Posts Tagged ‘fitness’
Proud of a bruise?
In the above picture, the red line is the outline of a shin bruise. I started kickboxing recently. First came online videos and boxing/kicking air from the comfort of my room. Then, more recently, I joined a gym and that meant actual heavy bags. This bruise came from the first day of landing repeated shin kicks on a heavy bag.
It has been a long journey from couch potato to kick boxing…
When Covid had boxed us in, I too found a few extra hours in a day. These hours eventually went into developing movement practices. At some point, I had looked at a body in its fifth decade and extrapolated it to the eighth decade and I didn’t like what I saw.
They say that if you want to do something in your eighties, you need to do them now….
The movements had started with yoga, a practice I was familiar with in my childhood. Then came Qi Gong. Then came a passion for the forests, i.e., hiking. Cross-training followed – to combat the repetitive stress injuries that were a result of working from home, without significant movement for 8-12 hours a day. My routines have now became so varied that I feel like a NASA astronaut (link). And yet, all my activities had been solitary and quiet activities, meditative even. Bulk of my activities were conducted within the confines of a 10 ft x10 ft room, a bedroom turned into an office room. And when not in the room, I was outdoors, on foot in a forest, or on a kayak on the Bay.
I am not a fan of a gym. Loud music and windowless spaces make me claustrophobic. And yet….
I was proud when I signed up for a trial power kickboxing class. I was surprised when I loved the class. The day after, I was surprised when I was upright and not in significant pain. I was even more surprised when I survived half a dozen more of the same. I decided to graduate up from the softer freestanding bag to the heavy bag. And then came the bruise. And I went back for more.
I am told that the bruising would go away in 1-3 months…
When I pretend that I am a NASA astronaut
NASA astronauts on the space station exercise 2.5 hours daily, six days a week. I am finding myself in a similar predicament. They do it to counteract muscle atrophy. I do it to manage pain.
I have had an on-again off-again relationship with pain my entire life. It has been in an on-again for last several years as I started the fifth decade. My hips hurt when I walk horizontally. My knees hurt when I walk vertically. My shoulders hurt when I go to bed. My back hurts when I garden. My joints are stiff when I wake up in the morning. My head hurts when there is too much noise. My neck hurts I have spent time staring at the monitor. Over the years, I have realized that my aches and pains are best managed with a balanced activity regime. Part one is bones and joints. They need to be treated roughly – jump up and down, run etc. Part two is muscles, they need stretching and strengthening, lift weights, do yoga. Part three is nerves and fascia, they need unclogging with QiGong. And finally, part four, the balance that improves with dance or slack line. Then there is rest – for the brain, the conductor of the daily orchestra, the one that gets stuck in the circle (link). It needs quiet moments, a bit of star gazing or watching the hummingbirds. Too much of one and too little of other throws the system off balance and recovery takes days.
On days I feel annoyed with all the refurbishing, I think about astronauts. In case you wondered that they are up to, fitness wise, here is a normie testing out astronaut’s exercise regimen (link). Thoughts of them stuck in a smelly tardis, where globs of sweat coalesce on their face, to be eventually sucked in by the ventilation system to be converted into next day’s coffee is guaranteed to make you feel good about your workout routine.
Locomotoring 