I was going to first write about the criticisms of a medical system that relies on quantitative measures (Body Roundness Index, anyone?) for standards of health. Then I thought about the wellness industry because of an article I read in the New York Times (3 Days of Healing, Hope and ‘Snake Oil’ With the Wellness Elite, published Nov 8). Then maybe I thought I could write about the benefits of therapeutic massage, since I just got one that left me feeling a bit beaten up (all good now!).

These are all good topics, but maybe for another day. At this moment, I don’t want to write about topics that might bring a sense of negativity. Maybe it’s because of the results of the US election. Or because I’m going through a bit of a rough patch with a friendship. Or maybe because I’m juggling several things at work and my brain is busy enough. 

So maybe I’ll write about the things that are bringing me some peace and joy right now:

1. Swimming! (surprise, surprise) I am loving our practices, especially doing sets of longer distances (6 x 200, 3 x 400). I love getting into a rhythm, focussing on technique, feeling my body working with the water, feeling the water. I’m not pushing myself too hard this early in the season, so I am loving just focussing on technique. Here I am, on the pool deck after a good hard swim, holding my rainbow pull buoy that everyone loves!

2. Also swimming: this time, a plunge into the cool waters of Lake Erie at Port Stanley last weekend! A group from the swim team has been going to the lake once every month this year. I missed October, so it was good to join them again. The low autumn sun played beautifully on the water, and the “swim” (about 10 meters!) was invigorating, to say the least (water temperature was about 14C).

And we ended up at my friends’ hot tub afterwards, which of course lasted longer than the swim!

3. Lifting weights: Not doing as much as I’d like, but when I do it, I enjoy the feeling of strength in my muscles. So pleased to be lifting at the age of 59, as I started at 20, and am lifting heavier than I did back then! I am constantly inspired by  Alex Rotas and her call to “normalize grey hair and muscles” through her photography. 

4. The simplicity of quietly enjoying a good book and a good beer in my home. I’m very lucky to be living in a house that I own that is my sanctuary. No kids, no pets, no drama. Suits me well.

I hope all of you have been enjoying moving your bodies in whatever ways make you feel the same sort of peace and joy. You are all stronger than you know.

“All you have to do is crawl. And you’ll make it to the top.”

That’s the main message I took from a documentary short called Almost Over the Hill that came across my feed the other day. My friend Julia Creet — who has blogged about riding solo in Cape Breton here and here — recently created a short film exploring what it takes to ride a bike up a hill.

The film features four cyclists sharing their stories of the strenuous climbs they’ve learned to make friends with, including a 200 km MTB trail, an 11 km high altitude climb, a short but steady hill in an urban neighbourhood, and Julia’s solo adventure on the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton.

Julia told me that what she likes most about the film is “the encouragement it provides to older athletes. We may have to adjust how we ride, but we can keep riding much longer than we might think. And, making it was so much fun. I love my little cycling group and the support we offer each other. Building community through sports is as important as the joy we get from the sport itself.”

She added, “Some things take a long time to accomplish. Climbing a hill is like many other hard things in life; you just have to put one foot in front of the other and trust that you will finish the task. Cycling, in all its aspects, demands that we stay in the present for every pedal stroke. That alone is a lesson for life.”

It was the “lesson for life” aspect of the film that really stuck with me. I happened to luck into it the day after the US election, and three messages have been going through my head since:

• Age and experience help us learn to do hard things
• Take every hill at the easiest possible pace so you don’t blow yourself out
• If you roll into a hill thinking it’s going to be the most terrible thing ever, you’ve already defeated yourself

I’ve had a lot of conversations over the past week that circle around the question “where do we find resilience?” I think this film points us once again to the wisdom we carry when we guide our bodies do hard things. Go slowly. Trust your experience and knowledge. Embrace the truth of the hard, knowing that you can do it.

