Love of Movement
HAES is all about the “move your body in a way that you find enjoyable”.
Up until about 2 years ago, this would have been a completely alien statement to me. It just wouldn’t have made sense.
When I started exercising in 2001, it was to punish my body for daring to require food to exist. I exercised. A lot. A lot, lot. And it was boring, and I didn’t like it. But I “had to” do it. (Ah, HAES, if only I had known you back then).
That was pretty much my attitude towards exercise until around 2 years ago when I found roller derby and for the first time, I was sweating, and straining, and busting my ass, and making my muscles sore. And LOVING it.
It was quite the revelation, really, that exercise could be FUN! That I could enjoy pushing myself to gain more speed, more endurance, more strength.
Really? Enjoy sweating rather than just endure it? Is this madness?
No, no it’s not. Exercise CAN be fun. It just requires finding something that is not drudgery invented solely for the purpose of torturing the body into burning off the calories.
Alas, the roller derby, she is hard on the body. Full contact sport and all that, so I have recently moved over into reffing, which is still a lot of fun, but doesn’t require quite so much attendance at practice, and so I have a need to find more ways to move my body, because now that I understand that exercise CAN be fun, I find that I really do want to maintain the level of fitness that I have now.
Enter indoor wall climbing.
I went last week and it was a blast! It’s not a fast sport, or a heart pounding heavy breathing one either. It’s not competitive. It’s just you and a wall and a series of hand and foot holds. You have to figure out the path up. You have to make sure you know where your hands and feet are going to be. You have to know if your arm is going to be able to make that reach or not, etc.
It’s like an exercise puzzle!
I am going back again tonight to see if I like it just as much, and if I do, I think this might be my next “sport” (or, I should say, additional, not next, because I’m not “leaving” the derby.)
I am excited about this sport because it has always been a goal of mine to increase my upper body strength, but oh how I hate lifting weights. The tedium, the horrifying boredom! (to me).
So this is a great way to strengthen my muscles AND exercise my brain.
BONUS! It’s also something the hubby can participate in, because even though he’s not so much interested in climbing the walls, you need a partner to belay the ropes, so that’s some togetherness time that we can have as well (and it is a little bit of exercise for him to run the ropes - it’s work, not just standing there).
So here’s to finding ways to move your body that aren’t horrifyingly boring!
Woot!
I tried a wall once, like 7 years ago. It was exhilarating but really really tough as I have NO upper body strength. Its’ sad, actually, that I cant’ do even one non-modified pushup. I’m glad you’ve found something new and fun for you!
That sounds cool. There’s an indoor rock-climbing place in St. Louis. How tall are they? This one is in a 10-story (I think, haven’t counted) building. Does it go all the way up?
I’ve got a bike I bought last year that has been languishing in the rain. I want to get a rickshaw to put the girls in, but we no longer have the money. I hoped to get one for my birthday, but I don’t think that will be happening (I got a PS3 from my mother-in-law… I love it, but I’d rather have the rickshaw).
Whatever I find will have to involve the girls and I’m not sure how effective any exercise can be while lugging 50 pounds of children around.
Peace,
Shannon
I’ve looked at wall climbing on a couple of occasions, but I also have pretty pathetic upper body strength. Plus a healthy fear of the sudden stop at the bottom is I were to fall and the rope broke
I get lots of exercise by gardening, geocaching, traipsing thru wheat fields photographing people shooting long range targets that explode when hit, aqua fitness class where we socialize with people while moving in water. All sorts of ways to exercise, move ones bod and have fun while doing it
I do need to get my bike back up and running, been trying to get it to a friend to be tweaked and tuned and then I can start commuting to work on it taking the bike/hiking trail they built on the old railway line near my house. It will be nice to bike and not worry about traffic.
I used to be a gym fanatic, but honestly it was because I could find no other way to channel my stress.
My job was intense and instead of going home and punching somebody as hard as I could I beat the shit out of myself instead.
Honestly, it felt great to release all of that.
I recently went rock climbing at an indoor facility called Earth Trekks here in the DC area (Rockville to be exact) and I too was astounded at how little upper body strength I had.
It really was fun though, so I’m considering giving it another go.
I have a few things I love to do but have a few obstacles in front of doing them.
I love to swim but my local pool is very unfriendly - they have a reputation for producing Olympic swimmers, so they’re geared towards squad swimming or you’re not welcome. They never say it outright but squad get 8 of the 10 lanes, and the last two lanes have to be shared between lap swimmers and kids wanting to play.
I love to dance, particularly ballroom dancing as I used to do it competitively, but don’t have a dance partner any more since I moved to the city, and if I go to classes/groups I end up teaching instead of cutting loose and enjoying myself, because there are not enough dance partners.
However, I have bought a bicycle that I love riding, so I’ve been doing that. I love the feeling of the wind on my face as I zoom along.