Hmm, if I were to pull a Tarot card before I started exercising would that mean I was doing a woo-kout?
Yes, I do find myself funny. Your mileage may vary.
As a writer, a storyteller, and someone who is intrigued by mysteries, magic, and ghost stories, I love Tarot cards, Oracle cards, story dice, and all of that kind of stuff.
A few tiles from a set of oracle tiles I created for myself out of wooden tiles, drawings, stickers, and collage items. Image description: six small rectangular tiles on a wrinkled green cloth. One tile has three candles and a striped background, one has a gold star against a background of black lines, one has a window or maybe a French door against a green background and there are flowers in a vase in front of the door/window, another has the word wonder cut from a magazine against a black background with gold polkadots, another shows a green puzzle piece against a background of gold and black alternating lines, and the final one shows a sticker of a snail moving up a green hill that I drew on the tile.
And I use those tools regularly for writing, storytelling, journaling, and reflecting.
I’m not particularly mystical about using them. I know that some people are very engaged with the rituals around Tarot but I generally think of myself as in conversation with my subconscious rather than with an unknown force. (The woo in my title is more about playing with perceptions than about my approach to engaging with these tools.*)
I like the way that Tarot or Oracle cards give me a container for examining my thoughts, feelings, and reactions to a situation.
And given the speed at which my ADHD brain seeks context, generates ideas, and weaves a web of connecting thoughts, it can be a relief to have a structure I can borrow to organize my thinking.
So, when I found myself planning to journal on the question, “What could make it easier for me to exercise?, it made sense for me to turn to my Tarot cards for some guidance.
 I drew the Three of Cups.
This particular three of cups card is from the Phantomwise Tarot by Erin Morgenstern and the images are related to her book The Night Circus. Image description: A tarot card is propped up between the keys of my black computer keyboard. The card depicts three feminine presenting figures in long dresses and black opera gloves lifting glasses high in the air towards each other in a ‘Cheers’ sort of gesture. The occurred itself is black, and all of the images are in black white and grey.
The interpretation of this card seems pretty straightforward (although there are ways to dive deeply into the meanings of any card, of course.)
This card is about friendship, joy, support, and connection and it resonated with me in terms of my exercise practice.
I know that all of those things can be helpful for any ongoing practice but I hadn’t really thought about whether I needed to include them in my fitness plans.
But ensuring that friendship, joy, support, and connection are part of the plan seems like a pretty good place to start making my exercise easier to do.
So I changed the nature of the questions I was asking myself.
Instead of just ‘What could make it easier to exercise?’ I asked myself:
How can I make the exercise process more fun?
How can I make exercise a more social activity?
What kind of support do I need to make it easier for me to exercise?
Now, I know that all of these questions have come up for me before.
They’ll probably come up again.
But since the initial question occurred to me now and those other questions arose as a result, they’re worth exploring.
I don’t think I would’ve thought along these lines without drawing that card.
I probably wouldn’t have considered whether I needed a social element or more moral support right now.
But since the themes of that card resonated with me, I’m going to explore how they might be helpful to me.
A different card may or may not have resonated but, at the very least, it would have guided me to different questions to consider.
And journalling without pulling a card would have probably been helpful but my thoughts may not have been focused and they likely have sent me off in a whole different direction.
So, just as I had hoped, pulling a Tarot card gave me a container for my thoughts, a way to direct my inquiries that felt purposeful.
And even if the card hadn’t resonated, I would have been able to journal about why that definitely wasn’t what I needed – a helpful piece of information in itself.
Anyway, I’ll let you know about any useful answers that arise from my journalling in response to these questions.
And now I have a few questions for you:
Do you ever use Tarot as a way to guide or contain your thinking on a given topic?
Have you ever found Tarot useful for your fitness practices?
Would you like me to pull a card to help guide your thinking about a fitness question?
If so, please let me know in the comments!
*If you have a more mystical or esoteric approach to using divination tools, please don’t think I am dismissing you here. I am aiming for a clear description of my approach not a dismissal of yours.
