In a Washington Post article (1991), “The Pleasure Principle in Exercise,” the author provides a “research review” on the importance of enjoying exercise in order to persist with it:
“study after study shows that the people who stick with exercise are the ones who truly enjoy their activity. They don’t view their workout as one more chore to cram in but as a play break that’s one of the highlights of their day” (p.4).
Smiling teens running (i.e., not me) in gym class.
This article, published around the time I was in high school, reflects what I have been told for years: ideally, exercise evokes the fun of childhood play and creates a rush of endorphins. Exercise should feel good.
But I recently realized this narrative doesn’t fit with my experience. Starting in middle school (think fitness testing, track and field, etc.), I often felt like exercise sucked. Tired, out of breath, achy. I knew I should exercise, that I should like it, but in fact the effort didn’t feel pleasant. Teenage me thought: why pursue bodily discomfort on purpose? So when high school gym class finally became optional, I stopped exercising altogether.
Mental Aspects of Physical Fitness
Meditation: a car wash for your brain?
The disconnect I have felt—between how I should and did feel about exercise as a young person—was made clear to me during my first meditation weekend. It turns out I have had different ideas about meditation as well. I thought meditation was like a car wash: you went into it feeling dirty and unhappy, and somehow came out feeling shiny, happy, and clean.
Meditation, it turns out, is more about noticing what I am feeling and experiencing (good, bad, different), then leaning into that experience. Meditation involves concentrating on letting go of judgements, expectations, and the need to change what can sometimes be difficult feelings and bodily sensations. Meditation is a kind of mental playbook for managing how to show up for sometimes uncomfortable situations or emotions.
Mandala for meditation practice.
Mindfulness, the “noticing” part of meditation practice, can be taken to other activities (I further learned). It’s why, I put together, there are so many mental “check-ins” during yoga practice. Noticing tension and discomfort at its first sign can help me to be present in–but without automatically seeking to judge, avoid, or change–what I am experiencing (unless there is pain that will imminently lead to injury, of course). And, indeed, I did find through our yoga practice that it was much easier to handle discomfort in my body when I noticed and accepted that it was there.
There are critiques of mindfulness, namely as a self-help discourse that convinces stressed out folks collective suffering is in their heads rather than a societal issue. I don’t disagree with concerns about how meditation and mindfulness are (mis)understood and (mis)used in Western culture, but I am still learning about them as they relate specifically to my own fitness practices, so for now I am keeping an open mind.
Mindfulness During Exercise
When I was a kid I didn’t have a mental playbook when I wasn’t loving the exercise I was told I should be loving. Without a mindful approach, I immediately leaned away from the tension and discomfort caused by physical exertion and effort.
Now, in my mid-life, I think the so-called “pleasure principle of exercise” is wrong for me. As I continue to explore physical activities (many for the first time in a long time), I am not going to try to convince myself that exercise will always be a “play break” or a “highlight of my day.” (Sam looks at some actual research in her post Rationality and the Hatred of Exercise.)
Instead, I am going to try to be mindful: to notice and accept the tension, discomfort, and other sensations I feel whilst being physically active. I am going be try to be really present when my exercise sucks.
Ironically, it may be precisely the goal of seeking to notice my discomfort (rather than striving for its enjoyment) that may get me to exercise more often. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Last week, I finished my medieval walking challenge. 183 miles over two months. By the end, it wasn’t even that difficult, despite the challenge of finding enough time.
Happily, my last big walk was 8 km in late medieval Flemish clothing, while at an event in the pretty town of Campbellford Ontario.
Me in a white linen cap and top, enjoying the dirt walking trail, surrounded by trees and with a cloudy grey sky overhead.
So now what? I am definitely back into walking, in a way I haven’t been for ages. I did a Challenger walk last year. Kirsten likes them but they aren’t really for me.
I think I’ll start doing Volksmarches again. Volksmarching is a popular walking activity that started in Germany in 1968. When I lived there as a teen and young adult, they were a great way to visit villages and the countryside throughout much of Europe.
