gold medals plus an exhibition event. It was her fourth Paralympics, and she had won multiple medals at all of them.

The next big news story is the Paralympics going on in Beijing right now. Remember that? I am sad to say I don’t know the names of the flag bearers, or any of the other athletes. I confess I haven’t been tracking the results anywhere nearly as closely as I did for the earlier winter games. Paralympic sports are complicated, with various classifications depending on the level of disability. There are no pro teams, or even big endorsement deals, so these athletes are virtually unknown to most of us.

Two Paralympics stories I have been following relate to representation. The first is the fate of the Russian and Belarusian Paralympic teams, which were banned from participating even as neutral athletes with no identifying flags or colours, following the invasion of Ukraine, Regardless of the reasons, I can’t underestimate the crushing disappointment this must have been to athletes who rarely get an opportunity to be on the world stage. They cynic in me notes that the invasion didn’t happen until just after the Beijing Winter Olympics, so those athletes did not face the same sanctions.

The other story of representation is the number of female Paralympics. Overall, they make up just under 25% of all athletes at the games. In comparison, 45% of athletes at the Beijing Winter Olympics were women. This gender gap is even more pronounced among coaches, technicians and guides.

Among the Canadian women, at least, there is determination to make change by inspiring girls with their podium finishes, and then becoming coaches themselves after they retire from competition. Big wins alone won’t make the difference, as Mollie Jepsen, gold medallist in the standing downhill ski event said this week “The more representation in sport, the better. The more people that younger athletes can look up and see like, ‘Whoa, that’s a girl, and she’s out there doing that’ — I think just no matter what, the more females we have in sport, the better”.

Concluding thoughts: this is an area where I really see my biases. I want to be more attentive to the achievement of these athletes, but I find it hard to connect outside my natural tribe of women athletes. Is it okay not to love them? I feel guilty, even though I refuse to feel guilty about many other biases in the sporting world (I also don’t love professional tennis, golf, baseball or football, but still like the Toronto Maple Leafs).

Can I make more of an effort to learn more about these sports? I could probably do that. Now is a good time to try, while there are clips of great performances readily available on-line, along with profiles of many athletes. Hopefully others will do the same. To take Mollie’s words a step further, the more people we have saying “whoa, she’s out there doing that” and the more fans we have following the sport, the better.

Doing my part to #BreakTheBias on International Women’s Day
martial arts

Doing my part to #BreakTheBias on International Women’s Day

Christine Hennebury

I’m putting this year’s International Women’s Day theme into action at Taekwondo tonight by leading the warm-up and taking a group of black belts through their patterns.

Years ago, I wrote about how I wanted to step up more often at TKD, how I wanted to train to be seen. I have been working on that slowly and steadily but things have been complicated by injuries and family stuff and a damn pandemic so I haven’t quite built the momentum that I had imagined when I wrote that post.

I have gotten less self-conscious about being called on to demonstrate something – although, after years of being visibly stressed when I was called on, I think my instructors got out of the habit of asking me very often. *

I have definitely been able to push myself a bit harder when sparring or doing drills – I’ve mostly gotten over feeling odd about those things.

But I haven’t really gotten used to the idea of leading the warms-up and patterns practice. I have done it a few times but not often enough for it to be easy or to feel routine. And while I had planned, back in the fall, to alternate classes with some of the other students who lead the warm-ups, it never quite worked out.

So it was one of those things that I was theoretically willing and able to do but I never quite got around to doing very often. Cut to a few weeks ago when Master D asked me if I would lead the class on Women’s Day and suddenly everything clicked.

I realized that in order to feel more comfortable leading the class I needed to not only lead more often but lead several times in a row and I needed to prepare a lesson plan so I wasn’t fighting my ADHD to remember what to do next while I was standing in front a group of my peers.

So, instead of just taking the class on Women’s Day, I offered to take the class every Tuesday in March. That way I would know in advance and I could plan the classes and I could practice 5 weeks in a row and get used the whole thing. Not only would this help me train to be seen but it would help me build some skills for my next belt test (a 4th degree black belt is expected to be able to instruct.)

