Feminist reflections on fitness, sport, and health
“National Hammock Day is a day to celebrate hammocks and all they can do for the summertime experience. This special day is celebrated each year on July 22nd. Hammocks are one of the most versatile pieces of camping gear there are. They can be used for sleeping, hanging out in the sun, or just relaxing.” See here.
From our hammocks to yours, we wish you a happy hammock day!
CW: diets, body image
Wednesday past I had just finished reading Catherine W’s lovely post about loving our bodies when SamB shared a news article on the increase of children dieting in the UK.
Briefly, the article reported that dieting behaviours among young children were up significantly: more than one in four children were dieting in fact. And coincidentally, the spike occurred following the launch of an obesity awareness program for children and youth.
Without a shadow of a blush, the paper also reported that there might be a problem with the messaging since the number of kids within healthy weight ranges were dieting too.
You think?
Kids are surrounded by images of purported perfect bodies. They learn how to manipulate photos and follow influencers. What could possibly go wrong with the messaging from a weight-based health program?
Context is everything. Even if weight-based concerns are motivated by a sincere wish for health, we know singling kids out for attention that is focused on their bodies is bound to go sideways.
There’s lots wrong with the sugar and fat-loaded foods that are marketed to kids. There’s lots to be worried about when it comes to kids gaining extra weight, or younger kids developing type 2 diabetes.
We are also moving less and eating more. There is also more poverty, and the lack of money influences food buying decisions, so poor diets are not necessarily driven by free choice.
I think we should be focusing on encouraging kids to be proud of their accomplishments, especially those that aren’t weight or image-based. Catherine’s post reminded me how often we are told to improve ourselves, as if we aren’t already good enough as we are.
Children learn what they see, and they aren’t seeing people who are happy with who they are, celebrating all the wonderful things our bodies can do. Instead of focusing on the numbers the scale shows, we need to focus on what self care and self love can do.
MarthaFitat55 lives in the east of Canada. She spent a number of years teaching media literacy to children and youth in the pre-internet era.
Shelley-Ann Fraser-Pryce is the world’s fastest woman. A widely circulated article reports: “Running out of Lane 6, Fraser-Pryce led all the way on a gorgeous, 74-degree night in Oregon and crossed the line in 10.67 seconds.” Said article appears in both the Toronto Star and HuffPost, and in both it refers to Fraser-Pryce as “Jamaica’s favorite 35-year-old mom — the country’s most-celebrated 100-meter runner this side of Usain Bolt.” But the HuffPost thought her mom-status was headline-worthy: “Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, 35-Year-Old Mom, Is The World’s Fastest Woman — Again.”
The day of this news release, Sam posted the HuffPost article on the blog’s Facebook page with the question, “how do we feel about ‘mom’ being the thing in the headline?” How do we react to this feature of the world’s fastest woman being considered relevant to her athletic achievement? Is her achievement more profound as a result of her being a “mom”? Predictably, there is diverse opinion on this question.
Some people pointed out that giving birth is taxing on the body and requires a break from training, and so it is impressive indeed to achieve this record-breaking title after becoming a mom. Others commented that not all moms have given birth, and that the social meaning of mom or mother that really carries its weight in the headline is more complex. They suggest that it is impressive not as much for the physical demands of giving birth, but for the caretaking demands associated with motherhood coupled with the assumption that once you’re a mom you do not have time for other things. Finding time for other things is a feat in itself. For these sorts of reasons, some women identified with the mom-status and found it inspiring.
But lots of people expressed annoyance and irritation, thinking the reference to her maternal status is simply beside the point. More than one person commented that Usain Bolt’s status as a dad is not brought into the discussion of his athletic accomplishments and success, suggesting a key difference in the social identity of and expectations placed upon women who are mothers. Fraser-Pryce herself considers it an important part of her identity, and indeed is quoted in the article as saying her win is “a victory for motherhood.”
I myself had an initial negative reaction. My response to Sam’s question was: “It’s irrelevant and weird to mention that she’s a ‘mom.’ How is it any more relevant than if she’s a wife, accountant or doctor? The whole idea of the social role of ‘mom,’ with its many layers of often-oppressive meanings, as some sort of thing that makes her athletic achievement more profound than a woman who is not a mom is bizarre and problematic.”