These walks, usually with either 10 or 20 km distances were deliberately non-competitive, and usually ended with a big tent serving sausages on a bun, fries and even beer. Often there would be an oompah band.
Everyone participated, as most were very accessible. For a while I did two a day – running a 10 km with an older family friend, then walking a second 10 km with his wife and young kids. I distinctly recall being passed by little old ladies still dressed in their church clothes and sensible shoes, with a handbag on their elbow.
I nearly missed my high school graduation because I was desperate to get three walks in that day, and ended up several hours from home (in the pre-internet days, I had literally pieced together a route by finding upcoming events on three separate flyers with little maps, not drawn to scale).
Why do that? Like the Challenger walks, there was bling. You kept a little booklet that got stamped with your distance. Every time you did the required distance (minimum 500 km), you would mail it off for a hat pin and badge to sew on your vest or backpack. Plus there were completion medals you could collect, reflecting local history, clubs, landmarks, festivals or agriculture.
My volksmarch medal collection – junky, silly, and yet still hanging in my home office.
When I moved back to Canada, volksmarching was in its infancy here, but I participated in quite a few events. Then I got busy, and stiff, and out of touch. I’m ready to give it another go now.
Over time, the Canadian sport has evolved. There are shorter walks for people who don’t feel up to doing 10 km. Medals have fallen out of fashion. In many cities, you can do self-guided walks and stamp your booklet yourself, using the honour system. Canada isn’t alone in that; I once spent four days in London, sightseeing on foot via the four volksmarch maps I downloaded before traveling.
You can find more about upcoming walks in Canada using this link. From there you can also connect to clubs in other countries.
It turns out I could have done a slightly different walk that day in Campbellford and gotten credit for it. I’ll remember for next time. And Kirsten, there is a club in Kingston, along with three year-round walks. Maybe I can join you for one this summer?
Have you ever been part of a walking club, or volksmarched? What appeals to you? What would make it better?
Full confession: I hate housework. And I totally agree with Catherine’s thoughts about the very unfeminist aspects of counting housework as fitness.
But I do like gardening, at least at the beginning of the season when I am still full of hope that things will grow. And I love my mom, who likes to have a garden, but can no longer maintain one herself.
Hopeful spring garden from a previous year. Pinky and purple hyacinths in the foreground with yellow narcissus and a few red tulips in the background. There are green weeds everywhere.
So I spent many hours on Sunday working in both my garden and my mom’s. It wasn’t particularly intense exercise, but there was definitely some walking as I took my poor overburdened push mower over my little patch of grass repeatedly (it turns out that no-mow May leads to knee-high grass). And lots of bending and lifting as I hauled out lawn furniture, pulled weeds, dug holes for flowers, and carried yard waste bags (the heavy lifting with bags of dirt and planters happened a couple of weeks ago).
You do woman in a colourful T Shirt pruning a mass of large green plants. Photo by Mary Jane Duford on Unsplash
I was pleased that there were no twinges at all the next day.
But I have been thinking ever since about how slowly Mom walked through the gardening centre. She didn’t even feel up to pushing the cart (usually something she insists on). And Dad, who usually joins me to putter while I garden, spent most of the afternoon working on his puzzle books inside.
They are both in their mid eighties, so the slowing down is understandable. But it is also a sharp reminder of why I got active in the first place. I didn’t want to end up suffering from arthritis like my mom, and I wanted to be a good role model for my kids.
As I near the age they were when I made that decision, I’m adding a new goal. I want to age at home. I want to be comfortable walking to the grocery store in my eighties, doing at least basic gardening, and maybe even still riding my bicycle (or electric bicycle or tricycle).
Two older woman sitting in front of houses in Amsterdam. One clearly rode there on her bicycle, which sits to the right. There is a tiny garden on the left. Photo by Laura Thonne on Unsplash
I still won’t be smiling about the housework, or counting the calories I burn washing dishes, but I will be living independently on my own terms. That’s about as feminist as you can get.
