I have been sent many memes along these lines. I've laughed along at them most of the time, because the sentiment is pretty funny, on the surface. If there is no evidence that you went for a run, does it matter? This is the modern, physical activity version of the question, if a tree falls down in the woods with no-one to witness it, does it make a sound? Again, a kinda funny thing to ponder, until you really stop and think about it...
Now, I am in no way the first person to write about this or think through it but I wanted to reiterate that when the laughter stops, it's kinda scary to think how trendy physical activity has become. Oh, and only some, not others. Take running - I vehemently hate running. I'll come back to that story someday, but I am (playfully) ridiculed for not wanting to run, for showing up to 'parkrun' and proudly walking the distance with my friends, for choosing to engage in the space however I feel like I want to. I mean, you can probably tell in my writing alone that I'm pretty strong-willed, but there are still days where the question tugs at the back of my mind: am I failure of a human being for not being able to run 5km? for not even wanting to? It's not like I cannot physically run, I am incredibly motivated to move quickly the second I am on a tennis court or running between the bases at baseball. I am a glorified golden retriever - give me a ball and I will happily chase after it.
Then there's the jokes about turning 30, and how there are only a few options, one of them being suddenly taking up training for a marathon or triathlon. It's done tongue in cheek, I know, but when your entire social media feed is filled with it, when does it stop becoming a joke and start becoming the norm? When you feel like you don't want to go for a run or wake up at stupid o'clock and drag yourself out of the house, what helps you go through with it in that moment? Does it matter? Probably not, most days. But for other people, on other days, I think it might. I recently stumbled upon an interesting thread about goal setting in physical activity that perfectly illustrated a thought that I have been wrestling with for most of my adult life.. is goal setting really unproblematic? Is it just as easy as setting a SMART goal and off we go?
It has never, ever been that easy for me. I'm very good at over-intellectualising things (in fact, I'm doing it right now), but I had never considered the mental health impacts of goal setting until it was perfectly laid out by Christian Swann and colleagues (2024). There are a number of considerations when setting goals for physical activity, some of which I'm sure most people have noticed along their own journeys but the one that resonated the most was this one:
"Specific performance goals can reduce the pleasure among insufficiently active individuals (Hawkins et al., 2020). Measuring goal progress quanitfiably can reduce enjoyment and intrinsic motivation (Etkin, 2006), which can have long-term effects on continued engagement and subjective well-being."
is your smart watch wearing you?
Recently, I've stopped wearing my Apple watch. It's part of an ongoing desire to want to spend less time using technology mindlessly, but it also made me question why I needed 'data' in the first place. As someone who spent a year being unable to move as much as I wanted without pain, I have become acutely aware of the way I interact with the world and how much time I spend "exercising". I even emailed my physiotherapist to say thank you and let him know how far I'd come (because they never get closure, you just stop going?! I had to..). I boasted that my daily average exercise minutes went from 19 mins a day to 45 mins a day. I have lost weight, although that has largely been a nice side effect, and I am less likely to use my car unless I absolutely have to. Now, the interaction of these things is fascinating because they don't all stem from the one place. It's this web of intentions that I can't untangle, but I can haphazardly list:
I want to do my small part to be more climate friendly so I ride my bike more and use the car less, I want to spend my time more intentionally, I have this lovely walk near my house that is underappreciated, I love taking notes on podcasts as I wander and listen, I live close to work so I can bike faster than I can drive there, the beach is gorgeous regardless of what you do while you're there, the air is colder in the mornings so rolling out of bed and going for a walk is so easy to do, reformer pilates is really fun in an almost masochistic kinda way, I like throwing things hard and hitting the ball far, oh I can train that kinda strength in other places too, wow I guess I'll start going to the gym again because I have a reason to.
This is only like 15 seconds of my genuine thoughts. I mean, I write these newsletters as they emerge in my mind, typing out the words as they fall together, but this is something a little more authentic because I wanted to show how much intention threads through all that we do. If my intention is to measure something, to explicitly see progress over time and specifically overload to keep the stimulus of muscle growth at the optimal level (whatever that means), then yes, sure, by all means become a data dragon and hoard those numbers like gold. But that's not my vibe, and I don't think it ever has been. I constantly wrestle between the thought that I am wasting my time based on societal expectations of how time should be spent in these spaces and what bring me joy, so respectfully, fuck that.
how do you track dads doing handstands?
I still wear a fitness tracker, one of those original tiny bead-looking Fitbits that I hide in a scrunchie. It's enough of a reminder that my intention is to move my body in meaningful ways without being in my face, without notifications and honestly, it's largely unhelpful. I kinda love that. Because I don't want to spend my time data mining, I want to spend it however I want. I want to walk 5km on a Saturday morning with my friends. I want to show up at on-demand reformer pilates at 9pm because I am still oh so wide awake and I wanna burn some energy. I want to climb things and spike a volleyball and dive around in the sand, I want to try martial arts because I am acutely motivated by the idea of hitting people (in a sport sense I swear, I was a menace on the aussie rules football field when I didn't need my asthma puffer).
I was at a gorgeous, beachside Saturday morning market recently, and I can't help but people watch. It's always interesting to see how people navigate a busy space like that, and there was a playground nearby teeming with people. On the grass nearby, there appeared to be a gymnastics competition building within a family - a handstand competition. Classic. To my surprise, two dads immediately jumped in and absolutely smoked the competition. It was absolutely outstanding. I shouldn't have been surprised, not really, but I don't think I would have seen that at any point during my childhood and teenage years.
I am a massive proponent for being skill-full - full of endless skills that can applied in many times and many ways. I rant about this often in podcasts like this one, where I love learning to throw for example because I don't just want to throw a cricket ball or soccer ball (as a goalkeeper) or a javelin (I sucked at that) or baseball. I wanted to solve as many problems as I could while throwing. I have found that this approach to sports means I am more adaptable and resilient than I ever used to be - I used to (self)talk myself off the baseball pitching mound when things weren't working, and more recently, my coach described my game as "exploring to find the right way to land that curveball". Holy shit, that's exactly what I was doing! Exploring, during a game!? Absolutely. Why not?
This is all to say that when bending to trendy physical activity vibes begins to not serve you anymore, you may need to find something else. And that something might take some exploration, all of the tech or none of it, detailed training plans or rocking up and winging it. None of these are bad options, but we are trained to think that they are, that some are better than others. Maybe it was never that simple, and it's up to you to find what works for you, for now. It'll change, that's probably the only thing I can guarantee.
Catching up on some reading, and saw this…and realised that I haven’t checked my fitbit data for weeks, maybe longer!
I started wearing one for a “walk-10k-a-day” challenge in January 2020, then carried on through COVID to keep an eye on my activity (I walked far more, even though there was no coaching — avoided buses but still had to shop for my parents who lived a couple of miles away).
Thought there might be some interesting stats on exercise whilst coaching (“I walk around a bit, and occasionally run”) or playing (wrong again — I already knew when I’d had to work hard, by the state of my kit at the end of the game!)
Disappointed with the sleep data — how come I felt tired on days when the fitbit said I had slept well?
Almost gave up when they took all the data into the app…then forgot why I was wearing the fitbit!
It tells the time OK!