But as I reflected further, my negative reaction was less about it being irrelevant, and more that it suggests something deeply troubling about our expectations of mothers (and not fathers) when we are extra-impressed that they ever achieve anything beyond mothering. I have seen this in my workplace, which is a fairly progressive setting in relative terms, where people still ask successful women with children how they have managed but NEVER ask the successful men with children how they have managed. There are powerful social meanings, assumptions, and expectations at play in the stark difference in how we consider women’s parental status as opposed to men’s in relation to their success in their careers. For women, it is an obstacle to be overcome, and career success alongside “motherhood” is heroic. This, I think, is what was working in the background when the HuffPost considered her mom-status important enough to be included in the headline.
The report in the New York Times does not emphasize Fraser-Pryce’s maternal status in reporting on her performance. But they do note more generally that her impressive world title count of five of the last seven 100m world title championships, approximated only by Jamaican compatriot Usain Bolt (whose paternal credentials are never reported) with three titles at that distance, “might have been greater, but she gave birth just after the 2017 world championships to her son, Zyon, in an emergency cesarean section.” In other words, she may have won more titles if she had competed in the years she was on maternity leave from her sport.
What do you think about referencing someone’s mom-status when reporting their athletic achievements?
Earlier this week I blogged about riding in a heat wave. See Heat cramps and aging? Really? Some readers wondered why I even did that. Why would you go out on the bike for a long ride on a hot day? Why suffer when you don’t have to?
Here’s my attempt at an answer.
The ride was a training ride for a larger event. In this case, the 6 day Friends for Life Bike Rally. All participants commit to a fairly rigorous training schedule and this weekend was our weekend of back to back rides.
In theory, I could have done that earlier but I didn’t. I could have ridden during the week, but work.
One thing I could have done, had I paid enough attention to the heat, was leave earlier but I’m the only early riser among the group that was riding and I’m no fan of long rides alone.
Also, it mostly wasn’t suffering until it got really hot and we hit the hills on the return part of our trip. I’d say it was about 60 km of rather pleasant riding, followed by 25 km of being too hot and hilly.
I also didn’t expect the barfing and cramping. I didn’t choose that. It happened. For anyone pushing their limits in terms of physical endurance in less than ideal conditions, it’s a risk.
Sometimes you ride in less than favourable conditions to get good, to get experience, riding in those conditions. That’s why I think cycling in the rain can be good. It’s all about skill development. I’m not sure that’s so true about heat though I did learn a few things–my new jersey isn’t as breathable as I thought. And I got a reminder about electrolytes.
Some people think you get used to running and riding in the heat by doing it. It’s about acclimatizing yourself and I guess there’s a bit of that in my answer. We won’t be able to opt out of hot days on the bike rally itself. We need to get to Montreal.
Now we’ve ridden on heat alert days before. See Heat, Hills, and Happy Birthday for one account. And in the past I’ve opined about riding the rally in the rain versus riding in a heat wave and said I preferred the latter. Now I am not so sure.
This week my Facebook memories also featured photos from our cold, wet Newfoundland cycling adventure and I got all nostalgic about the chilly days of riding.
The short version is that sometimes you do hard things to get better at doing those hard things. And in the case of the rally, those of us doing it care lots about this very important cause. The money raised goes to help people living with HIV/AIDS. It helps people who need food, wellness care, peer support or just to be in a place that is welcoming and safe for them.
The hardest part for me really is fundraising and I got the plea this morning that the rally as a whole is not coming close to its goal.
You can help by sponsoring me here.
Please note: the following is NOT what it says it is:
Consumers beware. It’s a marketing jungle out there. Be warned…
CW: discussion of body image and negative self-image
During last weekend’s yoga retreat, wonderful teacher Jillian Pransky read some words I needed to hear. Words I needed to believe. Words I needed to feel. I’m going to write them twice– once as Jillian read them, and once where they live– in the poetry of Nayyirah Waheed.
and I said to my body. softly. ‘I want to be your friend’. and it took a long breath, and replied ‘I have been waiting my whole life for this.’
What a thought: being real friends with my body. It seems an odd thing to consider. But it’s true: my body and I haven’t been on friendly terms for most of my life.
