rowing machine – FIT IS A FEMINIST ISSUE

Gently in the basement. Merrily, merrily, merrily…something that rhymes with basement.

In one of my recent Go Team! posts ‘Make some tweaks‘ I said that I was planning to move my rowing machine up to the living room because my mid-decluttering basement was too distracting. However, soon after I posted it, I realized that there was a more direct way to fix the problem – I shifted the stuff from directly in front of the machine so I didn’t have to see it while I rowed.

Yeah, kind of like this. Image description: A GIF of someone ‘cleaning’ their room by tossing their stuff to one side and then pulling a curtain with an image of a perfectly tidy room across in front of the messy pile.

It instantly helped.

In fact, as soon as I move the stuff, I hopped on the machine and rowed for a few minutes.

That in itself was a victory and I added to that triumph by deciding to sign up for my free trial of Apple Fitness + that I have been getting reminders of for months.

I watched my first video and rowed along on Monday morning and I LOVED it.

My rowing also didn’t result in a lot of forward movement but I was having a lot more fun than Bart is having here. Image description: a GIF of cartoon character Bart Simpson single-handedly trying to row a rowboat in a lake. He is only using the oar on one side of the boat while the other oar trails in the water so the boat is just turning in a circle.

The instructions were clear, the leader was enthusiastic but not overbearing, and I could easily see (and match) the pace of the rowers in the video, and I felt encouraged to work a little harder than I probably would have on my own.

It gave me a lot of the benefits of being in a group class without actually having to be in a group class – I felt like I had company, the structure was clear and once I had decided on a workout, I didn’t have any more decisions to make during the session. (Unless I had decided not to finish it, of course!)

Of course, I could get a lot of those same things from YouTube videos but going to an exercise-specific app and choosing from a single category felt a lot different than going to YouTube and searching past – and getting distracted by – all kinds of other interesting things to find a video to exercise with.

a GIF of a comic from Slothilda.com - a creature (a sloth perhaps?) wearing a large pink bow and glasses is sitting at a table writing in a notebook while a corgi hops around behind her saying ‘Love me.’ over and over. — All the other videos on YouTube when I am trying to pick a workout video. Image description: a GIF of a comic from Slothilda.com – a creature (a sloth perhaps?) wearing a large pink bow and glasses is sitting at a table writing in a notebook while a corgi hops around behind her saying ‘Love me.’ over and over.

Anything that removes obstacles and reduces my distractions on the way to exercising is a good thing.

And the video itself felt different, even though it was a pre-recorded thing made for a mass audience, it felt much more like a Zoom class or something else that I could join/be part of than just something I was watching and doing on my own. I don’t know what about the video made it feel like that but I liked it.

Yes, I know that I have done this exactly once and I may or may not continue to enjoy it but the fact that my first experience with the program was overwhelmingly positive means I feel drawn to try it again.

And that is definitely a good thing.

And I’m awarding myself a gold star for my efforts.

Feel free to award yourself this gold star for your efforts today, too.