Catherine, one of the cyclists in the film, says “zone 2 climbing flattens out the terrain.” I have been holding that close. As a queer, female bodied person with almost six decades of life behind me, I’ve been in the place many times before of having my needs and rights shunted aside, of having people I work with every day tell me to my face that they don’t think I deserve basic human rights, of having people literally tell me — misreading my reality significantly — that “homosexuals do not deserve to live.” When I was younger, I tackled these forces with zone 4 or 5 energy — throwing my whole self into protest, activism, fury, into the shared affirmation of outraged communities. Lots of shouting and marching, one memorable moment in 1994, encircling the Ontario legislature building with a giant pink ribbon.

Now, I’m a little more wary of outraged communities, no matter how creative or how much I agree with the values at the core. I see the impact of polarization, the futility of trying to shout each other into submission. One side wins and pins down the other, the weight ratio shifts, the wrestling continues. Burning each other out.

Hills are always going to be part of our terrain. Rolling hills I’m on for the long haul, not one long push to a top followed by a glorious descent. I reorient myself toward that slow crawl: teaching human-centred leadership, teaching dialogic practices, creating group processes where people can learn to hear each other, coaching people on finding their full, thoughtful voices. Appreciating music and art. Loving my people. I write emails when I think it might help, donate money. Lean into practices that might bridge some of that anger. Zone 2. Steady.

Julia’s film is making the festival rounds and isn’t available for public viewing yet. But I’m very grateful it came my way on a week when I really needed it. I’ll keep the blog community posted on when you can all view it.

Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede-Desmarais, who lives in Tkaranto and is happy to talk to anyone about dialogic practices.

Julia Creet is an aging jock who still likes to play hard as much as possible. She is also an English Prof. at York University. “Almost Over the Hill” is her third documentary. juliacreet.com

Like this one!

I mean you could do these exercises anywhere but the market for the piece is women so it’s the kitchen.

Also, “winter flab.” Ugh.

It’s a sensible list of body weight and mobility exercises.

But that title!

And then there is the endless stream of “you’re doing it all wrong” titles.

See The Top 5 Exercises You’re Doing Wrong or 26 Workout Moves Trainers Say You’re Always Doing Wrong.

The other category of bad fitness headlines that I see all the time involve weight loss. This happens even when the study or trend being reported on doesn’t really have much to say about weight loss.

Sometimes I share these to our Facebook page with a little warning but often I don’t share them at all.

Finally, I hate the heavily prescriptive headlines. They ignore that we have different likes and dislikes. We also have different reasons for exercising at all.’

See Fitness After 40: How You Should Change Your Workout or How Often Should You Work Out? Here’s What Experts Say. The advice is all sensible but the should talk rubs lots of us the wrong way.

How about you? Do you have a flavour of fitness headline that bothers you?

This past summer, I decided to invest in my fitness journey—sort of.

I paid $12 for 8 weeks on a workout app. It was a deal I couldn’t pass up, or so the advertisement sold me. Such marketing isn’t too far-fetched either since a single drop-in class ranges between 10 and 20 dollars in my area. Even if I only used the app once, it would pay for itself. A worthwhile investment, is it not?

Well, I did only use it once.

What followed was a membership cancellation and, after an onslaught of messages feebly attempting to keep my business, a cancelled email subscription.

Sound familiar? While this may or may not be your experience, statistics don’t lie. With COVID-19 supplying a generous subject pool for online and application-based studies, it wasn’t hard to find some information regarding workout apps.

All that is remaining of my latest workout app.

A cellphone is shown with a page open to a Log In screen. The screen says “Your session expired” across the top.

According to one research study out of Anhui University, of every 100 people who sign up for workout apps similar to the one I had, 45 of them abandon the app (Guo et al., 2022). Another report from analysts at Business of Apps, a globally respected app information company, concludes that only 37% of workout app users retain their subscriptions after the first day of use, and this number plummets to a meager 9% by day 28 (Curry, 2024).  Unfortunately, my churn rate is reflective of these statistics.

In fact, I’ve done this app catch and release before. Hilariously, I’ve even done it with the exact app that I just abandoned—almost an exact year prior to my most recent activation date too. Apparently, my New Year’s resolutions start in July.

What is it that draws people to these low-retention workout apps? Perhaps it’s the promise of a pseudo-escape that would satisfy those of us who feel housebound. Maybe it’s our ever-aging bodies instinctively desiring health-bolstering activities.

