I love summer because it is when I connect most often with friends for outdoor swims. This year I haven’t been doing much of that. My best swimming buddy moved out of province a couple of years ago, and others in the core group have also moved a bit further out of town so it’s harder to get together. The weather hasn’t cooperated either.
On top of that, I have been dealing with neck and shoulder pain that I just can’t seem to fix.
The result has been that since club practices ended in June, I have barely been in the water.
Falling out of love with swimming couldn’t have come at a worse time for someone who has committed to swimming 15 km in August to raise funds for cancer research. I have met my modes goal, but if you would like to donate, please follow this link.
I am trying to get myself excited by visiting new venues and swimming with new friends. I went to the new River House in Ottawa, which has 25M lanes in addition to a large “pool” area that is very popular with teens and young adults.
A swimming area on a river. In the foreground you can saw two swim lanes. There are floating ”islands” in the centre, and people sitting on the dock beyond that. In the background, you can see the river with boats near the dock and trees on the far shore,r
I went back to my old standby, the Pond, which is once again relatively quiet as the teens and young adults have migrated to the River House. There were only swimmers and families with young kids on my last visit.
Three people are standing in greenish water while one person swims in the distance. The pond is surrounded by trees.
I joined several people from my swim club at the home of one of our members.
Four swimmers with colourful floats swim across a small lake surrounded by trees.
I even did a (for me) epic bike-swim-bike across town. This has been on my bucket list of longer bike rides to achieve this summer. I managed a little over 36 km of cycling plus a 1500M swim.
A wet Diane, wearing a white swim cap and goggles, stands in the Ottawa river. You can see trees on the Quebec shoreline in the distance. Ignore the time showing in the photo! Strava’s GPS works well for tracking distance but is terrible for times. It actually took me almost an hour.
I’m still struggling. My physiotherapist has instructed me to have shorter but more frequent swims to build up strength without irritating the sore spots, she has also given me new exercises to strengthen and relax my back muscles. I hate strength exercises! The ones for mobility are ok, but boring.
Still, I’m going to make an effort to do them, because it’s clear that I am not going to get back my love of swimming if I don’t fix what is making it not fun. I have 6 km to complete on that cancer fundraiser challenge, and registration for my fall Master’s Swimming program is now open. Wish me luck!
As we roll toward the end of August, we’re into/getting into one of the pressure points in the year.
You know what I mean, that feeling that you *should* (shudder. Yes, I still hate that word!) jump back into a regular schedule or that you *should* (shudder, again) be gearing up for fall, that it’s time to put the ‘laziness’ of summer behind you.
NOTE: In addition to my hatred for the word ‘should’, I am also not a fan of the word ‘lazy.’ Sure, sometimes we’re using it in a positive, indulgent, way, celebrating our lack of activity, but mostly it seems to be used as a way of chastising someone for resting or for not being actively busy at this exact moment. AND it’s used as a weapon against people with ADHD which makes me dislike it even more.
And, as always, I vote no on all of that.
Yes, most of us are back to (or getting back to) regular schedules and if that inspires you to go a bit harder with your exercise or with your work, that’s totally cool. Forge ahead.
But if you are like me and all of this messaging leaves you feeling tense and overwhelmed before you even get started then let me offer a counter-message:
It’s OK to do the bare minimum.
You don’t have to ‘go big’ with every single part of your life all the time.
And this is especially true if it feels like everything is gearing up all at once.
Sure, you may not have control over the pacing of some parts of your life right now – particularly if you follow an academic schedule – but you can give yourself a break on the parts that you do control.
You can ditch things that aren’t urgent.
You can scale back in some areas.
You can do the bare minimum in others.
And these things are just as true in your exercise/self-care/wellness plans as they are in every other part of your life.
Maybe you don’t need to jump back into your fall routine/plans just yet. You can reevaluate your plans and choose a graduated schedule for adding things back to your day-to-day.
You can choose a scaled-down version of whatever your past self planned for right now. If your original idea feels overwhelming, then doing something once or twice a week and building up to your plans for three to four times a week is probably more sustainable anyway.