Greetings! Your intrepid, approaching 50, woman is back to share her journey to fitness and hopefully inspire both herself and maybe you too!
The pandemic has been hard – we’ve all suffered mentally, emotionally, physically. The winter(s) were especially brutal if, like me, you dislike having to put on 17 layers to just go outside and don’t have indoor exercise equipment. Alas, I digress. Now, onto why I’m really here…
There’s this “new” exercise fad that all the “exercise gurus” on social media say, especially for middle aged/peri/menopausal women (like me!) is way better than hours at the gym or HIIT, etc. Of course, in reality it’s not new at all. We as a species have been doing this exercise for at least a couple of millenia now. What is this, you wonder? WALKING! Wild, amiright?
In April of this year I was working from home and still had primary possession of Giselle. See her photo at the end of this post.
I happened to come across this advertisement on social media that was called The Conquerer Challenge. I investigated and did some research. The company behind this challenge has put (I’m sure) thousands of hours of work into it.
The concept is simple, Sign up on the website, select your challenge, download the app to your phone, and off you go on your adventure! There’s so much more to it though – it’s an international community of incredibly supportive people, all on a fitness journey who are challenging themselves and others to be more active. And when one warrior falls (walking buddies, such as my Giselle, or an unexpected physical ailment – damn knees!) everyone rallies to support and motivate!
In April I started a 75km trek from Cairo, Egypt to the Great Pyramids in Giza. I paid the company about $30. My google fit app is paired with the Counquerer Challenge app on my phone and every night my km’s are uploaded and my journey is logged. (You can manually log distance as well. For example, I log 1km for every hour of archery I do and the app provides a conversion chart for other movement activities, from rowing to housekeeping) For every 20% you complete, the company plants a tree. Along the route you receive random virtual postcards with details of the part of the journey you’re on.
It took me almost 3 months and I completed my first challenge! What a ride! It was very encouraging to see how much progress I made on a daily basis and to see my completion percentage and the amount of time it took. You choose how long you have to complete the challenge, so it really is a self challenge more than anything. At the end you get an actual medal in the mail with a completion certificate and the distance on the medal. I am onto my second challenge and am climbing Mt. Fuji. It’s another 75km trek because I’m still working up the courage to do a longer walk (Niagara Falls 113km for example, or the Great Wall of China at 259.1km).
The idea of fitness for me is about attaining optimal health. Walking is truly one of the most accessible forms of exercise out there and if done in proper supportive shoes, is so incredibly easy on the body (well, on my round body, yours may be different) and it can be a great social activity. Find a friend and create a team and do a challenge together! It’s amazing how fast the km’s add up and it’s exhilarating to say – I walked 20km this week. Sure, some people will walk 20km in one day but each person’s journey is their own and cannot be compared to anyone else’s. Walking has so many other benefits; fresh air and vitamin D, you can explore new to you places in your city/town, you can spend quality time with your pet, your quality of sleep improves and best of all – IT’S FREE!!!. It takes relatively little energy and you will find in time that you WANT to go out. If for no other reason to see where you are on your journey every day. At the end you can say – look what I accomplished!
I have found that I tire the dog out when we go for more than 2 km at a time (she’s not that big really) and I’m about to start a full time in person office job, so my frequent daily walks will be reduced. It’s your journey, walking will also help your mental health and the movement and sunlight will help decrease/eliminate any depression or anxiety you may be going through. It can be a great meditative time and you will find as you progress that you are walking a bit faster and covering more distance in a shorter period of time. You can catch up on the newest music, listen to your favourite Podcast, listen to a book.
Who knows, one day when you get to the Great Wall of China you can say, I’ve walked this and it only took me x number of days! I’m a Conquerer! I hope you decide to start a walking journey of your own (and I seriously can’t recommend it enough), so far since April and as of writing this, I’ve covered 93.1km (that doesn’t include today’s kms yet). I’m so proud of myself – as a lifelong non active person, this has been such a motivating, enjoyable and rewarding experience! If you’re in the Kingston area and want to start a walking group – hit me up! I’d love to walk with you and share a journey!
