Functional Fitness

I didn't take up Crossfit to get fitter or stronger as such but it's definitely a pleasant side effect. When I started it was because I was bored, over weight and unhappy with how I looked and I thought dropping a dress size or two was the answer. It turns out it wasn't as over the last two years I've realised body image is a lot more complicated than how you look.
It's about your perception of yourself i.e. how you feel about how you look.

 But the funny thing is that over time my goals have changed and yes sure I'm not going to say no to abs (if they happen to come my way) or slightly looser jeans but it's no longer my end game. I want to be better, faster, stronger than the me of six months, a year ago and as goals go this one seems far more achievable. Functional fitness for me is not when you realize that you rowed 5k when 3 months ago you could barely row 2 or reaching a max weight when Olympic lifting (yes I will admit to pausing and giving myself a pat on the back when that happens) but it's more than that.

 It's when what you learn at the gym starts seeping into your everyday life. Like Last November when I was living with a girl and her dog and got myself locked out in the yard (and the dog locked into the house) just as she had left for work and my phone and my keys were metres away on the other side of a door. I had only gone out to drop a bag in the bin but that's not important. The important thing is hours before I was due at work I found myself locked out in a yard that faced onto a bigger yard which then had a gate as high as the house that faced on to the road and I managed to get over the wall (by climbing onto the bin) and then I climbed the gate that was between me and the street our house faced onto. If that had happened even a few months prior then I would have been rightly stuck because there's no way in hell I'd have been fit enough to do anything but wait for my housemate to get home while shouting for help (it wouldn't have been pretty).

 Functional fitness is finding myself striding up a hill with ease and remembering other times not that long ago that it would have left me breathless or carrying my shopping the 15 minute walk from town without having to stop and thinking back to my pre car days (I don't have to that far back) when I need to my wheelie back pack to manage and even then I struggled a little. Or tonight when I parked my car around the corner and carried about 7 bags the few hundred yards between the street where I park my car and where I live, like a boss. It may not seem like much but dammit I still get excited.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The darker side of romance

Image
  For some reason I felt compelled to write about a corner of my past that hasn't been part of my blog before. a heads up to anyone who might be upset by this topic I will be delving into emotional abuse so feel free to stop reading now if you don't feel able to carry on. When I was in my late 20's I met a guy on a night out. He was a few years younger than me and honestly looking back threw up a couple of red flags early but I didn't trust my own intuition plus I was only a few months away from finishing college and planned to move to Edinburgh in a few months so it wasn't like it was going to be anything more than a brief fling. However as time went on I became more infatuated with him, there was an intensity there and he seemed sweet but damaged. Like a perfect modern fairytale I thought I would be the one to fix him. somehow plans changed and he was going to follow me over to Edinburgh, get a job there and we were going to live happily ever after. at this point
Read more

Help, I think I'm autistic

Image
 So I, at the age of 41, have come to the realization that I am autistic.  Growing up I always had a feeling something about me was a little bit off. I never quite fit in and I wasn't sure why. It was like everyone had been given a book of rules of how to exist in society but no one had thought to hand me a copy. Looking back with hindsight the signs were there. I was a super sensitive kid, a sensitivity I have not lost in adulthood, I cried very easily and felt every emotion very deeply. I was a picky eater and very particular about the textures of different food. I was very sensitive to light and noise and the feel of different fabrics. I was never a hugger. all of these things are as true about me now as they were when I was younger. I am socially awkward, I don't make friends that easily and will joke I am an acquired taste. Eye contact is something I have to actively work on and small talk feels like torture.  I thrive on alone time, I am incredibly sensitive to the moods
Read more

Sometimes I open my mouth and my mother comes out ..

Image
I have been told on more than one occasion that I'm sarcastic. Often that I'm too sarcastic (as though there could be such a thing) and I have retort up my sleeve for such occasions which is if you think I'm sarcastic you should meet my mother. No, really you should because my sarcasm is but a pale imitation of hers. Every so often though I come out without something that makes my friends or other family members pause because sometimes when I open my mouth, my mother comes out.  It's funny how people always take the words you are turning into your mother as such an insult because the reality of the matter is it's a both a good and bad thing. Obviously there are certain qualities I am perfectly happy to emulate and others not so much and on the whole I am not entirely sure how much control I have over it. It's not quite a pick and mix counter here. I think there are some habits you are not even aware you have picked up until someone else kindly points it out.
Read more