And, of course, you can always choose a bare minimum version of your plans. Even a bare minimum gives you a placeholder, a sense of accomplishment, a stepping-stone for the path ahead. Lots of people need to make space in their life for their habit before they start building the habit itself.
If you are starting out or just getting back into things, the bare minimum might be a 1 minute walk in the living room or a one line journal or a meditation practice of 10 focused breaths.
If you have well-established fitness practices that you usually jump into but you can’t find the energy for at this pressure point right now, your bare minimum may look different than a beginner’s does. It’s up to you what constitutes the bare minimum but choose the smallest or shortest routine that you feel ‘counts’ as your practice.
Whether you are excited and enthused about jumping back in or whether you are feeling tense and overwhelmed by everything gearing back up again, I wish you ease and I hope that you can be kind to yourself about the process.
And, as always, I offer you a gold star (I think it will show up above!) for your efforts to find the way that works best for you with as little stress as possible.
Physical appearance has never not been a focus in my life. I did ballet, taekwondo, and a bunch of sports as a kid. I then worked as a kinesiologist and fitness coach at 8 different gyms in Toronto over the last decade before teaching fitness classes on zoom out of my living room when the pandemic hit.
I was 19 when I started my first group fitness coaching job. Like most early-twenty-somethings, I knew absolutely nothing and was desperate to fit in and be accepted. In conjunction with this, I was raised in a family with a very “make sure you’re polite and nice and good” narrative, which lent itself nicely to a tendency for people pleasing and perfectionism.
As a result, I had no experience or knowledge of looking inwards to find personal meaning and instead turned outwards towards others: what does this stranger want me to be? I can be that. What would make this group of people happy? I can do that. What does a fitness coach look like? I can transform into that.
Now the fitness industry, as readers of this blog know, is not the most inclusive space (to put it mildly). There is actually a common phrase among strength and conditioning coaches that “your body is your business card”. *Insert gagging noises here*
In my search for acceptance, I developed a relationship with my body and movement that existed solely for the approval of those around me. I am queer, and also white, AFAB, thin, able-bodied, and conventionally “attractive” by beauty standards. In this positionality, I was the picture of a stereotypical fem gym coach and fielded a lot of questions about “what my secret was” to looking the way I did.
I would laugh nervously, only mildly aware of the fact that about 95% of my bandwidth was occupied with thoughts of when and what my next workout would be, when and what I would eat, when and what people would think of me… always measuring, criticizing, poking, prodding.
“You know, everyone is different and what works for me might not work for you. What feels good for you and what is important to you right now?” I would reply.
Was the irony that I would always encourage others to listen to themselves while neglecting my own needs lost on me completely? You betcha!
Then — as the absurdity of life goes — the universe started sending me signals to change this pattern, hitting me over the head like an increasingly impatient and hungry cat ready for the breakfast you are not giving it fast enough.
One of these signals was this weird, gender-specific nag. I started to resent my own appearance and demeanour, and would watch men work out in the gym and feel this deep envy. Envy of how effortlessly they could build muscle, throw weights around, and the ease with which they could casually occupy space without making themselves smaller and apologetic for simply existing as women in society are conditioned to do.
I wanted that ease. I started to interrogate my own appearance and measured, controlled, obsessive relationship with movement. It started as a quiet, irritable thought with men in general that they got to have those things and I didn’t.
But why couldn’t I have those things? What would it look like for me to have that ease without the gym-bro-ness that didn’t feel like something I wanted? Why should these gym-men-people be the holding place of my frustration with the patriarchy? My lack of self-trust and ease is neither my fault nor theirs.
I began to pull at the thread of how my gender intersected with my movement… I would watch other people being and moving in all kinds of spaces, gently noticing what I admired and what this meant for me.
I admire the calmness of a fellow runner as we smile at each other passing by, also noting that I envy how he doesn’t have to wear a sports bra to strap down his boobs.