So, what does all of this have to do with breaking the bias for International Women’s Day?

When I think of bias in the martial arts, I usually think of the external biases that might limit or affect women as they practice. We might encounter varying degrees of sexism. We might be treated differently than our male peers. We may not be in decision-making roles.

And I also think of the social biases that we bring with us – the expectation that we have to be “nice” or “good”, the sense that any sort of aggressive or competitiveness is inappropriate in a woman, the idea what we should step back so the men can take charge. We carry those things subconsciously even when we consciously reject them.

But I hadn’t really given a lot of thought to how my actions or behaviours could be reinforcing some of the biases that might impede women in TKD.

Obviously, I fight some biases already – just my presence in class is pushing back against the idea that martial arts are for men , and I also work hard to encourage the other women in class, particularly the young women, not to disparage their efforts and I remind them to see themselves as fighters and as equals to the other students.

But by stepping back when it was time for someone to lead the class, I am contributing to the idea that most women don’t take charge in these situations. My actions (or lack there of) can add to the bias against women taking on a full role in the martial arts.

If I don’t lead classes, if I don’t do demonstrations, if I don’t develop my skills, if I don’t own my TKD knowledge, I am reinforcing a bias and contributing to negative stereotypes about women in the martial arts. *

And I refuse to do that any longer.

My reluctance to lead classes and to do demonstrations are not actually about me buying into stereotypes, they are a complex mix of internalized socialization, previous negative experiences with physical activity, ADHD-related challenges with learning physical skills, and a stubborn perfectionist streak. But, whatever the additional reasons, the result is the same – by giving into to my reluctance, I am not helping women to be more visible. I am not showing that women can be part of all aspects of martial arts.

I can do better than that.

In the photo below, I am surrounded with signs from this year’s IWD campaign that show the ways that I am committing to breaking the bias. By stepping up in front of the TKD class, I am forging positive visibility of women, I am challenging gender stereotypes, discrimination, & bias, I am helping to forge a gender equal world, and I am working to maintain a gender equal mindset.

And I am starting all of that by pushing back against my own reluctance and accepting the responsibility of being seen.

Ki-YA!

A photo of me in my dobok (a white Taekwondo uniform), my hair is pulled back into a bandana and I am smiling/smirking a little. My arms are in front of me, crossed at the wrist to make an X.
A photo of me in my dobok (a white Taekwondo uniform), my hair is pulled back into a bandana and I am smiling/smirking a little. My arms are in front of me, crossed at the wrist to make an X. In TKD, this gesture is his gesture is a defensive block but in this case it is the IWD symbol for this year’s theme of ‘Break The Bias’. Behind me, on a green wall are 4 printed signs that all say ‘International Women’s Day’ in the upper right corner and #BreakTheBias in white letters in purple box at the bottom of the page. The signs read ‘I will maintain a gender equal mindset’ ‘I will challenge gender stereotypes, discrimination & bias’ ‘I will help forge a gender equal world’ and ‘ I will forge positive visibility of women’ photo credit – J. Drodge

**I want to be clear here. I do NOT think that it is EVERY female martial artist’s responsibility to do all of these things. I wouldn’t want anyone to feel like they always have to be flag bearers for their whole gender. This is about me, what I know I am capable of, and the responsibility that I feel to break biases. You may feel different responsibilities as a martial artist and I am not trying to tell you how to proceed. Many male students don’t feel the need to step to the front of the room and it would be different type of bias for me to suggest that every female needs to take that step. I’m doing what makes sense for me, please do the same for yourself.

* There is a whole point to be made here about the structural/inherent biases that prevent instructors from asking women to be demonstrators, the lifetime of biases that have prevented women from having the experiences/ growing the skills to be at ease with demonstrating, the resulting uncertainty that makes them turn down opportunities to demonstrate, the instructors’ reluctance to make female students uncomfortable by continuing to ask that then perpetuates the issue because the women don’t grow in that specific confidence and skill set. There a biases string through the whole thing but there is more to it than that. Anyway, that could be a whole other post.

fitness · injury · walking

Sam, the slow walker

Sam B2 Comments
If you are hiking in a group and waiting for slower people to catch up, don’t start walking again when they do catch up, because then you got a rest and they didn’t. I think about this tip a lot, in many different contexts.