The reason may even be societal. In an era where social media influencers fulfill their titled role by steering viewers towards fitness and healthy living, an app that offers a “how to be like X influencer in 20 days” solves two needs at once: the need for social engagement and belonging, and the need for instant gratification.

Or maybe it’s neither of those. Perhaps, it’s what drew me in: the cost.

Life as a busy mom makes engaging in regular fitness difficult. Add the price of gym memberships or fitness classes and my wallet, with contents already taken up by bills and the kids’ extra-curriculars, is adamant that I cannot take on those expenses. These workout apps, with their low initial costs, break that barrier and make fitness appear attainable. All it requires is participation.

An app can look attractive and make promises, but do they deliver, and are they really user friendly? Probably for the self-motivated and homebody folk. What about those who, like me, thrive in tangible community or are unreliable in the area of self-discipline?

Most of us who have engaged with the fitness world understand that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to achieving fitness success. Each body and soul has unique functions and needs. My deficient willpower in this area as well as the lack of readily available space in my house for these exercises make me an ill-fitted candidate for workout apps. My soul just doesn’t vibe well with them. As my catch-and-release count suggests, I should hit the drawing board again.

Have you tried workout apps? Do they work for you? I’d love to read your reflections below in the comment section.

Citations

Guo, Y., Ma, X., Chen, D., & Zhang, H. (2022, November 22). Factors Influencing Use of Fitness Apps by Adults under Influence of Covid-19. PubMed Central, National Library of Medicine: National Center for Biotechnology Information. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9740845/

Curry, D. (2024, November 6). Health & Fitness App Report 2024. Business of Apps. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/health-fitness-app-report/#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20retention%20rate,to%209%25%20by%20day%2028.

Stephanie Morris is a transcriptionist and writer based in Alberta, Canada. She is a wife, mom of two, and owner of her writing services company, Words & S’mores. As a fancier of history and literature, she aspires to blend the two in fiction and nonfiction pieces. To follow Stephanie’s writing adventures, find her at @words.and.smores on Instagram or visit her website wordsandsmores.square.site.

Here we are at the Words Festival in November 2018.

“Words is pleased to present philosophers Tracy Isaacs & Samantha Brennan who will be talking about their new book, Fit at Mid-Life: A Feminist Fitness Journey.

Tracy Isaacs & Samantha Brennan, “Fit at Mid-Life: A Feminist Fitness Journey”
4 November 2018
Museum London, Lecture Theatre

A uniquely feminist approach to how women can break free from what society thinks and get active in their forties, fifties, and beyond.

On the eve of their forty-eighth birthdays, Samantha Brennan and Tracy Isaacs set out to achieve a daunting feat: to become the fittest they’d ever been in their lives by the age of fifty. To chart their progress, they created their blog Fit Is a Feminist Issue, dedicated entirely to the unique challenges, questions, and issues they would face as women seeking fitness after the age forty. Soon, they had a community of thousands following their story. Women, it was clear, were looking for something different: a new approach to fitness that would champion strength, health, and personal accomplishment over weight loss and aesthetics.

In Fit at Mid-Life, Brennan and Isaacs provide exactly that, offering a more practical, realistic path to getting active later in life. Drawing from their personal experiences as well as the latest research, they deliver a wealth of concrete advice on everything from how to keep bones strong to what types of fitness activities give the biggest returns. But Fit at Mid-Life is more than just a fitness book. Taking a feminist perspective, the authors challenge society’s default whats, whys, and hows of every aspect of getting fit, whether it’s why women avoid free weights at the gym, how personal trainers talk to their female clients, or why dress size is so often considered a benchmark for fitness. Empowering and relatable, the book shows how women can best take charge of their health and be active—no matter what their shape, size, age, or ability.”

If you’re reading the blog and haven’t read our book, here’s the info.

Sam and Tracy’s book, Fit at Mid-Life: A Feminist Fitness Journey, is being published by Greystone Books and is now available (Spring 2018). You can also order from Amazon.ca but best really to get from your local bookstore.