Giselle
Kirsten (aka Kiki) is a woman approaching 50 who has struggled with exercise her entire life. She lives in Kingston with her 2 cats and occasionally a Shar Pei named Giselle. She is currently taking archery lessons and hopes to start curling again this year. Kirsten is also an active participant in a virtual distance challenge and is currently walking from Cairo to the Pyramids at Giza.
May was a super busy month. Kind of a blur. But a good blur, if you know what I mean. Lots of good stuff going on. We’re back out in the world more with friends–concerts (with masks) and dinners with friends (mostly on patios)–and work just hasn’t slowed down, not even a bit.
Add to that, Sarah and I are also training for the Friends for Life Bike Rally in August. We’re trying to ride more during the week and also get long rides in on the weekend.
I’m struggling a bit with fundraising so if you have money to throw my way, all amounts help and it’s for a great cause, please click here and support my ride.
A few things stood out for me this month.
First, Sarah and I survived a terrifying thunderstorm on our bikes and that’s had me even more worried about the changing climate and its effects on our world. I blogged about it here. Thunder and lightening is the one condition this all weather, all conditions cyclist is frightened by. See here.
Second, I’m biking to work consistently now and since my regular commute is too short–just a few kilometres–I’m taking the long way.
Here’s me on the bridge I use to get to work.
Thanks Michel!
Here’s my “long” route to work.
Strava ride report
Third, as you can see there’s also not much Zwifting happening. We don’t have central air at home and it’s hard to ride hard indoors in the heat. I miss my Zwift teamates though.
Zwift weekly distance goal 150 km, 0 km ridden
Fourth, Sarah and I also did a fun ride in Prince Edward County this month. Pavement with the gravel bikes wasn’t the speediest ride but next year we hope to come back and do the 100 with road bikes.
Fifth, I’m back at the gym on campus, personal training with Meg, the world’s best personal trainer who has found leg strengthening exercises that don’t hurt, and might even help, my knees. Yay.
Sixth, I’m noticing how little movement I get on days when all my meetings are on Zoom or Teams. Check this out, a day with only two move minutes. When friends ask why I work out so much that right there is why.
Also, without it I can be in a pretty horrible mood.
My workday!
Other metrics I care about? I’ve ridden about 2200 km so far this year and I’ve worked out 200 times. I’ve read ten books and practised my Spanish 21 days in a row.
Spanish because Sarah and I are riding bikes in Cuba next January with these guys.
I read this piece in the New Yorker about the role anticipation plays in happiness and so your likely to hear lots from me about our upcoming Cuba bike trip. I’m thinking about which bike to take with me and I’m considering either a new gravel bike or at least road bike that can take wide tires.
I’m assuming my knee surgery won’t have happened by then. But you never know. If they call me I’ll cancel the trip.
A year ago, I wrote here about an injury and dispiriting MRI results: complex and degenerative tears in both menisci. The specialist sat me down for the bad news: surgeons in my town were not going to be interested in having a look, believing that meniscus surgery puts knees at risk for joint replacement down the road. I had some questions about my injury—it didn’t fit the meniscus tear stories I had read, which included sudden pulls or twists or pops. Nor was I experiencing the usual symptoms related to meniscal injury: knee locking, clicking, giving way. But the images seemed to speak for themselves. The specialist was sorry. There you go.
As he delivered the bad news, I should have remembered that visual data is always context specific and always read through an interpretive lens. I couldn’t find my way to questioning conclusions that the MRI results seemed to underscore, but I was alert to the significance of a remark made along the way, something along the lines of, “You know, you can burn more calories riding a bike than you do running.” “Hold up,” I thought, “who said anything about calorie burning?” I didn’t run to manage my weight, nor do I talk about exercise in this way. I suddenly saw myself as, I’m guessing, the specialist saw me–a middle-aged woman who jogs to keep her weight down. I became suspicious of his quick assessments and conclusions. My family doctor also had some questions. To his mind, there was no reason not to put me in front of a surgeon rather than discounting the possibility of an intervention out of hand. He agreed that a second opinion was in order.
