Introductions

[rydra_wong]

Because I thought it might be interesting to see where everyone's coming from ...

Here's a thread to say hi, and say a bit about your interest in movement/embodiment/whatchamacallit.

What movement things do you do -- or not do? Or: what did you do in the past? Or: what might you be interested in learning more about, but haven't tried yet? Or: what do you love reading about even though you'd never want to do it personally?

I suggest that people feel free to jump all over each other and ask questions if you're curious about something someone else mentions (if you'd rather not answer questions, please just say so), or want to say "me too" or compare notes.

Comments

[abyssinia]

Hi! I was super excited about this community when it was created and then forgot about it.

I was lucky growing up to have parents who let me play around with whatever I wanted to try, movement-wise - I dabbled with gymnastics, very-short-lived ballet, soccer (that lasted a while), tennis, softball (fairly serious for a bit), cross country running, and finally badminton (the one I got serious about - I had to pick the sport nobody in the US knows is a sport). I also grew up in a family that walked a lot and took vacations to hiking destinations and I still love exploring new cities by just walking all over them.

In my late 20's/early 30's I picked up ice hockey, CrossFit and Olympic weightlifting and have dabbled on-and-off with rock climbing.

Right now I'm struggling a lot with getting back into shape after ~2 years of not exercising due to some (resolved) health issues. It's a struggle in both deciding what to do (no, I do not have time in the week to run and bicycle and play badminton and play hockey and go climbing and play tennis and go weightlifting and go swimming and...) and in the simple act of making exercise a regular habit again. I'm so much happier when I manage it, but really struggling to keep at it consistently (I think partly out of frustration that I'm in the worst shape of my life and I remember when I used to be strong and have endurance).

I'd love tips/advice on getting back to activity after a long/sedentary break (and dealing with a body that isn't 25 anymore).

[lunabee34]

Yay for resolved health issues!

I just started exercising regularly again after about an 8 month hiatus because of depression. This is what worked for me. I made exercise a priority and part of my schedule. I gave myself permission to start slowly and to gradually increase duration and intensity rather than focusing on how my current performance compares to my previous. Although this isn't an option this semester, I hope to once again have an exercise buddy for spring; I find the whole shebang is much more fruitful when I have someone to go with. It keeps me accountable (can't back out now; Sally is waiting on me) and I also respond well to competition (*surreptitious glance at Sally's treadmill* I can totally go a little faster and match her speed). Journalling also really works well for me. Keeping track of when, what, how long, etc. is really motivating to look back on and also helps keep me accountable. Back when I was using the vivofit, even though it's silly, I did find getting badges for reaching certain milestones (you have walked 100,000 steps, etc) really motivating. I think many of the online components of the fitness trackers have that kind of function and they also have communities you can join for support, conversation, cheerleading.

But these are just things that have worked for me. YMMV

[indywind]

^cosigning most of lunabee34's suggestions, except that badges/trophies are kind of a turn-off for me personally.

I want to jump on the soapboax of choice architecture in incremental habit formation: to (re)start a lasing habit, find/make room in existing routines where the new habit can fit, conveniently or unavoidably (where not-doing the the new habit would require more going-out-of-your-way than doing it), choose an activity to start that is as small/easy as possible while still counting as doing the thing --too small to be intimidating, too easy to require much willpower to initiate--and attach the new activity to an environmental cue or prompt that is already firmly included in an established routine.
Then habit formation works like: do the regular routine up to the prompt, insert the small added action that is too easy to skip into the place made to fit it, and proceed with the rest of routine that follows from there. Once the new activity becomes as much an established part of the routine as the cue was, it can be expanded (longer time, higher intensity, additional sub-activities), or you can repeat the process in a different part of your regular routine to add another new habit.

So, like for example, when I went from sedentary plus unavoidable walking for transport, to walking for exercise, the first change I did was getting off the bus one stop further away, only on my way home from work when I would have enough time to cover the extra distance and didn't have to be tidy and non-sweaty at the end. When walking longer was well-established, I added jogging a tiny distance, then jogging more with walking in between, then eventually I was jogging the whole way home from work.

It takes some creativity to figure out how to do this, for some activities/routines more than others. It's a kind of problem-solving that my brain seems to enjoy though; if it's more of a pain for you, it can help to brainstorm with someone else around the roadblocks.

[lunabee34]

*high five*

This is excellent advice. Incremental steps, building the activity into an existing schedule--this is very much what worked for me.

[jenett]

I track what I do, but it's as much to avoid overdoing as to reach goals.

I use a pedometer on my phone (I use Human, which I like a lot), and then I have a spreadsheet into which I dump that, plus whatever swimming I do or other activity the phone doesn't track (which includes things like "20 minutes of light cleaning" when the phone was on my desk, not in my pocket.)

Some weeks (like two weeks ago), I go *way* over my usual average (I'm running about 380 minutes total activity most weeks right now: that week I was at 560) so I knew that I a) would probably feel lousy the next week, and especially the next day or two and b) could balance it out a bit.

For actual swimming, I started out very very gently, and I've slowly been adding laps of front crawl (which I find hardest: lung issues make the breathing much harder for crawl than for equivalent levels of exertion on my back) and slowly bringing the number of breaths between lengths of crawl down. I've been steadily seeing my time per length go down very slightly (so I do more lengths in X minutes than I used to) too.

[spiralsheep]

I was briefly on my school badminton team and it was the second most viciously competitive sport I've ever played (after croquet). :-)

I hope a maintainable activities schedule falls into place for you eventually.

[tielan]

I think I need to follow this thread. I've been steadily dropping off with my previous 15+ years of exercise in the last three years, and have just gone back to playing (field) hockey after a year of doing nothing.

So advice on how to get back into activities after a long sedentary break would be very welcome, particularly when I'm still dealing with health issues and a body that is probably about 80% when I'm used to it being at least 95% or more.