I admire the confidence and strength of a woman holding half-moon pose in a hot yoga class, also noticing her hairless legs and recognizing within myself that I am really tired of shaving and the impossible beauty standards demanded of women.
Alex in their “be nice and be good” era
I admire the vulnerability and strength of a young male-identifying boxing newcomer. I also notice that they are immediately welcomed into the space. Coaches guide him without mansplaining, and I reflect on intersectionality and how someone else might be treated in that position. I also really like his androgynous haircut and note that my own long hair is work I don’t want.
Over the last few years I’ve gone through some external changes. I like to say that pre-pandemic I looked like Barbie, whereas my current presentation is definitely more of an Allen/Ken mix: chopping off chunks of my hair steadily over time, the addition of many tattoos, opting for “men’s” clothes over spandex and tight-fitting things.
Alex in their current Ken/Allen mix era
I understand how physical changes can be most apparent to the outside world, but in truth my internal world is where the change has occurred. While I now identify as non-binary and trans, these arbitrary labels are a reflection of something deeper.
The more I allow my gender to be whatever it is that day, the more I allow my movement to be whatever it is that day, and vice versa. The more restrictive my gender, the more restrictive my movement. I feel authentic, grounded, free, joyful, radical self-acceptance, and appreciation for all of the absurdity and humanness around me.
What does today call for? Testosterone and a trail run? Sounds like an adventure.
Alex is a gender, career, and meaning-explorer who lives in Tkaronto. When they’re not studying social work, they can be found having heart-to-hearts with strangers in coffee shops. This photo is from a Ted Lasso themed workout during the lockdown.
First, a musical note: if you’ve never heard jazz immortal Ella Fitzgerald sing “A tisket, a tasket”, you are in for a treat. Listen up here.
This summer has been fun– celebrating family milestones and going on outings with friends– but it’s brought some annoying health woes for me. As I love lists, here’s my medical one:
recurrence of migraines
increase in reflux/gerd symptoms
flareup of sciatica
diagnosis of a DVT (deep vein thrombosis, or blood clot) behind my knee
None of these is life-threatening, and all of them are treatable. But, they’ve thrown me for a loop, upended mid and late-summer plans and demanded my immediate attention. The combination of them also makes my life more complicated. Because of the DVT, I can no longer take ibuprofen or other NSAIDs (anti-inflammatory medications) for conditions like, say, sciatica. Or migraine. That means more pain and discomfort day and night, which affects my sleep. Ugh.
Managing pain without the obvious choice in meds is possible, though. I’ve started physical therapy for the sciatica, which is helping. I’m doing all the exercises, which provide relief. There’s also heat (or ice, but I’m preferring the former) and everyday movement (other than driving, which is ouchy). Tylenol doesn’t do much for pain, but it’s better than nothing.
I’ve gotten some proper migraine medicine, which I now take if I feel a headache coming on. This requires attention and responsiveness, which I’m working on.
The gerd/reflux is the easiest fix. I’m on a six-week course of omeprazole, and adjusting my eating times and overall diet as well.
The DVT is the most sobering medical issue for me, as it means I’m now on anti-coagulants for at least the short-term, and possibly the foreseeable future. It affects my choice of activities and how I do those activities. I’ll post more about cycling while on blood thinners another time, but for now I’m riding on bike paths and quiet streets. I have flat pedals on my e-bike. And I always wear a helmet anyway, so that’s covered. I ordered a medic alert bracelet which I’ll wear (I got this one) and all my cycling friends know what’s going on.
In addition to the pain and discomfort and sleep interruption and trip cancellations (I really missed seeing you and yours, Sam!), there’s the disruption and shift in identity: I now have at least one chronic medical condition that requires daily medication and restrictions on some activities (e.g. mountain biking, skiing). Am I now a different person? How am I to think of myself moving forward?
