This post may contain affiliate links. Please read the disclaimer for more information.
When people take on new areas to improve in their life, they tend to look for very clear guidance. With food, for example, they usually want to see an exact diet plan. With fitness, they want to see the specific workout plan. Why though?
I understand wanting some general guidance when I first start something new, but ultimately, I want to take the reins for myself. I want to make the thing my own.
I’ve realized this desire within me for a while now. I can barely follow a recipe, I’m awful at following consecutive directions, and so on. I want to find it on my own. It’s not about being rebellious either, just that I want to do it my way.
Fitness is a topic I’ve talked about previously and it’s something I was confused and conflicted over for quite a while. I have finally come to accept myself as I am and understand that I’m simply not going to follow a workout plan, nor am I going to be dogmatic about one style of working out.
I’m well aware that there is high intensity interval training (HIIT), yoga, weight-lifting, running, calisthenics, etc. There are a million options.
I notice that most people choose one at a time and discard the others. Lots of weight-lifters have said they won’t run (or do cardio) basically because it will make them too skinny. I believe this is the wrong approach, however.
I think people are generalists, not specialists. We have many interests and many desires. I want to be fast, but I also want to be strong. I want to be well-coordinated, and also have high endurance. This requires multiple disciplines.
Playing soccer is my favorite thing to do but it wouldn’t provide me with the upper body strength I want. Rock climbing is fun too, but if I just did that, I wouldn’t have enough endurance or coordination.
A large aspect of my philosophy is that I won’t make my fitness routine regimented. Maybe a better way to put it is…. there’s no routine.
I try to get all of my movement, cardio, strength-building, and so on from daily life. This means that I shape my life to suit this. Rather than go to the gym to lift some heavy weights, I’ll just volunteer myself to do yard-work or move some heavy stuff around.
Some of the changes I’ve made in my life to make this lifestyle more viable are:
-removing furniture to avoid too much sitting (enable more constant movement)
-using the floor to sit, lay, and sleep on most of the time
-playing soccer once or twice a week
-carrying groceries up the stairs every time
-taking the stairs over the elevator
-longboarding
-rock running/rock climbing
-walking barefoot whenever I can
-volunteering to help people with physically demanding tasks
This lifestyle is very much still a work in progress as I want to add a little bit more consistent movement and strength-building into my weeks.
To elaborate on my lack of regimentation, I will not count or keep track of any metrics whatsoever. I don’t even refuse to, I just don’t care to. I have little interest in how long I ran or how heavy that thing was that I lifted. It matters much more that I’m just doing those things consistently.
When I see people counting calories, tracking their strength gains on paper, or running one mile exactly, it just looks crazy to me. I literally think, “Why are you doing that to yourself?”. I just don’t believe these things were meant to be tracked.
I find pleasure and simplicity in thinking from the hunter-gatherer point of view in that, life is laborious and we don’t need to add extra work voluntarily or keep track of those things.
Life is already tough to navigate and there are a lot of things we’re trying to make happen all at once. Just do what’s necessary and do what has a specific purpose for you and leave it at that.
Ancient humans weren’t counting calories or pounds on a dumbbell, they ate what was available and moved out of necessity. I think this is the simplest and even healthiest frame of mind for fitness.
Not to mention, we’re still programmed to act like this. We’re only still adapting to the very recent invention of the ultra-modern and developed world.
A huge part of fitness I believe we miss out on is simply allowing the body to do what it naturally wants to do. This helps stave away so many problems that we deal with today. Things like:
-wearing minimalist footwear (let your feet be feet and keep your body aligned)
-avoiding overly tight/restrictive clothing
–squatting every day
-not being too stationary
-get lots of sleep (stop disrupting it with electronics)
I have found that countless problems get solved when you just align your lifestyle with historically prominent movements or activities that humans have always done.
So what are some other activities I might add to my list? Here are a few I’ve done before or thought of:
-tree climbing
-foraging water/food
-jump-roping/box jumps
-martial arts (boxing, taekwondo, etc.)
-more alternative movement practice
-playing around on playgrounds
-dancing
Overall, I think people gladly take on these regimented plans because it feels safe. You’re not going to get as many sideways looks if you tell someone you’re into CrossFit. You will get those sideways looks while crawling on some big rocks with no shoes or shirt though. 😉
It’s a shame that people now find this kind of stuff weird, but it’s the world we live in today. Natural is kind of on the outs while structured plans for indoor gyms will thrive.
From what I found though, this modern mindset doesn’t provide lasting answers. Body pains, fatal disease, and general dysphoria are only on the rise.
You just need to move. Work your body. Pick up heavy stuff, put it back down. Run somewhere. Test your ranges of motion.
Make it part of your lifestyle to be a physical being again. We’ve been missing it for a long time. Your body is craving it.
You need to test your body from time to time to make it strong and resilient. Keep these simple principles in mind. Tracking all the metrics in the world means nothing to your body, just to your peers, really.
It’s important to keep in mind that I am not the expert here. This is simply my approach to keep a general level of fitness throughout the year and I have no other goal with this than to feel good about myself.
If you struggle with fitness plans or are disinterested with going to the gym day after day, I challenge you to reevaluate how you see fitness. Treat it like a lifestyle instead of one hour of activity each day.
Leave a Reply