Fast forward past the usual long wait time and I’m in front of a specialist in another city. The conclusions he draws, looking at the MRI images, are radically different. The degenerative meniscal tears, he says, are pretty run of the mill. I have probably been running with them for years. There is no need for surgery because they aren’t the cause of the injury. He puts me through a range of tests relating to meniscal function, closely examines my gait and alignment, and then announces, “Patellar tendinopathy.” My gait, he points out, is slightly knock-kneed, and in the absence of strength training to support proper alignment, the tendon is aggravated by being dragged over the joint the wrong way. I had been sitting on my butt for months at the start of Covid, leaving the house only for easy runs and not much else—certainly not strength training at the gym. The knee trouble began when I ramped up to longer distances the fall of 2020.
These days I’m running again, shorter distances until I have time to undertake strength training with diligence and attention. Will I run a marathon again? I don’t know. But I do know that I was able reclaim running by advocating for myself. I thank the doctors who respected what running means to me.
I recently finished a sprint triathlon, my first in four years. The run felt like freedom.
Picture: AC on the podium for an AG win at the Oliver Triathlon, June 2022.
Alison Conway trains and works on the traditional and unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan People.
What better place is there for a sunny and warm US Memorial Day holiday than the water? That’s just what I thought, so I went paddling with friends Deb and Tim and their teenagers Mari, Leah and Jacob (who actually just turned 20, but who I’ll refer to as teen for the purposes of this blog post), as well as their dog Ruby, who is turning 7 soon.
It was Tim’s birthday, so he planned a group paddle trip with the current down the Concord River in Massachusetts. We left cars at put-in and planned take-out spots, and then launched a) two inflatable tandem kayaks; b) one inflatable rowboat; and c) my sleek lightweight zippy carbon/kevlar 13′ kayak. Off we went.
There was paddling. There were hijinks. There were photo ops. There were snacks.
Me making a peace sign, rafted up with Mari, and others in background. Jacob and Ruby the dog and me, with Leah on the right photobombing.
Ruby the dog liked to keep herself moving, preferably between boats. She moved nimbly, but sometimes resorted to swimming (with her doggie life vest). My narrow boat was a no-go. That didn’t stop her from trying, though.
About an hour or so into the trip, though, the teens began to tire. Admittedly, wrangling the inflatable kayaks is difficult– they simply aren’t made for speed or distance, and they’re difficult to steer, too. And the inflatable rowboat? Fugetaboutit.
I had an idea: I’d practiced towing another kayak in a Maine weekend course. But I didn’t have a tow line. Rats! Luckily, Tim came prepared with lots of rope. So we tied one kayak to the stern of mine, and I began paddling. Turns out it was way easier than I thought. Yay! And, it was much easier to paddle in a straight line while towing than not while towing. Great!
We tried rotating the kids into different boats to take breaks. Deb hosted her son Jacob, who was in turn hosting Ruby in one of the inflatables.
Deb paddling a yellow inflatable kayak, her son Jacob lying with his head in her lap, and Ruby keeping watch.
Then, about 30–40 minutes later, more teens got tired and our pace slowed to a crawl. The charm of the wildly careening inflatables was wearing off, and the kids just wanted to head down the river. No amount of snack application was working. Fair enough. So, Tim once again dug into his backpack of treasures and came up with more rope, this time tying the rowboat to the kayak (which was tied to my kayak). I restarted paddling.
This time it was harder, and I made very slow progress. But it was forward motion and it was sustainable over the next couple of hours. Check out the picture below for verifiation.
Me, towing an inflatable kayak and rowboat, with three teens and a dog.
Tim and I decided it was best to take out at the next big landing. We arrived, and some of us stayed with the gear while others took an Uber to get the other car at the desired but un-reached take out spot. Hey, it happens, right? (Raise your hand or comment below if you’ve had this experience.)