I talked with friends who take daily medications to manage chronic health conditions like diabetes, depression, migraine, high blood pressure, etc. Turns out, these folks have been carrying their baskets full of health woes the whole time I’ve been skipping around without mine. They manage theirs, and I’ll manage mine. I’m getting support from these same friends, my family, my doctor, the very good physical therapy folks, and my acupuncturist.
We’ve all got baskets of stuff to carry around. How we carry them depends in part on how heavy they are and who we have to help us. Writing this helps me realize my medical woes aren’t that woesome; they’re manageable, and in fact they might even fit in here:
A jaunty yellow woven basket, with a long handle for easy carrying.
Thanks to blog followers, family, and friends who sponsored us in this year’s Pedaling for Parkinsons ride in Prince Edward County. Our team, Spinning for Susan, raised nearly $5000.
Next year, we hope to do it again with a much larger team of fit feminist bloggers and friends and make a Prince Edward County weekend of it.
This year, it was just Sarah, Emily, and me again. Our team was small but mighty. I was nervous. It was my longest ride since knee surgery.
The weather started out cold and threatening rain. It was also a very, very windy day. Luckily, the sun did shine eventually, and we had the tailwind on the way home.
You can check out all my achievements on Strava. Thanks tailwind!
Thanks also, Sarah and Emily! I did a lot of drafting on this ride.
Garmin info Strava map
Here’s our team:
Spinning for SusanSarah, Sam, Emily
See you next year! It really is a great cause, a beautiful route, and though we did the 40 km this year, I’m hoping that next year I’m ready to tackle the 75 km.
But for now, what I want is a dip in the pool, an afternoon in the hammock with my book, and possibly a nap. I was laughing at my Garmin’s estimate of my energy levels, body battery=5/100. Definitely nap time!
I’m writing this on the start of my vacation. That might seem a little mundane, but for me it’s a Big Deal. Five months ago I started a new, permanent job, returning to an industry I had left behind to have kids and go to school. The past six years or so, I have been working interesting and fun, but unstable (and underpaid!) jobs on contracts. It is not lost on me that having paid time off (PTO in the business world) is a tremendous privilege, and I am thinking about how to best take advantage of this privilege.
Truth is, I’m really tired, after throwing myself head-long back into a career I had left twenty years ago. It has been awesome and it has been intense.
Happily, I am having a pretty relaxed vacation and excited to have my whole family come visit me in Ontario from British Columbia. We will spend a lot of time at southwest Ontario’s beautiful beaches and do some city-tourism.
A lo-fi photo of my meditation spot in my garden. Gardening always makes me happy so it was the perfect place for me to start!
I am thinking that this vacation is also an opportunity to re-start a regular meditation practice. I started meditating out of necessity (for my mental health!) early in the COVID crisis, when I was really struggling. I found peace by doing simple meditations with an app, in my beautiful vegetable garden.
I subscribed to the app so I had more choices, and I meditated regularly and even followed a few “courses.”
These days, though, “post” COVID as we seem to say, I haven’t taken the time to meditate. I miss it. So I am declaring here that I’m going to restart! Hold me to it, if you are so inclined readers. I can use the accountability :). Really though, I am ready for it.
When I learned to type, I had to practice this sentence: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
It wasn’t meant to disparage a human’s best friend; just teach people how to find all the letters in the alphabet on the keyboard. However, foxes still come off better with the implication that their quickness means they are industrious, speedy, productive, go-getting little beasts, unlike their indolent, relaxed, unproductive unfocused canine brethren.
Image description: The text reads: a quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The drawing has a brown fox hovering over the dog.
I thought about the lazy dogs and the quick brown foxes because August 10 was National Lazy Day. Not sure if it is truly a holiday but the article promoted all the ways one could be lazy. Now the dictionary definition of lazy is unwillingness to work or expend energy. The article I linked to said lazy was simply doing nothing all day: none of the work, none of the stress, none of the musts, shoulds or have-tos in our lives.
Sounds ideal. And for the two weeks that was my vacation I lived every day as if it was National Lazy Day. I got up when I wanted, I napped when I felt like, I ate lots of yummy food, and didn’t make a single decision outside of what I would eat, read or do to have fun.
