Exercising for Ourselves and Not Others
We’re pummeled with images and messaging to get us to buy something, follow influencers, or otherwise idolize physical perfection and seek it out. We should instead exercise for ourselves.
What I read: “Exercise Is Good for You. The Exercise Industry May Not Be” by Margaret Talbot. Published March 14, 2022.
Lately, I’ve struggled with re-energizing my exercise habit. This isn’t news to anyone in my social sphere. Ever since I recovered first from a knee injury and then a subsequent shoulder injury, I’ve been singing the same “gotta get back to exercising” song.
Perhaps now I might. No, I’m not making a New Year’s resolution. I haven’t written down any specific fitness goals. I’m not sure why, but my thinking seems to feel different right now and if the past few days are an indication, I might have turned a corner.
The article by Margaret Talbot to which I’ve linked isn’t the reason for this newfound enthusiasm and confidence. It just happened at the same time I was reading the article. But the message of the article resonates in close alignment with how I’ve been feeling about exercise and fitness lately.
First some background. Fitness is nothing new to me. In my youth, I competed as a gymnast for 10 years. During that time, I also earned a ranked belt and competed in judo. I competed on my high school’s tennis team. I was a professional dancer for seven years.
At the age of eight, I accompanied my incredibly fit father to his gym for the first time where he had this newfangled thing called a “personal trainer” (this was 1962). My father raised me amid his passion for exercise and fitness and it rubbed off.
After my dance career, I taught as an aerobics instructor for a while. Some years later, I became an avid practitioner of Ashtanga yoga. I ran in about 15 10K races and one marathon (which I vowed to never do again). At various times in my life, I’ve taken lessons in figure skating, handball, racquet ball, swimming, and more.
Added to all that, I was a regular in a gym for cardio, weight training, and calisthenics classes from the age of 13. I maintained a decent amount of gym consistency until some years ago when my aforementioned injuries sidelined me. For whatever reason, even as the injury pain subsided, my passion for exercise continued to be missing in action.
Why? I’m not entirely sure. Someone told me it was my age (I’m approaching 70), but I don’t buy that. My dad was working out five days a week until he was 91. I’m generally quite healthy and don’t physically feel much older than I did in my 40s or 50s.
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when or why the energy behind my mostly lifelong exercise habit waned. It was probably a bunch of factors. But one thing that’s been nagging me as a possible truth is I’ve unconsciously bought into the often unattainable hypermuscled and hyperlean bodies that are now ubiquitous across social media, advertising, and our overall culture.
As a gay man, I’ve seen what I’ve jokingly referred to as “muscle inflation” happen within my own community. I don’t fault anyone for posting muscle progress photos or for advertisers using the allure of images of physical perfection to sell their products or services. It is what it is. That’s rabid capitalism and social media attention seeking playing out. If we get honest, we all buy into this to some extent.
Speaking of gay gym culture, this brought back memories because I was one of the gay men frequenting the Muscle System gym mentioned in the article.
Hayes has much to say about gym culture among gay men during the aids crisis, and about a particular San Francisco gym he frequented, Muscle System, which was decked out with floor-to-ceiling mirrors. “If nothing else, muscles could make a man look strong, healthy, and attractive, even if he didn’t feel that way inside,” he writes. “Directly or indirectly, every gay man was in some stage of the disease—infection, illness, survival, caregiving, denial or mourning.”
That’s an incredibly astute assessment of what was going on at that time. I have no doubt my own relationship with exercise and judging my physicality is influenced by having witnessed so many men wasting away and dying during the worst of the AIDS crisis, including my late partner. Maybe that influence is still permeating much of gay men’s culture.
Still, our entire American landscape is replete with aggressive fitness and health marketing trying to get us to part with our money and attention. And the reality is that many of those marketing efforts aren’t about health and fitness. They’re instead promoting idealized bodies for some ulterior motive. For example, I saw a supplement advertisement throughout which were plastered incredibly muscled and lean bodies to send the inaccurate but effective message that taking that supplement would somehow magically transform someone into a muscled human specimen.
The same tactics are used by gyms, sportswear companies, trainers, exercise apps, fitness books, and just about every type of business seeking to lure in customers wanting to be more attractive physically. Health and fitness seem to be relegated to the back burner in such promotions. It’s about how you look more than how you feel it seems.
Here I should insert the caveat that a subset of fitness companies and professionals do care about helping people achieve better overall fitness and health. I know of more than one personal trainer who do that as part of their business practices. But scanning the entirety of the fitness and health business world, it sure does seem like they’re mostly selling the desire for physical perfection, which of course none of us will ever achieve.
At the same time Talbot’s article passed by my eyeballs, another popped into my email, “How to stop caring what people think about you” by Rachel Thompson.
"You seriously need to stop caring what other people think of you," a former boss once told me. But the thing is, I wish it were just that simple. "Just tell me how!" I wish I'd said back then. Honestly though, I long to flip a switch in my brain to make me give less of a shit about other people's perceptions of me, but it just doesn't work like that. It's going to take a hell of a lot of work to dismantle my need for other people's approval.
Ultimately, people’s desire for physical perfection is often about caring what other people think of us. Sure, some people exercise and diet to attain meaningful fitness and health. I don’t deny that. But so many seem to be doing it for external and not internal reasons. I know I’ve done that in the past. Maybe I still do.
I’m sure despite me being fully aware that I’ve succumbed to the misguided societal worshiping at the altar of physical beauty, I still want to exercise in part for vanity’s sake. I’ll admit to that. It would be ridiculous to assume I’m immune to marketing and cultural forces nudging us to buy into what I’ll refer to as the fitness and beauty industrial complex.
Anyway, what I’m happy about is the last few days I seem to have hit a comfortable stride with exercise. Each day I’ve walked. I’ve done some calisthenics. I’ve added some gentle yoga into the mix. None of it felt forced or regimented. I simply exercise when and how much I want to during my day. The important thing is I’m exercising. I’m eating a bit better too.
As a result of this newfound exercise mojo, I’ve decided to undertake a year-long project I’m tentatively calling My Fitness Journey Year. I plan to periodically record videos during the year documenting the reality of my thoughts and actions as an older person wrestling with improving my fitness and health.
You’re not likely to see me hyping some new fitness program or niche exercise app. I might mention something along the way, but there are two specific reasons I want to do this project.
First, self-accountability. By committing to periodically posting a new video it holds me accountable.
Second, perhaps me being transparent about the realities of my own challenges in getting more fit and healthy will be helpful to others in similar situations. Especially among older people like myself, how and why we exercise are often different than for younger people.
Soon you’ll find the first video on my channel on which right now there’s not a single video. But there will be soon. (Apologies in advance for the rough video output. I’m still learning the technicalities of video creation and I’m working with some old technology that I plan to upgrade.) For now you can scan my Playlists to see the videos I’ve saved which will give you a peek into my eclectic interests.
So, there it is. I’ve announced this new project. Now I have to do it. Stay tuned for more.
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Thanks for this, Race. I'm finally getting started exercising again at 83, not because I want to look buff and hot (though I wouldn't mind), but because I have my first grandchild, now 8 months old, and I want to be around to read with him, sing with him, ride bikes with him, for as long as I can. Thanks again.