We all made it home, considerably later and considerably hungrier than we expected, but none the worse for wear. It was a really fun time, with lots of laughs, some snacks, great weather, serious energy output, and some lessons learned. Here are my takeaways:
I can paddle for longer than I thought, even when it’s not as fun and I’m going slowly. This lesson may be applicable to other areas of my life, maybe…
I’m getting a tow line for my next trip– you wear it around your waist so you can attach and detach yourself from the line.
Slowing down the process of getting into my kayak worked very well. I kinda wish I had done the same with the getting-out process; I might’ve ended up less wet and smelly. Duly noted.
Bringing in-case gear, especially since it’ll fit in my boat’s rear hatch, is a good thing. I’ll be bringing extra rope and bungee cording, a knife, bug spray, headlamp, extra snacks, space blanket, an extra-extra bottle of water, and probably a few other things for all my kayak trips.
Every active trip I take– by land, sea or air– is going to be am opportunity for learning something new. Janet suggested I document my kayak outings with what happened, how it went, and what I learned. Imma do that.
I’ll bring a map next time. And the time after that. and so on.
Hey readers: any anecdotes about over- or under-shooting pickup or car locations during hikes, paddles, etc.? I bet you’ve got some good stories, which I’d love to hear about.
Recommended Soundtrack: Bet on Me by Walk off the Earth
The weather has turned warmer and I’m loving spending whole days on the weekend in the garden digging, weeding and planting.
The time has to come from something so I’ve stopped doing indoor workouts. The idea of spending any time inside when I don’t have to hurts my brain.
I love taking my coffee in the morning outside. Walking the dog is so much more pleasant when the neighbourhood is in bloom.
I’m so thankful my body is able to shift gears to doing something I love. Digging in the dirt, the smell of the plants, it’s so revitalizing.
I know by the time it gets truly hot and we are well into summer I’ll shift away from the gardening to other things. I’m inconsistent in the short term. Every spring I put energy in to my garden though so taking a longer view there is consistency.
Indoor training feels good in the winter and early spring. I’ll be back to it sometime later. It works for me.
I looked back at all the different activities I engaged with over the years. I’m consistently active, but what that is varies a lot.
I used to feel bad that I can’t stick with one thing longer than three or four months. Now I appreciate that there is always something different to come.
My health and well-being are supported by all this activity and that is pretty dang cool.
Are you someone who is consistent with working out? I’d love to hear about your rhythm of activities.
Image is of a red and white dog curled up on a grey outdoor couch. In the background is a lush garden filled with trees, shrubs and perennials. It feels a bit magical under the roof of the gazebo as the sunlight pokes through the canopy of trees.
Last week I did a very bad thing. I didn’t mean to, but looking back, I am glad as I learned something very important.
Black and white photo shows cat at laptop with a Zoom meeting of cats. Photo by Chris Barbalis on Unsplash
The bad thing: I was working on a major document that required validation. It’s a very useful process whereby someone very skilled reviews your document and makes sure everything follows logically. However, I ended up sitting at my desk for pretty much the whole afternoon.
The thing I learned: when you sit for too long at my age (well any age really, but at my age, it is exceptionally bad), your muscles tighten, and when they tighten they pull at your bones. If you have a hypermobile hip joint like mine, tight muscles from sitting for too long without stretching result in very unhappy joints because they get pulled out of their rightful place, usually silently, often resentfully, and later, painfully.
Image shows white cat howling, a pretty accurate description of how I felt after sitting too long. Photo by Carlos Deleon on Unsplash
It’s been a while since I’ve done something this stunned to myself, but now I know. Previously my hips joints have sloughed off their restrictive socket layers when I have stepped into sinky snowbanks, leapt gazelle-like down uneven steps, or even turned over the wrong way in my sleep.
This Learning Moment (LM) reminded me how easy it is to forget everything when I am in the writing zone: food, drink, movement, conversation etc.