I have been experimenting with when and how to write different things, I have experimented with different ways to approach my volunteer work, I have given a lot of thought to how ELSE my Go Team ideas might apply in my life, and I have experimented with my well-being practices.
Here are some of the things that have come up for me so far and some questions I am pondering at the moment.
As soon as I mention pondering, I gotta break out a Pinky and the Brain GIF. Image description: a GIF from the cartoon Pinky and the Brain in which The Brain (a short white mouse with an oversized head) is asking Pinky (a tall skinny mouse who looks kind of goofy) ‘Are you pondering what I’m pondering?’ The mice are in a homey setting within a green cage in a laboratory. This question always came up in episodes of this show when The Brain, who was supposed to be a genius, had hatched a plan to take over the world and Pinky, who was rather silly, would respond with nonsense.
My medal from the Salem Witch Trials walking challenge. The medal is a black rectangle is kind of like a wrought iron gate along the top and sides with four points along the bottom line. The medal is decorated with a crescent moon, a sun, a crow on a branch and a bat hanging from a different branch. Then there is text that reads ‘The Salem Witch Trial Virtual Challenge’ The words ‘Salem Witch’ are in green and the lettering is ornate and kind of spooky. It is attached to a green ribbon with decorated with stereotypical ‘witchy’ items like beetles, moths, crystals, a dousing rod, and a fly agaric mushroom and a purple banner that reads ‘Make Every Mile Count.’
It’s really fun to have a tangible, obvious, and related reward for my efforts.
While I am very used to activities in which the effort is its own reward or ones in which I decide on my own ‘prize’ that often has nothing to do with the activities itself but this is different.
While I set my timeframe, the distance and the reward were both set by someone else and I enjoy the feeling of meeting some sort of standard (even a loose one) and getting a medal as a result.
Now, let me be clear – I am in no way treating this like a medal that I won. I know I wasn’t actually racing. I didn’t have any competitors except myself and my time was snail-paced but the medal does remind me that I made a choice to do a program and I completed it.
The fact that I really like how the medal looks is also a bonus.
My feelings about this medal – and the related challenge – are really interesting to me and I am definitely going to explore more tangible and related rewards for my other fitness experiments this year.
And this is where the January experimenting comes in:
I decided to experiment with a longer challenge so I signed up for a 2026 challenge with the same company and, like with the shorter challenge, the fact that I can see each day adding up is giving me a little extra push to move more daily.
BUT it will take all year to earn my medal so I’m going to need to invent some more immediate (and related) awards for myself to earn on a regular basis.
Question: What kinds of rewards will feel more directly related to my fitness practices?
Imperfect Practices
Several of my Go Team 2026 posts have been a bit of a thought experiment for me as I figure out whether I am regularly applying these ideas to my life/practices and how ELSE I might want to apply them.
My Sunday post this week is an excellent example of that experimentation.
That post Done Beats Perfect is about getting so caught up in doing things right that I end up not doing them at all has really helped me tune into something about myself.
I have ‘discovered’ this fact many times in many different contexts but each time I rediscover it, I find a new layer.
I spend too much time trying to figure things out before doing them.
For example:
My ADHD brain is convinced that there is value in waiting to start work on my core because I wouldn’t want to waste time on some practice or program that doesn’t work.
So, it kind of shelves the project of improving my core while awaiting more information BUT it keeps the thought in rotation so it FEELS like I am working on it all the time even though I am not actually doing any work.
But since it has been on my mind for ages, I do get the bonus (annoying) feeling that I am not getting any results for my hard work.
So, a lot of time passes, I don’t end up finding the right system for strengthening my core AND I don’t actually work on a less than perfect system AND nothing changes AND I feel frustrated with myself.
This is all kind of subconscious and I see the illogical nature of this process when I consciously consider it.
But until it occurs to me to bring the thought forward I just have this annoying contradictory situation in which something is sort of on my mind, time is passing, there’s a feeling of effort but no results, but I also know that I am not actually working on that yet.