Thanks to severe osteoarthritis in both knees, I’ve become a slow walker. See here and here and here.

I feel pretty good that I am still walking and I’ve read lots about the benefits of walking even though it hurts. But I’m not walking very far or very quickly these days.

Cheddar is very patient and seems to easily adjust to whatever speed I want to walk.

Walking with Cheddar

I’m glad my friends who walk with me–hey Kim!–are patient.

On the bike, I’m sometimes the faster one and this same lesson about waiting for slower people is true there too. When waiting for slower riders at the top of the hill, never just take off when they get there. Sometimes cyclists play a game called “no rest for the wicked” where first to the top have to ride back down and ride up again with the slower riders. As a slower rider, on hills, that feels ok with some people, some of the time. I talk more about this here.

When I’m walking and people get ahead, I’m happy if they walk back to me and I’m also happy if they wait. The only bad combo is waiting and then taking off again the minute I get there. That’s lonely and it would be less pressure all round just to walk by myself.

Walked home from work!

Recently my knees have been feeling a little less painful. I’ve even been able to walk home from work and I’ve been enjoying walking alone in a way I haven’t before. It’s a nice mental break between work and home (the bike ride is too fast to count as a real break) and I like getting to have complete control of the pace without worrying about other people.

fitness · motivation

First draft fitness, thanks Alex

Sam B2 Comments

Perfectionism is the thief of joy. At one level, we all know this. And yet, when it comes to fitness, we have a hard time not going back to that grade 6 gym class where we first learned that sport is about winning, and that athletic participation is for those who are good enough.

Sports is the home of the give-it-your-all slogans, like GO BIG OR STAY HOME or BRING YOUR A GAME. But sometimes it’s not like that. Sometimes it’s your C-game, you’re just showing up and doing your thing.

I often draw parallels between writing and fitness as practices, and I know others on the blog do the same. Hey, Christine! And when it comes to writing I am the Queen of the Scruffy First Draft. I am good, in group projects, of producing the thing that others rewrite. Finishing things, on my own, is another matter and we won’t talk about that here.

So when I came across this on the instagram account of Empathetic Fitness, home of Alex, profiled here by Cate, I smiled.

Go read the whole thing and come back. It’s great.

In my toolbox of joyful movement I have Muppet Fitness, that’s when you are an enthusiastic amateur cheerfully doing a thing and not caring about whether you’re any good at it.

But somedays, forget caring about talent and achievement, some days I don’t have joy either. It’s not joyful movement. It’s just movement. And that’s okay too.

We can reject athletic achievement as a sole focus of fitness and swap it for joyful movement, but we shouldn’t make joy normative either. I used to say, about exercise, “if you don’t love it, don’t do it” but that’s a thing I’ve since stopped saying. It’s okay just to do it and not love it.

Thanks to Alex I’m adding First Draft Fitness to my toolbox. Some days it’s okay just to go through the motions and do the thing because it’s the thing that you do.

Person writing on white paper. Photo by  Andrew Loh  on  Scopio.
fitness · meditation

200 straight days of meditation; now what?

catherine w2 Comments

I love my Ten Percent Happier meditation app. Yes, I blog about it probably too often, but I really feel moved to express my love for it publicly from time to time. What’s to love?

  • It’s on my phone, so always available for meditations from 1 to 60 minutes
  • The meditation teachers are some of the leading ones out there (which I admit I like)
  • The meditations are sorted into categories for all sorts of sphere of life and types of emotions and experiences
  • The presence of the app and the guidance provided by the meditations creates a structure within which I can settle (or not) into meditation
  • The pitch of it is just right for me– the right amount of Buddhism, the right amount of practical guidance, all with a smidge of humor

This morning, when I opened the app to do my first-thing-in-the-morning meditation, I got a notification (complete with electronic confetti– the best kind) that I had meditated for 200 days straight. Sadly, I was too slow to capture it in a photo to share. But trust me, it was festive and gratifying.