Luckily, there is a remedy. I have started setting alarms — chirpy buzzes, whimsical little tunes, exuberant and energetic rock songs — to remind me to get up and do one of my required exercises. (I have a whole slew of them. I can do them standing up, lying down, and yes, even while sitting in a chair. I know how many reps, how many sets, and how many seconds for each one.)
While I am working on paying attention more mindfully to my body cues, I have found the audio cues work better at interrupting my head space and since I have to shut them off using my phone, I have also renamed the labels on the alarms with the names of the key stretches I am required to complete.
I do feel a little like a jack in the box when the alarms go off; however, I can’t deny they have been helping. Perhaps in a month, the habit will be ingrained but until then, I’ll have an ear open for my alarms ready to put those hip flexors back where they belong.
(Ask Fieldpoppy is a monthly column written by Cate; for last month, go here. Questions for future columns are welcome via the facebook page or in the comments).
Person lying face down with their hair hanging over their face, dangling over a table. Photo by Pim Chu on Unsplash
Dear Fieldpoppy: I’m trying to find the sweet spot between “being kind to myself” and feeling motivated to stay consistent in my routine and push a little in my workouts. Like for example if I follow my coach’s encouragement to take it easy if I want, I end up taking it easy more than I end up pushing hard. Overall I’m not sure that’s “better.” Any thoughts on the best balance? — How often is it okay to just lie down?
Dear Fieldpoppy: What do you think about the “placebo effect” as it relates to exercise? For example, there have always been differing viewpoints on everything from stretching to running shoes and how the placebo effect shapes our views on options. I am a fan of the placebo effect personally. If I stretch and I feel better and it makes me run better, whether it is doing anything from a physiological perspective or not, seems irrelevant to me, and the stretching has value. Curious what your thoughts are on this topic? — What is real?
Dear Sweetlings,
Thank you for these excellent questions — which are actually about the same thing: how do I find the frame of mind that works best for me to move my body and nurture my soul? Is there a “right” way?
The thing is, there’s no one objective truth about movement (just look at how many times the New York Times can write a slightly different version of the Best! 7! Minute! Workout!). Everything is narrative in one way or another. The coach in the first letter is giving advice — “take it easy!” — that is its own narrative counterpoint to dominant fitness narratives like “get out of your comfort zone” or (more offensively) “you don’t get a good ass by sitting on it.” Advice about stretching, training, physiology, etc. are all just narratives — some have some connection to actual research, but most of that research comes from the realm of performance sport, where people are trying to shave 3 seconds off a 5000 metre race. Transplanted into recreational fitness, it’s just another narrative about Doing It Right — possibly informative, possibly useful, possibly irrelevant, definitely not prescriptive.
So how to find the sweet spot? What is it YOU need, outside someone else’s definition of a Good Workout or To Stretch or Not to Stretch? I think there is a lot to learn from yet another narrative — the one related to intuitive eating, which Tracy has written about frequently for the blog. This post outlines 10 principles of intuitive eating I think apply really well to making choices about our own personal fitness, especially “feel your fullness” and “exercise: feel the difference.”
Just as it’s important to find a space for eating that frees us up from the food police (don’t even ask me about the server who recently commented on the fact that I’d eaten my whole dinner with “wow, you must have missed breakfast”), it’s great to find a fitness space that frees us up from fitness dictators. And, it means you have to find your own meaning in it. What kind of movement makes you feel “full” — as in, satisfied, endorphin-y, tired enough to sleep well, like you’re as strong and flexible as you want to be for the life you have right now? When you decide to lie down or take it easy, what are you basing that on — what someone else says, or a scan that tells you your body is actually tired or sore or tender? Start tuning into linking your workouts to what your body needs to build your own practice of “intuitive movement.”