However: last weekend, in a yoga class, hearing those words, I was struck. Is this now a possibility for me? And what would that mean, to be a friend to my body?
What it meant in that moment: to be grateful for the body I have, for what it does, for its strength and resilience and beauty and grace and solidity and persistence.
To pay attention to it: what does my body want to do in this class, and how much, and for how long, and how intensely or gingerly? If I listen, it will tell me. If I go slow, it will speak and not yell.
To respond to it and let it guide me, so it can continue to be there for me when I want to do more later. We are a team, my body and I. We could work together. Like friends. Good friends.
What does it mean going forward– being friends with my body? All relationships require accommodation and compromise, and the good ones promise moments of happiness, joy, hilarity, sadness, frustration, and hopefully contentment. But they all happen one moment at a time. I had this lovely moment of realization and gratitude and curiosity and hopefulness. Let’s see what moments there are ahead.
Here’s the whole poem. It’s called Three. By Nayyirah Waheed.
‘no’
might make them angry
but it will make you free.
If no one has ever told you, your freedom is more important than their anger.
*
and I said to my body. softly. ‘I want to be your friend’. and it took a long breath, and
replied ‘I have been waiting my whole life for this.’
*
If
the ocean
can calm itself,
so can you.
We
are both
salt water
mixed with
air.
In this morning’s blog post on training for the bike rally during a heat advisory I mentioned that I “might have learned a lesson about electrolytes, cramping, and barfing.”
What happened after our very long, very hot ride?
Well, I was sitting in a chair in the backyard, having a drink and cooling off in the shade, as one does after a long ride, when all of a sudden I got incredibly intense painful cramps in my legs, starting with gracilis cramps. They were so painful I thought I might pass out and instead I ended up laying in the grass trying to stretch.
I ended up throwing up and having cramps in pretty much every muscle group of my legs. I don’t know how long it lasted. It felt like a very long time. I sipped on a gatorade and eventually the cramps eased up enough so that I could walk around. Thanks Sarah for helping to stretch the cramps away.
Later, after dinner and lots of stretching, I turned to Google to read up up on muscle cramps after exercising in the heat and I learned they were called heat cramps. See Healthline on the causes of heat cramps.
They weren’t like regular muscle cramps. They were very painful muscle spasms that were really difficult to get to go away. These are new to me. I’ve never had them before.
What’s changed?
Age, obviously. The Healthline articles says, “As people age, their bodies become less efficient at temperature regulation. This may be caused, at least in part, by the shrinkage of sweat glands. Sweat glands become diminished in size as part of the natural aging process. Less sweat equals less perspiration and a diminished ability to cool the body down.” Great.
Also, the heat where I live. With global warming our summers are getting hotter. That’s true all over. It’s scary reading about the Tour de France conditions with riders racing over melting pavement.
Finally, electrolytes. I used to be pretty religious about riding with one bottle of water and one bottle of electrolyte replacement, usually lemon-lime skratch, but that habit kind of dropped off. I’m not sure why.
Looking at the things I can change and the things I can’t, it seems pretty obvious that I’m returning to drinking skratch while riding. I drink a lot of water on my bike so it’s not just dehydration. In fact, drinking too much water can also throw off your electrolyte imbalance, I read. So yeah, back to skratch. Aging is out of my hands and global warming is a collective problem. The one thing I will do is try to avoid leaving for long rides in the middle of the day. I’m going back to early mornings.
Anyway, that was a terrifying experience, super intense and painful and associated with one of my fave activities–cycling. I’m scared now it will happen again. I drank a ton on Sunday’s ride, including lots of skratch and gatorade, and it didn’t happen on Sunday. Here’s hoping that’s enough to keep them away.
Have you ever had heat cramps? What do you do to prevent them?
I promise I’ll write about something else when the bike rally is over. I will. I really will. But for right now it’s on my mind a lot.
I haven’t done it since becoming dean and it’s very clear to me now why. It’s a HUGE commitment. Yes, the ride. Yes, the fundraising. But more than anything, the training.
This weekend is the deadline to ride two long days back to back. And friends, depending on just how you read those training rules, I think we met it.