This was the first vacation ever that I have not brought a laptop or tablet on which to do work. I came back home rested, relaxed, refreshed and rejuvenated. It was the perfect vacation.
I made a resolution to be lazy more often. I think taking time to truly rest for a period longer than a weekend contributes to health and well being. Recently a number of people in my networks shared this post:
ID: A post by itsmariannnna reads; don’t mean to sound like a sickly Victorian woman riddled with consumption but I do feel like a trip the seaside would fix me
Back in the day people with means would send their female offspring and partners to the seaside or the country to recover from whatever ailed them (I imagine it was living with the effects of patriarchy that was at the root of their illness). We don’t do that anymore, but what if we could create that space where we could be absent from our responsibilities and explore what rest and recovery mean to us?
High-performance athletes build in rest days. While my own goals are more modest, there is value in building in a time where you do nothing but rest. I know we often hear “a change is as good as a rest” but let me tell you, having engaged in active rest for two weeks, you need more than a simple change, you need to practice resting.
Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to explore how I can add periods of active rest in my day and how I can be more effective in my recovery periods.
MarthaFitat55 is looking forward to being fit at every age.
Catherine and Martha have both written recently about their no-buy years, which sparked me to think about how I am doing.
It’s turning into a year of shedding things. I did buy two new pairs of shoes and splurged on a dress for my son’s wedding (on Saturday!). There have been a few new books and winter bike gear (no regrets at all about that because it got heavily used).
I don’t buy much but I’m also not good at getting rid of things. I was raised by a woman who grew up in rural Alberta during the Depression and war years. Her motto was to hold onto everything for seven years, then another seven just in case.
Compound that with dad’s career which meant we moved every 1-2 years until I was in high school (and a couple of times after that). We were constantly losing things we valued so we held on to the rest extra hard.
I’m back at the office now, but looking to retire within a year. I’ll never use some work outfits again because there won’t be time before my retirement. I will never wear other things again because work styles got a lot more casual thanks to Work From Home. I am coming to terms with the fact that I will never fit into some things again, no matter how much I love them, so it is time to let someone else love them.
Every few days I open a closet and randomly pull out an item or two. Sometimes I am able to put them directly into the bin I keep handy for charitable donations. Sometimes they sit at the end of the bed for days because I’m not quite ready to try them on or let them go. Very occasionally, they get a second chance and are worn at least once. If I still like them at the end of the day, they get put back in the closet after washing. Otherwise they go into the bin when the laundry is done.
This newfound decluttering hasn’t entirely reached the rest of the house yet but I am making progress. That dress and jacket for the wedding was made from fabric I had on hand. I am indulging in my love of canning and making jams by deliberately cooking up goodies to give away so I will never have to see those canning jars again. I spent a couple of days reorganizing and eliminating camping gear and was able to downsize the storage area considerably.
My personal style leans much more towards Victorian clutter than modern minimalism, and I have way too many hobbies (and books to support them) so I know this is going to be a long-term process. Maybe my goal for the next year should be to continue downsizing so I can accommodate the renovations I want to do. After all, it will be much easier to build a new bedroom closet or refinish hardwood floors if I don’t have much to move.
A large, sunny craft room with a red dressmaker’s dummy, neatly stacked bins and fabrics organized by colour in a glass-doomed cupboard. Oddly for a sewing room, there is no sewing machine and no place to cut out fabrics. Photo is from organizedinteriors.com
Diane Harper is a public servant living in Ottawa.
We at Fit is a Feminist Issue work hard to cover all aspects of physical activity experience as we change sports, increase or decrease exertion, as the seasons change, and as we all move through the life trajectory. Fads and fashions have come and gone over the last almost-eleven years, but one topic, at least, has remained: sweat.
I didn’t mean that kind of sweat; rather, the human kind. But thanks, Greg Rosenke (Unsplash) for the cool (and cooling) picture.
