Like many others, I’ve been trying to use quarantine to focus on making fitness a habit.
While trying to build new habits, I’ve also been thinking back to old, deep, multigenerational lessons about maintaining our well-being well into old age.
Here are some thoughts:
- I really hate reading about fitness. GIFs work, photos are ok, videos that are like 30 seconds long and just show me what I need to know are cool, but goddammit I really don’t know if I’ll ever get through “Starting Strength.” Sorry bro.
- I was reading about proper squat technique, mostly because I have shit knees on all sides and want to *try* to prevent that, and then found myself thinking again about really old folks I’ve known who were able to maintain deep squats into their 90s and beyond because their environments were engineered for them to do so. As in they had squat toilets and so needed to deep squat on a regular basis. As in they weren’t made to sit in chairs and instead naturally rested in a squatting position.
- I thought about squatty potties, a classic example of how our culture created a problem and then tried to sell the solution back to us.
- I also thought again about how the idea of needing to exercise is such a by-product of office-oriented work; folks who are essential workers are already active.
- I found myself recording my workouts in a notebook, carefully tracking reps and sets, and I totally see the value in that and will probably continue to do it. But IDK, isn’t truly functional fitness about doing things that are useful instead of just the weight we can lift? Like are there downsides to this? I’ve already sometimes found myself occasionally resisting doing a movement because I don’t have my tracker nearby; I’m super curious if there’s anything about if tracking sometimes leads to less movement.
- I also thought about yoga, and how it makes you consider every precious piece of you. Your eyes, your toes, the back of your knees.
- I also think this is a great time to see how much I can do myself for free; yes I had an impossible to cancel gym membership that I never used, hundreds of dollars wasted to a not even that great company.
- It made me realize how much fitness has been commoditized because of its compartmentalization from daily life – why do I even need a different physical space or a separate time set aside to fitness? How can I focus on better integrating into my life more naturally?
- Why do I need names for a farmer’s walk (literally just walking around holding a heavy weight) or to be Googling proper form for something that would be a daily part of my life elsewhere?
- Why am I so focused on things that could potentially injure me when there’s so much intuitive movement that could do me a world of good?
- Also I’ve always hated sitting in chairs, and finally it’s looking like that’s a good thing. I’m curious if those studies looking at how bad sitting is for you also looked at different kinds of sitting (cross-legged, squat, on knees).
- Also like why is on the floor seating seen as juvenile? My roomie and I dreamed about it but then ended up getting “grown up beds.” Sure it was partially to avoid roaches and mice, but also there’s the whole perception angle to it, you know?
Cool, ok, bye.