Saturday
On Saturday we set out with our friend and sometime blogger Kim Solga and her friend Natalie, who is back on the bike after a few years off, and is training for a 100 km ride.
After teaching Natalie to clip and unclip and shift on the bike she was borrowing–please note Sarah is an excellent teacher and Natalie is a quick learner–we set off on our ride to Campbellville and then Carlisle and then back to Guelph.
I loved the route and I really enjoyed the company but It was hot, stinking hot and I might have learned a lesson about electrolytes, cramping, and barfing.
Total distance: 85.5 km
Sunday
Day two of our big bike rides was the Tour de Norfolk–a community sponsored ride through beautiful countryside–very flat and shady–and for the last two years it’s been cancelled due to covid. I wasn’t sure I’d make it given how awful I felt after Saturday’s ride but I seemed fine in the morning and so off we drove to the start, giving ourselves permission to bail if 10 km in it I started to feel rotten.
Driving to Delhi we were listening to CBC and there was a discussion of avoiding the ill effects of very hot weather. One of the first pieces of advice for days like today, avoid strenuous exercise. Yeah, no.
About 10 km in we didn’t decide to quit but we did decide to scale back and opt for the 75 km instead of the 100 km. A wise choice I think given the temperatures,
We made it. But for now Strava thinks I need to take a break. I’m declaring Monday a rest day. It won’t be a complete rest day. I’ll bike to work and to knee physio but no big distances Monday after the big weekend of riding.
So we’ve been doing big rides in preparation for the rally. We did a 97 km training ride. I rode 80 km on gravel with a group of Guelph cyclists but I am still fretting a bit about the rally and its demands. Why am I worried? Why I am anxious about being behind with training (and fundraising)? A few years ago I wrote about doing the bike rally without sufficient training and there I said, I guess this is a thing my body can do. But now I am no longer so sure.
Part of it’s aging, part of it’s my unreliable knees, and I’m sure part of it is pandemic anxiety. I wasn’t even sure the rally was going to happen. It hasn’t for the last two years–the usual 6 day version anyway. I really appreciated reading fellow rally participant Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s blog post about uncertainty. It’s hard to do all the work when you’re not sure a thing is going to happen.
She writes, “As I packed, I thought about the Bike Rally. The first year of the pandemic the whole rally was virtual but we had a little family socially distanced really anxious rally, then last year I thought there would be a rally and there was the abbreviated little version instead, and this year – well this year there’s a full rally. Six days of cycling- more than 600km (about 375miles, for my American friends) from Toronto to Montreal in support of PWA (People with Aids Foundation) and two other ASOs. (An ASO is an Aids Service Organization) and I am signed up and so are Cam and Ken and Pato and together we’re this year’s Team Knit. By now we should be doing a lot of two things. Riding, and fundraising.
I’ve neglected both. I’ve been riding my bike a few times each week – between 40 and 60 kilometres each time, but truthfully there’s been more 40s than 60s and I really, really should be heading out to the formal organized rides – but they are hard to get to without the subway and I’ve been trying not to get Covid so I can do this retreat and not give it to Meg and <insert excuse here>. I finally got out for an official training ride the other day and to be completely honest I rode the whole 80km and then cried the last five home because I had my arse so completely handed to me. Even if the Rally is a “maybe” somewhere in my mind it needs to become a “definitely” in terms of training or things are going to be seriously, desperately ugly out there, but at least if I screw up training that only hurts me – the fundraising needs to be where this team gets it together, and soon.
Usually by now Team knit has things well underway, with every member headed for meeting their goals and we’re nowhere near that now and it’s because all of us are a little leery, holding back a little bit, trying to get our heads back in the game, and that’s a jerk move because here we all moving slowly towards getting our scenes together while time is short and the need is great.”
Please help us with fundraising. We’ve all got three weeks to go. It’s a great cause. Click here and help out, small amounts make a difference. Thanks blog friends!
I love weekend yoga retreats, especially those at Kripalu in western Massachusetts. It’s in the Berkshire mountains overlooking a lake. The food is extremely yummy mostly-vegetarian fare. The accommodations are simple (single or double or multiple-bed dorm room style), but you don’t go there to hang out in your room. There are loads of pretty spaces to read, write, meditate on your own, or chat softly with others in between classes.