We’ve written a fair amount about sweating– the process, the results, the downsides, the advantages. etc. Here are a few posts you might check out when you get a good spot next to the air conditioner:
The human eccrine sweat gland is central to the evolution of the human genus, permitting an enormous thermoregulatory sweating capacity that was essential to the human niche of high physical activity in open, hot, semi-arid environments.
The article adds, though, that we don’t know much about how we– the humans– differ across groups with respect to sweating. This issue will, or rather has become more important as we continue to experience record hot temperatures all over the globe. Human capacity to sweat is crucial for cooling. But for sweating to cool effectively, the sweating must be following by evaporation, which brings about cooling.
One thing we do know: life is likely to get sweatier. “I suspect everyone is going to be quite drippy,” says University of Pennsylvania sweat researcher Yana Kamberov, in this Atlantic article on the future of sweating.
I think she’s right. Sweating is something I’ve complained about and taken for granted, but it serves us fur-less mammals very well. Maybe it’s even something to be proud of, the Atlantic article suggests:
Sweat is one of the “key milestones” in human evolution, argues Andrew Best, a biological anthropologist at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts—on par with big brains, walking upright, and the expression of culture through language and art.
Well, alright then. If sweating is right up there with the ability to compose symphonies, then I can take pride in my virtuosic sogginess-production. Followed up by a shower, of course. Nonetheless, I hereby promise not to write any more complainy, whinge-y posts about how much I don’t like sweating. I’ll just mop my brow (and the rest of me) and be grateful… 🙂
Readers, how to do feel about sweat? Does it bother you? Do you love the feeling? Lemme know.
Specifically, I’m wondering about upper body exercises – what ones you do, what ones you like, and how you structure your workout.
(Yes, I could go see a trainer and I probably will but that’s a project for Future Christine. Current Christine is in a gather-info-then-DIY phase and it’s working for her…ahem, for me.)
Anyway, in a similar sort of way that many core exercises bore me, I find doing multiple sets of the same exercise boring.
For example, I hate knowing that I have to do three sets of bicep curls. I think I’d be okay if I could just do 36 in a row and be done with them but bodies don’t work like that.
Mine especially, since concepts like ‘repeat to fatigue’ or ‘repeat until you are too tired to keep good form’ make no sense to me whatsoever. I mean, I understand them in principle, I just don’t know how to recognize them in practice.
And I also hate knowing that I am going to have to repeat the same set of exercises I just did. As in, if I do one set of bicep curls, tricep dips, and two other exercises and then I have to repeat that same group of exercises two more times? Glerg.
My brain will immediately pull out all the stops to ensure that I never even start the first set.
I’ve tried (and enjoyed) doing strength training in my Apple Fitness + app but there are A LOT of squats in there. I don’t quite have the fitness level nor the coordination to do that many squats that quickly in good form without irritating the muscles around my right knee. (The hopeful word ‘yet’ should be in that sentence somewhere but damned if I can figure out where to put it.)
The ones that didn’t have a lot of squats included a lot of pushups and that’s tricky in a whole different way. I’m also working on that.
ANYWAY…
What I am looking for is a way to work my arms and shoulders and upper back by doing multiple exercises for each part.
For example, by doing three different bicep exercises instead of doing three sets of the same one.
I was hoping to find a YouTube workout or to Google a premade workout that I could use as a starting point but I couldn’t find the right combination of search terms to generate what I wanted.
And that’s where I’m hoping you can help:
1) Do you know of an upper body workout that doesn’t include multiple sets of the exact same exercise?
And/or
2) Do you have an upper body exercise to recommend? I have weights and all kinds of exercise bands and I like bodyweight exercises so I have lots of stuff to work with.
Thanks, Team!
PS – I know it would be more straightforward to “just” make myself do the boring, repeated sets but it’s hard enough to convince my ADHD brain to exercise in the first place, making myself do something that is hard AND boring burns a lot of energy that I would rather put into the exercise rather than waste it by arguing with myself. The straightforward thing in this case to for me to accept what I’m like and work with my brain instead of against it.