I’ve been regularly meditating since 2020, almost every day. I’ve written a lot about this most recent return to it: here here here here, for example.

What does it mean to me to have managed 200 days in a row?

  • I’m proud of myself– doing anything like this for 200 days in a row feels like an accomplishment in establishing a habit that I really want for myself
  • I’m aware of having made progress over both the past 200 days, and the past 2 years of developing a meditation practice
  • I decided that doing 3 minutes of meditation in a day was better than doing none; I do ten slow deep breaths, which takes about 3 minutes. Done.
  • Each day is different, in terms of my needs, feelings, attitude towards my practice; also other factors influence how the actual sitting goes.
  • Even though I now have laid down the tracks of a habit, each day is different; each day is a new challenge. The ever-present challenges and new lessons of meditation remind me that I’ll always be a student. And I like that.

There’s comfort in habit. But it takes attention to keep it going. However, the habit helps me with the attending to it. That, and the app. It’s called Ten Percent Happier. I didn’t want to forget to mention that… 🙂

Readers, do you keep track of milestones like 100 days, 200 days, etc. for your daily practices of movement or stillness? How do you think of it? I’d love to hear from you.

cycling · Sat with Nat · strength training · stretching

Nat Shares Her Meaningful Measures of Progress

natalieh (she/her)8 Comments

Well here we are, somehow 6 weeks after I hopped on my partner’s Peloton. Where did the time go?

Somewhere along the journey I hit 1,000 minutes of working out. Cool!

I’m rediscovering my comfort and confidence on the bike. While I still often cry at the end of a ride it’s not a bad thing. It’s often tears of relief that I completed a ride. So thankful!

I have been alternating cycling and weight training with 1 rest day a week. My butt needs the time out of the saddle and my legs need time to recuperate.

What has changed in 6 weeks?

**remember your mileage may vary. If you start a new training regime you may have different gains or meaningful measures of success**

First, I’m able to ride longer. I started out with 5 minute warm up, 20 minute beginner rides, 5 minute cool down. After a month I felt good trying an advanced beginner ride of 30 minutes. I now regularly do a 5 or 10 minute warmup, a 30 minute ride, 10 minute cool down and a 5 minute stretch. Yay!

Second, I’m not as sore after my workouts. Thank goodness because the first two weeks I was limping through my neighborhood on my daily walks.

Third, I have better form on the bike and can sit up without holding the handle bars, find a relaxed upper body during max effort and even standing up out of the saddle during rides. It’s very different from on my road bike but I’m learning. Yay!

Fourth, I’m feeling good in the strength classes. Lots of moves I’m still learning. My upper body workouts have felt particularly awesome. Best part, I’m lifting more weight with better form and control. Wahoo!

Fifth, my heart rate and blood pressure have dropped by a whopping 20 points. Talk about a satisfying and meaningful measure. My motivation for adding higher intensity cardio and weight training to my life was to address a disturbing upward trend in these metrics. My moving about my day heart rate is 64 bpm and my blood pressure is back to 124/75. That’s right where I want them to be.

Sixth, my stress management and resilience are feeling good. I’m having less anxiety and sleeping well. So good!

Seventh, I now have different things in common with my partner and our other friends who use Peloton. We share favourite classes and instructors as well as equipment tips and tricks. That means less shop talk about our paid work. AMAZING!

Selfie of Nat smiling in her super cute pink sports top with her hair pulled back. She is super happy and grateful.

What are meaningful measures in your fitness journey? I want to hear all about it!

fitness

Energy drinks and what they mean for the space we make for women and fitness

marthafitat55

I was idly scrolling through my news feeds when a dramatic headline caught my eye: My Teen’s Energy Drink Habit Led Me To Learn Of Their Dangers For Kids. The author described the development of her child’s caffeine habit from imbibing an energy drink.