It’s a bit like when I sit down to write but I can’t make the words string together at the moment so I sit at my desk and putter around at all kinds of distractions. I feel like I am working on it and getting nowhere but there is actually no work taking place.
In that situation, I need to become aware that I am doing that (again!) and remind myself that the only thing that gets my writing done is putting words on the page and then moving them around. I have to coax myself to stick with it past the initial pain of dealing with an ambiguous situation and trust that if I go through the tried-and-true procedure, the work will get done.
Since I know that completing an imperfect workout or an imperfect practice will be automatically superior to a perfect one that never actually gets done, I need to identify a tried-and-true procedure that I can trust to get my workouts/practices done.
I am going to work on the following questions and develop an experiment based on my answers:
Questions: What procedures can I use to make it easier to do an imperfect workout instead of waiting for a perfect one to arrive?How can I make myself conscious of being stuck in the ‘waiting for more info’ loop?
My plan to connect my drawing to my evening yoga has resulted in me avoiding my yoga because I couldn’t wrap my mind around drawing at that point.
I know that the main reason I didn’t draw was because I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to draw each evening. Frustratingly, in my post about this experiment I actually said that I needed to pick something to draw or I probably wouldn’t do it.
Alas, I forgot all about that aspect of things then just tried to wing it and ended up (temporarily) sinking my yoga practice along with my plan to draw.
So, for now, I am going back to committing to evening yoga and, if I have the energy, I will do a drawing on an index card but the drawing is a bonus not a dealbreaker.
And I am going to consider the following questions and have an answer to experiment with by Wednesday evening:
Questions: What kinds of drawing would be fun and relaxing for me to do each evening? How can I make the process of drawing easier to start?
Row Row Row… my living room?
This experiment is less than two days old but after hearing me wonder aloud if moving my rowing machine from the basement to the living room would make it more likely that I would use it, my husband volunteered to move it for me.
As soon as it was in the living room, rowing felt more like a thing I *could* do instead of a thing ‘I need to get back to’ and now that the living room experiment was underway, I decided to try for 5 minutes of rowing each day for the next week.
I know that’s a small amount but I wanted it to feel easy and I can definitely fit in 5 minutes a day for a week and then review.
So, on Monday morning, I planned to row for 5 minutes but ended up rowing for 15 minutes while watching a video about setting up an artist’s notebook. and it really felt great.
That doesn’t mean that I am changing my experiment though. I am going to stick to the 5 minute plan with the option of doing more but with zero pressure to do so.
Now I am just playing around with the when:
Question: Is it easier to have a set time to row or to just do it when it makes sense on a given day?
Overall, I’m enjoying the experiment approach and I am planning to continue into February.
Have you been doing any experiments with your practices and habits in January? How are things going?
I decided to draw my own calendars this year. This one is above my desk and will have a different robot for each month. Image description: a happy square-headed, rectangular-bodied robot drawn in blue ink. She is holding a sign that says ‘Real Snow Please!’ in one hand and she is holding a star in the other. She is standing on a curved line that is supposed to represent snow on the ground and there are dots in the background to represent snow falling. Text beneath her reads ‘January’ and there are two snowflakes and two horizontal arrows pointing to the word.
I happened to catch a segment on my local radio show about the latest report card and the thing that stuck out for me was the gender component of who isn’t getting enough activity, at least according to traditional measures. You can read the report itself here.
Overall, the report said there has been very little shift in who is getting enough exercise, but also that the study was moving away from traditional measures of physical activity as being primarily moderate-to-vigorous exercise (i.e., physical activity that is planned, structured, repetitive and done with the goal of improving fitness) to considering exercise that is less structured and in shorter bouts – things like active transportation or unstructured light activity such as play or social dancing.
Counting more activities is a good thing! I recently got back on my bike for short trips. Most of those rides were only for 5-10 minutes, but my smart watch said I met or exceeded the 150 minutes of moderate-vigorous exercise, even without counting all the steps I took while walking instead of sitting at work, or walking to do errands.
