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Wellness Wednesday: Fitness

Health, Safety, and Well-being
November 18, 2015

For this week’s Wellness Wednesday post, we are focusing on physical activity. NASPA’s Vice President of Operations Amy Shopkorn and Senior Director of Member Services Courtney Patterson reflect on the physical activity that they embrace.

Amy Shopkorn, Vice President of Operations

Forward motion. On a warm sunny day or one where it’s 11 degrees and snowing. With friends or on my own. As part of a structured workout/race or just for the sheer joy of being out there. It all serves the same purpose – to ground me and lift me up, to clear my head and give me space to think through complex issues, and to exhaust my physical resources while giving me the energy to accomplish anything.

Being in motion has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My parents always encouraged exercise and were role models to that end. As I grew up and found the things that I really enjoyed, I discovered that exercise helped my brain just as much as it helped my muscles and the rest of my body. It was, and continues to be, meditative. It is not just something I do, or fit in when I have time, but rather is a critical part of who I am and a key ingredient of my success and overall happiness.

While I’ll take whatever I can get, I’ve found that I am at my best when I exercise in the morning. It sets the tone for my day and serves as some dedicated “me time” before whatever I have scheduled. This often means waking up around 5 a.m. so that I can be on the road, at the gym or in the pool by 6 a.m. Those first few weeks of early alarms were difficult but over time it turned into a regular routine and no longer feels crazy. Do I need to sleep in sometimes? Absolutely. I listen to my body and take the time when I can tell I am run down or getting sick. And then, once I feel better, I’m usually even more excited to get back into it again.

Mornings won’t work for everyone and it’s important to identify the timing that works for you. Whereas I like the jump the start to the day, others may enjoy the afternoon/evening release at the end of the day. It’s also important to figure out what kind of exercise works for you. What do you enjoy? What feels good? What makes you excited rather than creates a sense of dread? Exercise is essential to any overall healthy lifestyle but how often, for how long, and what kind are highly individual. There is no one right way to do this. Aerobic endurance v. high intensity intervals, body weight and kettle bells v. weight machines, yoga v. crossfit…there is a ton of information (and misinformation) out there that tries to sell people on one approach to exercise. The bottom line though is that it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you move, and do it with some guidance to make sure what you’re doing is right for your health and doesn’t cause an injury.

So where do you start?

1.       Talk to your doctor. If you’ve never had exercise as part of your regular routine, the absolute first step is to talk to your doctor. If you do exercise, either sporadically or regularly, it’s still a good idea to check in to make sure you’ve got the go ahead.

2.       Think about what you really enjoy doing. Again, there is no one right answer here. For a lot of people, they find they like multiple things and then do each one on a different day of the week. Variety is actually really good in building an overall routine.

3.       Figure out where exercise fits in your schedule and carve out some time to make sure that it happens. Put it on your calendar if you have to. Often times, scheduling it gives it priority v. something you’re just trying to fit in around everyone else. Variety of timing works well for some people too. Mondays might be great in the morning but Tuesdays are better in the afternoon.

4.       Find a trusted expert to teach or coach you through the activity. This could be a fitness professional or a friend, but make sure it’s someone who really knows what they’re talking about. You can also find a group that you can join to do the activity. Group work isn’t for everyone but sometimes knowing that you’re meeting other people can be that extra motivation you need to get out of bed in the morning or head to the gym after work.

It may take some trial and error to figure out both what you like and when you want to do it. Just be patient and keep putting yourself out there. And remember, this is supposed to be fun so figure out how to make it be that way for you.

Courtney Patterson, Senior Director of Member Services

I am 2. A local newspaper prints of a photo of me gleefully leaping into the water at a local pond.

I am 16. I swim for two different teams, and spend 3 hours a day in the pool. Swimming is the nexus around which the rest of my life revolves.

I am 22. I am captain of my college team. I get out of the pool after my last race at New England Division III Championships, and don’t even cool down. I hang up my goggles, so to speak. An era of my life has come to an end.

The next decade of my life was filled with the kind of change and growth that marks your twenties – moving to a new city where I didn’t know a soul, graduate school, the building of a career, and my first real estate purchase. At the same time, it always felt like a little something was missing.  My primary identity, both to myself and others, had always been a swimmer. My free time was spent at practice, I had built up the kind of shoulders and lats that prevented the wearing of dresses or button down shirts, I had the damaged hair and constant faint scent of chlorine that identified me to others of my tribe. It felt odd that there was this huge part of me that the people in my life didn’t know, didn’t associate with me. I rarely talked about it, as nothing is more tiresome than an athlete reliving their glory days, but still thought of and described myself as a swimmer, despite only being in a pool a handful of times in that decade.

My thirties brought even more change, including marriage and a move to the suburbs.  And, with it, an identity crisis. My early years had been marked by school and swimming, my twenties by city and social life, and my thirties was shaping up to be one in which I worked and drove everywhere. I sat in my car on my commute home and lamented the days when my commute was a couple mile walk. One move, and instead of a person whose main means of transportation was her own two feet, now I was more sedentary than I’d ever been in my life, and I hated it.

The longing to be more active, coupled with a lot of free time in the evenings courtesy of a husband in graduate school, led me back to the pool. Google informed me that there was a Master’s team that practiced a mere five minutes from my house. With anticipation and apprehension, I packed up my swim bag for the first time since college.

That first practice back was rough. There was a malfunction with the pool heater, so the body shock of engaging in a physical activity that I’d taken a decade long break from, coupled with doing so in an overheated environment did not make for pretty results. But the moment I dove into that water, I rediscovered myself.

Swimming means something different to me now than it did when I was younger. It’s no longer about pushing my body to extremes, being yelled at by coaches, or achieving personal bests. Now it’s about carving out time for myself in a life that seems busier by the minute. It’s two hours a day when I’m no one’s employee, supervisor, spouse, parent, or daughter. No one needs anything from me, I answer just to myself, to the feel of my hand pulling through the water, to the sound of my breath as I lift my head, to the pushing of my feet as they hit the wall on a perfectly timed flip turn. It can be contemplative, as I work through problems and stress as I swim; or meditative, as I am mindful of no more than my technique and speed, and let whatever’s troubling me slip away like the bubbles trailing behind me. And nothing puts a problem in perspective like an open water swim, where you can’t help but realize your own smallness in the world as you work your away across a vast body of water, under an open sky.

These days as a swimmer, I’m a lot closer to that gleeful 2 year old leaping into the water than the intense, focused 22 year old. I’m now middling at something I used to excel at, and am surprisingly okay with this. While I used to bond with my teammates over a tough practice or an injured shoulder, my teammates and I these days discuss work, personal, and parenting successes and challenges. We’ve seen each other through marriages, divorces, births, and deaths. The pool is my social life and my place for self-care, and the scent of dried chlorine emanating from my skin hours after practice can snap me from a stressful moment and remind me of who I really am. “I’m a swimmer,” that smell says, “You can find me in the pool.”

As part of Wellness Wednesday, the NASPA Staff is inviting you to participate in our live-streamed Yoga class this afternoon. Join us for yoga and please share how you find wellness through fitness – we’d love to hear what you do!