The programs they offer here are varied, with multiple levels and styles. I enjoy them immensely and learn something new about myself and my body each time I visit.
Here’s a thing I’ve learned about myself and my body this trip: no matter how many props a sincere yoga assistant offers me, I STILL CAN’T DO HERO POSE. I just can’t.
What’s hero pose, you might wonder. Here’s what it looks like.
It’s not twisty or bendy or balance-y at all: you just sit flat on the mat, or on one or more yoga blocks, bending your legs to sit with your feet beside your hips.. The blocks give you extra height and take some of the strain off your knees and feet. There are folks who can do this pose without them, but most people in my classes use at least one block or a blanket for a bit of comfort.
Not me. When I try hero pose (also called Virasana), it hurts the tops of my feet too much. They get all cramped, and I absolutely have to move, like right now.
There are ways to mitigate the crampage. You put a rolled up blanket or bolster behind you so the tops of your feet are sitting on it, giving them some cushion.
Nope. Still hurts too much. Normally, this is no problem. I know this about myself, so I just sit in another pose (sitting cross-legged works for me) and do the stretchy or twisty things. Maybe it’s not as effective, but hey—this is not a life-or-death situation here.
Except at last night’s yoga class, one very sincere and persistent yoga assistant saw me try hero pose (I always try it, in vain hopes that this time it won’t be excruciating), and decided she would make it happen this time, with the aid of loads of props. I did whisper to her, “my body doesn’t do hero pose”, but she replied with, “let me put these cushions here”. Before I knew it, she was shimming me like I was a rickety bookcase. I was awash in cushions and blankets, along with extra blocks under my bum.
Honestly, she meant well. But by the time she was done, she had effectively built a fort out of blankets, blocks and cushions, with me teetering from the ramparts. And still I wasn’t comfortable.
Trying to be a good sport, I remained in my hero-pose construction site for several minutes, trying to breathe through the pain and will the tops of my feet to relax. Soon, though, I dismantled the Jenga tower of props as quietly as possible so I could sit cross-legged on my mat and rejoin the class in whatever it was doing.
Let me say now that I don’t blame the assistant at all. It’s true that, with the right props and modifications, many poses are open to us that otherwise wouldn’t. For instance, here are two ways to modify half moon pose, which can be difficult.
Back to my anti-hero attitude about Virasana– Hero pose. Yes, there are some stretches I can do at home to get my ankles and feet in better shape to do this pose. But sometimes I think it’s okay to just say no– my body doesn’t do that. Y’all go ahead; I’m just fine sitting here doing my thing.
There’s more yoga on offer tomorrow, but I just saw a class called “Archery and Mindfulness”. Hmmm. I wonder if my body will do that. Only one way to find out…
Readers, are there some moves or techniques in your sport/activity that you simply can’t do? I’ve love some solidarity comments if you’ve got them… 🙂
I’m currently on holiday. “Again?”, you say? “Didn’t you just come back from one?” Yes, our family calendar has decided to bunch our holidays up in June and July this year. Which is nice because lots of time off within a short period, but the downside is that as of now, I don’t know if there will be another “proper” holiday between the end of July and Christmas. We’re in Spain visiting family, and there’s a fabulous outdoor pool close by. Since the temperatures climb to the high 30s daily at the moment – which is not at all usual for the region we’re visiting, the Basque Country; oh hi, climate crisis – I’m making use of some mornings to go for a refreshing swim before things heat up too much and you can no longer move.
As I was doing my laps this morning, I realised that there’s a certain type of outdoor pool that is my happy place in summer. It’s a non-urban pool, i.e. located in a small town or on the outskirts rather than in a city centre, so it’s not overcrowded. It has trees that provide some shade enjoy after or in between swims. It has a large, olympic-size pool that has lots of lanes cordoned off for swimmers. It has a toddler pool and ideally a playground in case a visit with the whole family is on the cards. The water in the big pool is nice and fresh. Just like the picture below:
As it happens, the pool close to my mother-in-law’s house ticks all the boxes. So does one not too far away from where we live. While I was splash-splashing along this morning, I was overcome with gratitude for these happy places. What are yours?