Those kinds of incidental exercise are what women seem to get while men are more likely to go to the gym or other structured activity.
The big challenge is how to track it. Not everyone wants to use a smart watch, or even thinks about it when going from a distant parking spot to the store, or walking to and from the bus stop, or playing with our kids in the park or walking the dog. But all those things absolutely count and we should be giving ourselves credit for that effort.
Diane in a colourful winter coat and blue bicycle helmet beside her red and white winter bicycle.
Maybe if we do, our results on the next survey will look better.
One of my favourite fit feminist humans recently suggested I try the two-week trial membership for Lost Cycle, a Toronto-based woman-owned fitness company that expanded to my city in 2019. She thought I would like it because, as she said, it was “cycling in the dark to really loud rap music.”
I am already a fan of doing stuff to music in the dark, as I did with (Remote) Dark Dancing during the COVID pandemic. Also, the timing seemed good to counter any winter break inactivity. So, in spite of reduced holiday hours and some poor weather outside, I made it to four classes, two at each location.
My black car parked in the empty Lost Cycle lot on a cold, wet, sleet-filled winter break morning.
The Lost Cycle studio ambiance is what might be described as “boutique warehouse,” with minimal windows and the company logo spraypainted on walls but also gratis cold towels and individual shower rooms with complimentary products. The fitness areas have quality equipment: ON the bike classes include clip-in shoes and earplugs, while OFF the bike rooms have infrared heat panels and Lululemon yoga mats. The class leaders were all chatty and friendly on their mics, many showing plenty of body tattoos.
The spin class leader‘s station on an elevated platform, close to a podium to adjust sound and light during class.
And, as mentioned, the classes are held in the dark, with just enough artificial and real candle light to see the mirrors and other people.
Dark spin class, with bikes lined up and towels on them. The photo doesn’t capture the ambiance created by the range of electronic dance music and occasional throwbacks.
In class I tried my best to keep up, but made modifications when my knees ached a little. The low lighting and loud music worked to lessen my self-consciousness (being new and only an occasional group fitnesser), though I needed to place myself close to the front to be able to follow instructions. On the mic, leaders were genuinely supportive, reflecting the vibe of the post-it notes on the studio walls: you are enough, you showed up today, you can do this. Other people I have discussed spin with describe being called out during classes. Here, there was none of that.
Dark group fitness with mats, towels, bands, and handweights placed closely together in a heated room. OFF the bike was a blend of HIIT calisthenics, strength training, and yoga stretches.
Near the end of both ON and OFF the bike classes, there is time to really get “lost”: the lights go off and the music goes up and you just have about 3 to 4 minutes to yourself.
And, during the “lost” times while cycling away or lying on my mat, I found myself in tears or near tears. Now, I am in a particularly vulnerable place right now, due to my recent job loss. While I didn’t check if other participants had felt the same thing, in every class I experienced in the dark a kind of emotional release I didn’t know I needed.
Lost Cycle has tapped into different elements of cycle studio / gym ambiance that makes it feel like fun, luxury, and intensity, all the ingredients for something slightly cultish. Though I was on my way to becoming an initiate, I’m not in a $$ position to keep the membership. At least I am taking the lesson home from Lost Cycle: turn off the lights, pump my mid-life music, and make time for both strength and vulnerability.
Let me start by saying that the adage, “It’s just like riding a bike.” is a lie – I have not been on my bike in a while and riding was NOT a straightforward or automatic process.
So, over the past couple of summers – despite my best-laid plans – I haven’t spent a lot of time on my bike. Actually, phrasing it like that makes it sound like there was a time in my past when I did a lot of cycling but that’s not true.
I have had one bicycle or another ever since I was a kid but I haven’t done any regular riding since I was maybe 12 or so. I occasionally used my bike for transportation when I was in my late teens/early twenties and I did a little bit of riding with my kids when they were younger but neither of them were particularly into cycling AND I found it very difficult to pay attention to their safety and my own.