So how does the concept of whether stretching or fancy zoomy shoes are a “placebo” fit into this? I don’t think it’s the best metaphor. There’s no “true facts” vs “fake facts that make me feel better.” If the shoes make you feel like a rockstar, and that’s what you need to get out there and run, and running is what makes your body and soul happy? Buy ’em! If you’re going to buy them and constantly argue with them in your head (like I did with a not-quite-right pair of trail runners I just bought because they Seemed Good)? Let them go. They aren’t going to help.
Dear Fieldpoppy: What do I do about working out in the heat, especially when you don’t have AC at home and getting sweaty means staying sweaty? It feels like a trivial complaint about our changing climate but it’s starting to really bother me. I don’t have AC at home or in my car and I have marginal AC, for environmental reasons, at work. It feels like there is no good time to work out. — Hot and bothered
Dear Hot and Bothered,
I hear you. I am in a bit of a loop right now where I have to work out because it’s the only place I can process the anxiety of The World We Live In — and yet, when I’m running outside, I keep thinking about that old Star Trek: Next Gen episode where Picard plays a haunting tune on a pipe and lives a whole life on a dying planet where everyone has to shroud themselves from the sun.
It worked out for Picard (it was some kind of simulation or time jump) but for us, it’s right here. So how do we cope?
Intuitive movement serves you too. First, there are all the obvious things — sun protection clothing (sunshirts and sleeves can actually cool you, they don’t just protect from the sun), good sunglasses, lots of sunblock, electrolytes, way more water than you might imagine, frequently. Icy when you start out if you can manage it. Cooling showers or cold cloths on the back of your neck as soon as you can manage it.
But beyond trying to cool your passage through the overheated world, it doesn’t make sense to just try to transplant our cooler workouts to the humid blasting furnace that can be the Ontario summer. Scan for what your body actually wants and needs, and adjust accordingly. Slow your pace, shorten your workout, change up your frequency or timing — don’t get too caught up in “shoulds.” Heat intensifies the impact of our workouts, and 5km on a sunny 30C day isn’t even the same as 5km on a cloudy 27C day. I went for a short run yesterday at the height of the heat, and realized when I stopped to drink that I was seeing spots. I slowed down and stopped and drank more. This is definitely “don’t be a hero” time — unless you like vomiting or fainting or having a massive sun-stroke headache.
Keep moving, adjust your energy levels, keep yourself protected — and keep training. We’ll need our strength, fortitude and agility for whatever world challenge we’re facing next.
Dear Fieldpoppy: I used to ride my bike everywhere when I was younger. Now that I am older I find bike riding uncomfortable. I can’t seem to find a comfortable seat. How do you go about test-driving bike seats seeing how everyone has different shapes, different amounts of muscle and fat for padding etc? — I have plenty of padding of my own
Dear Padding,
Yay you, cycling — and you’ve hit on one of the most common questions around cycling. Getting a bike that’s comfortable and easy to ride is probably the most important factor in whether you’ll use it — which includes the right seat, but also overall fit. So if you can, bring your full self to an actual bike shop that offers fit assessment and get them to help you make sure you have the right frame for your height and that your seat is at the right height and in the right forward position and angle for your body.
As for types of saddle, here is an excellent, thorough resource about how to pick a saddle. Here is another one aimed at bigger riders (TW for language about weight). The one thing I will say is that sometimes we assume that the wider, more padded the seat, the more comfortable — and that isn’t necessarily true. I personally find a well-designed narrower seat far more comfortable, because I distribute the weight more evenly between my butt, legs, feet and arms, and I find a wider seat can make chafing worse. (On my holiday two weeks ago, I went for an 85 km ride on a rented hard tail mountain bike with a pretty basic seat and without padded shorts — and my butt was fine).
So — find a bike shop you trust; get a basic fitting done; sit on a few seats. The right bike seat is the one you’ll ride. And get a good, fun bell!
Cate in the middle of the 85 km ride two weeks ago, on the western edge of the continent
Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede (she/they), who lives and works on the land we currently call Toronto, 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, signed with the Mississaugas of the Credit. Cate is a coach, consultant and general thinker about relationships, meaning making and bodies.