Image shows a water bottle with lemon slices, ice and water. There’s a skipping rope in the background. Photo by quokkabottles on Unsplash

Notoriously high in stimulants, energy drinks aren’t meant to be drunk by kids. However, like coolers and spritzers, brightly coloured (blue, purple and hot pink!) energy drinks look more like funky sodas and are popular with younger teens.

It got me wondering, what is the consumption of energy drinks among adults, especially women? First, though, the content of energy drinks made me stop in my tracks. An average 8oz cup of coffee contains about 95 mg of caffeine while your average energy drink contains about five times as much, about 500 mg.

There’s no real risk to women and people with uteruses, except when pregnant. Then the recommended amount of caffeine should be less than 200 mg a day. However, teens generally should avoid energy drinks because of the risk for high blood pressure, poor sleep, upset stomach, and increased irritability and jittery nerves.

There’s no real difference in the numbers of male and female persons who consume energy drinks. It’s just shy of 30% each. But men are over-represented in the purchasing of such drinks at almost 60%.

Here are some other interesting numbers about energy drink consumption:

  • Gen Zers are 238% more likely to consume energy drinks than Boomers, with only 8% of that demo report consuming energy drinks.
  • Exercise is the number one energy drink usage occasion at 37.3%; followed by sports at 24.7%; household chores at 20.2%; and studying at 17.1%.
  • 41.2% of males consume energy drinks for exercise in comparison to the 31.5% of females, whilst only 15.5% of men consume energy drinks for household chores compared to 27.2% of women.

Energy drinks are primarily marketed towards men. A feature article about the industry noted there was only one female CEO leading an energy drink company. Back in 2011, there was an energy drink developed and marketed for women. Called Rockstar Pink, and packaged in a very intense pink-coloured can, this drink’s prime selling feature was the fact it was less than 10 calories per serving.

I don’t care for either energy or sports drinks as I prefer to drink my caffeine as a latte, preferably in the morning with a book and a cozy couch and not chugging it back in a gym.

However, I do recognize that some sports drinks or solutions offer some value in replacing electrolytes and stabilizing blood sugar levels during particularly challenging workouts. That said, is there a need for monster claws, large kapow stars, or giant letters on a can, all pointing out that in your hands you hold A Very Important Drink?

I wasn’t all that surprised to learn that sports/energy drinks are now something you consume outside of the gym, and the industry would like you to serve such drinks at your next social gathering, pending pandemic guidelines, of course. Mind you, if you intend to dance all night long, an energy-boosting beverage is probably going to go over well, especially with the younger clientele now taking up the largest market share.

Nor was I surprised to learn energy drinks are replacing soda as the beverage of choice among millennials, especially female millennials. I was surprised by this quote: “While millennial men typically are the face of energy and sports drinks products, the category is gaining momentum with other consumers. Women, in general, are less likely to consume sports drinks, but millennial women consume sports drinks at levels that exceed their male counterparts. Similarly, women aged 50 and older also exceed males in consumption of energy drinks.” (emphasis added)

I honestly thought I was going to find research showing the increased consumption of energy drinks was connected to increased physical activity, but I was wrong.

Actual physical exercise definitely helps relieve stress and boosts energy. But do we actually have time for fitness in lives full of work demands, parenting labour and family responsibilities? For women, the answer is no. According to a UN Women Count study, women’s unpaid workload has increased to the point that women are contributing as much as a full day of unpaid labour weekly compared to men.

The fact is more women than men are reporting higher rates of burnout, and the pandemic isn’t helping. A recent American survey asked for ideas on alleviating burnout and they got a number of suggestions: “additional paid time off (22%), a condensed four-day workweek (22%), schedule flexibility (17%), remote work options (13%), company-wide mental health days (13%) and a lighter workload (12%).”

So the next time you pass a rack of energy drinks, think about what it really means in terms of time and fitness. Because when it comes to women, it seems the reason we need the energy boost is not because of a hard session in the gym.

MarthaFitat55 enjoys powerlifting, trail walking, swimming and yoga when she can find the time.