I know there have been a couple of times here on the blog when I have mentioned my intentions to cycle more and I did put in some effort around those times but sooner or later some combination of lack of skill*, poor weather, general busyness, or good old ADHD time/task challenges would waylay my plans.
As you can probably tell, cycling keeps getting put into the “I’d like to but…” category for me so I was quite surprised to wake up last Thursday with the thought “I’m going to go for a short bike ride this morning.”
So, around 10:30, after I drove my eldest to work, I lathered on some sunscreen, excavated my bike from the shed, put on my helmet and took off.
Truth be told, I wobbled off but I was on my bike so I’m calling it a victory.
As I got to the end of my street, I discovered that the easy path to the parking lot I was going to practice in was blocked off by a road crew who were fixing some wiring. So I had to turn around (very awkwardly and with an audience – sigh!)to go another way, another way that was UP A HILL.
At this point, I was being asked to demonstrate two challenging things immediately. I have a bit of trouble making any turns so making a tight turn was a nightmare. And going uphill is, well, going uphill. (And yes, for the record, I *do* feel quite odd talking about my challenges amongst all the excellent cyclists on this blog.)
But I got through both challenges with a good combination of spite, perseverance, and walking my damn bike in spots and then had the reward of riding downhill to my planned practice area.
I got to the parking lot and decided that riding in a large oval around the (empty) parking spots would be a good way to practice turning in a low-risk environment. And because I was looping around the same number of parking spots, I could create a baseline measurement of my efforts and how I was feeling at different points in the loops.
It went ok.
I was, however, plagued by the thoughts that pop up whenever I am trying to build a skill. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing here? Is there something you’re missing? Is this hard because you need more practice or is it hard because you are missing some information? Maybe you are wasting time and effort here because there’s a little trick you don’t know? Maybe you should stop until you know what you’re doing?”
(Are those questions an ADHD thing? A Christine thing? A human thing? Since I have always been me, a human with ADHD, I don’t know how to distinguish which thoughts belong to which category.)
I didn’t let my brain talk me out of my self-defined practice though. I filed a few questions away to ask my husband later and just did what I set out to do.
And then I left for home.
It was only as I reached the end of the parking lot that I remembered the road crew and the fact that I had ridden downhill right before arriving at the lot.
That meant I had to ride uphill AGAIN right away and right after tiring myself out with my parking lot practice.
I did a ride/walk combination and got myself back home with minimal swearing but a fair bit of sweating and drank about 25L of water. (ok, it was probably far less than that but this version is more interesting AND it speaks to my perception of my refreshment.)
And I definitely plan to do it again this week.
Maybe even twice.
I think this expression could be described as ‘bemused smirk.’ Image description: a selfie taken during one of my MANY breaks on my short bike ride. I am wearing a grey and green helmet and large sunglasses and I’m smirking in a ‘Get a load of this nonsense.’ kind of way. I’m wearing a black blouse that has white star-like shapes on it, my hair is sticking out under the helmet and kind of curling backward in a mullet-y sort of way and I look a bit sweaty.
*I have always found cycling very challenging. I don’t make good use of the gears (a combination of a lack of practice and an utter inability to remember what to do when.) I find it hard to turn and I get panicky about it and often overcorrect. I am plagued and distracted by the feeling that I am missing an important piece of information that will keep me safe/make this easier. Yeah, there are a bunch of things.
PS – So, I just came back to this post to edit something and accidentally opened last week’s post instead. I had completely forgotten what I had written last week but I was delighted to discover that I actually followed a lot of my own guidelines when I decided to go out on my bike.
When my kids were small I usually walked them to school. It was sometimes a hassle to get three people with ADHD out the door on time but I really liked that I had some exercise built into my day AND that there could be a clear end to the ‘home’ part of my morning and a clear start for my work day.
Now my morning commute is from my breakfast table to my desk upstairs and lately I have found myself wishing for an office a little ways from my house.
Not that I need a separate workspace, what I want is a reason to get moving for a fixed period of time each morning before settling into my workday.
I don’t really need a separate workspace to accomplish that, do I?
I just need to pick a physical activity to represent my morning commute, do it for a fixed amount of time, and then start my workday immediately after that.
But, as always when working around my ADHD, I need to be careful about how I add something into my day. I can’t add something too long or something with a lot of potential for distraction or anything that will complicate my mornings too much.
All of those things are just as likely to wreak havoc on my schedule as they are to help me shape it.
This is partially why the idea of a separate workspace has appeal – I could convince myself that I HAD to walk to get there – but, realistically, I would never actually waste money/time/space to rent a workspace just to make myself get moving.
So, I am experimenting with an alternative approach – getting all of my personal/home morning stuff done and then either taking a 5-10 minute walk “to work” before settling in for my first task of the day.
I imagine myself walking briskly but in reality I would probably look more like this, trundling along in my comfy clothes. Image description: a GIF of a small child in a fluffy coat and pink leggings walking in a bouncy way away from the camera down a sidewalk.
That might mean walking outside (possibly with the dog but I’m not sure I want to train her to expect a walk at that time) or it may mean an indoor walk of some kind but, either way, I will be ending that walk at my desk with a clear plan for my first task of the day.*
In fact, I started writing this post on Monday morning after a brisk, 5 minute walk next to my desk and it felt pretty good.
Updates as events warrant!
*This is a separate part of my plan to make the start of my work days easier – getting a bit more detailed with my task planning. My right-now brain hates breaking stuff down but my future brain loves when it has been done.
Ok, so I have to be careful with my movements these days because I don’t want to aggravate my neck/shoulders/back but I’m still going to be low-key flailing around in celebration of International Dance Day today.
And I hope you’ll do the same because…
Image shows a quote from Lynda Barr that reads “ Any kind of dancing is better than no dancing at all.” and there is a person leaping in the air on the background.
I’m not a great dancer (choreography confounds me) but I thoroughly enjoy galumphing around whenever the mood strikes me. In fact, when I am feeling overwhelmed or that things have gotten too heavy, throwing on a danceable song is one of my go-to ways to release all that ickiness.
One of my favourite photos of all time, me and my Dad dancing at my Auntie Val’s wedding in the late 1970s. Image description: Me, at about age 6, dancing with my Dad on the dance floor at my Aunt’s wedding. I’m wearing a light-coloured sun dress and my blonde hair is in pigtails, my right arm is in front of me at chest height (obviously mid-dance-move) and I’m smiling up at my Daddy. My Dad, also mid-dance move with his right fingers mid-snap, is wearing a light grey suit and his brown hair is a floppy sort of length, is looking down towards me with a good Dad-energy. There are people sitting at tables in the background.
And, apparently my instinct to dance in those situations is a good one. Here are some links to articles and videos about why dancing is good for us – even if our techniques are ridiculous:
Still image shows the title of the video ‘The science of dancing’ next to a silhouette of a dancer who has jumped into the air with her head leaning back. There are chemical symbols in the background.
Still image shows the title of the video “The importance of dancing like an idiot” next to two silhouettes, one solid one in light pink and one white one in scribbled lines.
If you aren’t feeling up to reading or watching a lot today, maybe one of these quotes from Planet of Success will inspire you to dance?
Image description: a quote from Amelia Altwater-Rhodes in white text, the background image is of a person on a skirt dancing on the street. The quote reads: In a society that worships love, freedom, and beauty, dance is sacred. It is a prayer for the future, a remembrance of the past and a joyful exclamation of thanks for the present.”Image description: a quote from Agnes De Mille that reads “To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful…this is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.” the background is blue (some shapes are visible but I can’t tell what they are.)
And, last but not least, here are a few of my favourite songs to dance to, feel free to borrow them for your own galumphing around:
Bif Naked’s “I love myself today” – Be sure to jump up and down during the jumpy parts. You’ll know ’em when you hear ’em. The still image is a photo of the singer, a woman with chin length black hair and bangs, sitting in the back seat of a car with her (tattooed) right arm on the window ledge and her hand upwards.
Great Big Sea’s “The Night Pat Murphy Died” – apparently this is a very old song but this was the first version I heard. It mentions drinking and wake, so judge yourself accordingly. This is the song my sisters and I dance to at weddings -we need a lot of room for this level of galumphing. The still image is a brightly coloured plastic doll of a guy playing the accordion. The background is yellow and the album name ‘play’ is on the right.
Charming Disaster’s “Baba Yaga” – the catchy tune, the folklore, and the clever lyrics makes this one of my favourite songs. Excellent for dancing in the kitchen or in the car. The still image is of three odd folk art dolls with the name of the band and the song superimposed on the image.
Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” – This is a great song for goofing around with my friends. We have a dance for this one that is reminiscent of dancing on someone’s lawn in the summer when you’re 10 years old. Still image shows the singers face in a celestial setting.
Elle Kings “Ex’s & Oh’s” (the apostrophes are hers, not mine) – This is another song for goofing around and I like the snarky lyrics. Still image is of the album cover with the singer looking over her shoulder at the camera. She has blonde hair, defined eye makeup and she is wearing a multi-coloured shirt.
How will *you* be celebrating International Dance Day?
My continuing quest to improve my posture and knee health has taken me down the weird road of re-learning to walk. I didn’t quite realize that was what I was doing until I read Breath, by James Nestor. He writes about a multi-year drought project to learn about breathing, and how it has affected his health.
Obviously, I know how to walk. What I’m less good at is walking with my shoulders back, my torso lifted, and my head and feet at optimal angles. My new habit is to walk during my shifts on desk at the pool. I wiggle my shoulders to remind them to be wide both front and back. I peek at my reflection to make sure my feet are facing forward, rather than turned out like a duck’s.
I walk backwards sometimes (most of the benefits may be overstated, but it’s a good way for me to keep scanning the pool as I move around). I walk sideways. Sometimes I stop and go up on my toes 20 times, or do little leg lifts.
A Lego image of a lifeguard wearing a red bathing suit and pinny.
Similarly, I am trying a few of the techniques in Breath. I breathe in through my nose and exhale slowly out my mouth as much as possible when exercising. Sometimes I try box breathing, especially when I’m trying to relax. Occasionally, I’ll even do a bit of yoga alternate nostril breathing. The rest of the time, I focus on breathing only through my nose, at least when I’m awake. I have not yet resorted to taping or strapping my mouth shut for sleep, though I confess to having considered it.
Mina wrote recently about some of the alternative medicine things she is trying alongside her prescription medications. I thought it was an interesting approach.
Like Mina, I’m just doing them as entertaining supplements to my physiotherapy and prescribed medications. I think they’re helping a little. If not, that’s fine; they won’t hurt me (as long as I don’t trip).
I have a terrific physiotherapist who has been helping me with hip and shoulder issues of the past few months. I almost didn’t go to her because her profile at the clinic says she likes to work with athletes.
Red flag of imposter syndrome!
I went to the other physiotherapist at the same clinic instead, up until she went on maternity leave. Then I debated going to another clinic, but finally decided to be brave and see Emma.
I’m glad I did. It turns out that Emma is really good at listening to what I say about the activities I enjoy, and helping me find exercises that not only make me better at those things, but are exercises that may already be somewhat familiar.
A couple of examples for you, related to strengthening my glutes: lying on the ground and doing lifts while wearing a band is great, but standing at the ballet barre and doing a similar move while lifting up my core until I feel the glutes engage (just like I need to do in ballet class but often don’t) is also really good. Similarly, doing clamshells while wearing a band activates the same glute muscles I should be using when I do whip kick in the pool. If I adjust my swim to make sure I’m doing that, it totally counts toward physio.
I have written before about how important it is for me to use mental images to help me position my body correctly. The more I have worked with Emma, the better I have gotten at feeling what parts of me need work and how to get them engaged.
It’s still a work in progress, but I’m feeling much better about my balance, posture, and the state of my knees than I did when I first started going to physiotherapy as a somewhat broken older woman who was afraid of falling. So good, in fact, that this week Emma sent me off with no follow-up appointments. I will check in for a tune-up when needed, but I no longer need her regular supervision. Yay!
There will definitely be tune-ups; I’m still really bad at moderation and will undoubtedly overdo some sport or other.
Diane in a colourful hat and coat at a small skating rink. It was the first time skating in at least three years, and came on the heels of two dance classes and two hard swim workouts. Ow, but so much fun!
Image description: Outside shot of a woman (Christine) with dark medium long hair and wearing a short-sleeved shirt, holding a young boy while he climbs on a rope climber in a playground, with dappled light, a fence, and a tree in the background. She is looking up at the boy and the boy is looking up at the next rung of the rope. Photo credit: Viceth Vong.
“Why aren’t you doing another triathlon this year?” an acquaintance asked.
I gulped. “I’m having some, uh, health issues,” I said. I was keeping things vague out of necessity—I had no damn idea what was happening, only that I had a constant (and I mean 100% of the time) headache that reached an unbearable level by the time I left work for the day. I went to sleep pretty much as soon as I got home—not only because being in pain is exhausting, but because sleep was the only time I didn’t feel awful. My life goals had gone from: publish a book, rock my career in publishing, and finish a tri even though I can barely swim, to: get through the day.
In the year after the pain started, I had test after test. They all came back negative, which was a good thing on the one hand (who wants to have a brain tumor or Lyme disease), and utterly frustrating on the other. After each of my appointments at Boston’s various prestige medical clinics, I wanted to scream, Why can’t you just tell me what was wrong with me?
Eventually, through a process of elimination, they diagnosed me with occipital neuralgia (nerve pain in the upper neck) and idiopathic chronic migraines (idiopathic just means that they have no flipping idea why it’s happening.) I tried treatment after treatment (Botox injections, handfuls of pills, various psychologic therapies) but the headaches wouldn’t budge. I was in bed for the vast majority of most days. The body I toned through hours of training atrophied.
Eventually I went to the Cleveland Clinic for a three-week “headache camp,” as a friend called it. There they tweaked my medications but more importantly, they taught me more than I could’ve imagined about headaches and how to maneuver your lifestyle to live with—and hopefully eventually prevent—them.
One of their prescriptions was to get back to exercising. I had all but stopped as the pain consumed me. There were a few scientifically backed reasons for this recommendation: exercise has been shown to reduce the severity of pain in people with many chronic pain conditions; it also greatly helps with the anxiety and depression that often hits people with chronic illnesses of all stripes (and that certainly hit me).
For me, it also allowed me to get back in touch with that former triathaloning self. I started with walking—an exercise I still love. I added yoga and light weight training. Slowly but surely, I started to feel better physically and emotionally. Now, I walk for an hour a few times a week, do pilates at least once a week, and I’m currently attempting to reintroduce weight training after that fell out of my routine. On days I exercise, I feel less achey—and also like my body is my friend again, not something that revolted against me. I feel, too, that I am strong—I hadn’t realized how upsetting it was to my sense of self to think of myself as weak. Now, I am not just someone with a disabling condition, I am someone who can keep up with her son on the playground, who can squat down and lift his four-year-old body, who doesn’t have to fear the idea of trudging around a theme park all day.
I have greater exercise ambitions, too: I plan to conquer a ten-mile hike in the next few months, and an even longer one by the end of the year, with the eventual goal of walking 100 miles or so on Europe’s El Camino Santiago. I have no thoughts of trying for another triathlon, but thanks in part to regular, light exercise, I’m doing much more than just getting through the day now.
If you have a story about exercising during or after illness, we’d love to hear it!
Christine Junge is a writer living in San Jose, CA. She’s currently working on a novel, and blogs about parenting with a chronic illness/disability at ThanksForNothingBody.substack.com
