A number of years ago I attended a presentation about grief. It’s a topic that most of us often feel uncomfortable addressing, but the speaker did a fantastic job of presenting the material in a practical and unassuming way.
While it may seem strange to begin a fitness tip by discussing grief, there were three specific takeaways from the presentation that apply more than you might imagine:
- Grief is experienced any time we lose something that is important to us. We often think of grief only in relation to the death of a friend or family member (pets included). But losing literally anything that is important to us will cause some amount of grief. A few examples include a:
- Job (e.g. layoff, retirement)
- House (e.g. fire, flood, divorce)
- Vehicle (e.g. accident)
- Relationship/Friendship (e.g. break-up, divorce)
- Sense (e.g. hearing, eyesight)
- Skill or ability (e.g. to write or to play an instrument, due to an injury or a disease such as Parkinson’s)
- Everyone deals with grief in different ways: talking, crying, laughing, spending time alone, lifting something heavy, going for a run, listening to music, or a variety of other constructive activities. But no matter how you deal with grief, as Yoda would say: “Address it, you must.” If you try to ignore it or if you think something is “wrong” with you because you’re struggling more or for longer than what’s commonly “acceptable”, you’re not doing your mental health any long-term favors.
- We don’t “get over” the loss of something or someone. Rather, we heal by appreciating that the experiences we had with the someone or something that we lost made us who we are. And as time passes, the “sting” that we feel from that loss naturally becomes less sharp.
How on Earth does this apply to fitness?
Exercise is an emotional endeavor. Besides the multitude of physical health benefits that exercise produces, it’s also been shown to improve mood and sleep quality, reduce depression, provide an outlet to relieve stress, and promote mental focus.
On top of that, exercise also obviously requires a certain degree of time commitment, physical and mental effort, and a willingness to deal with discomfort. And it can provide a sense of community when done in a group and a sense of purpose when done in the pursuit of another goal.
In other words, it’s both a physical and mental well-being tool, subsequently making it an important part of life.
That means we almost certainly experience some amount of grief — although we may call it disappointment, discouragement, frustration, anger, or any other of a variety of emotions — when we experience disruptions to our normal exercise routine or some type of reduced capacity.
And it doesn’t really matter whether those disruptions or reductions are due to illness, injury, or some other important commitment; temporary, long-term, or permanent; or even the result of the performance fluctuations that are a normal part of most training cycles.
Loss is loss. And it’s important to remember that the optimal solution is not to ignore how you feel but rather to address the issue head-on.
To be clear: If you think I’m being flippant in comparing grief experienced, for example, after the loss of a loved one to that from a temporary inability to exercise or a loss of capacity, I’m not. There are obviously differences in degree.
And while I’m certainly not qualified nor intend to suggest ways that you might cope with the loss of a loved one, I have worked with enough people on the exercise front to both notice how exercise-related grief can affect people and offer some ideas that seem to help the process move forward.
Putting it into practice
So if you happen to be experiencing any exercise-related grief, here are three brief ideas that may help you progress past the experience:
Recognize that it’s OK to feel frustrated, disappointed, etc. If exercise is an important part of your life, then your mind knows you’re feeding it a load of B.S. if you downplay how you feel when you’re unable to do it for any reason.Accepting that you feel the way you do enables you to more easily focus on what to do about it. (See the last lines in this tip as quoted from a rather successful individual.)
Assess what type of exercise you’reable to do, and then do that. It might not be what you’re used to, but still, any type of movement has positive physical benefits and will also likely improve your mood at least slightly. Stretch, walk, or even “just” perform some isometric contractions. No matter the cause of your current inability to exercise or loss of capacity, you can almost always find something you’re able to do.
(Case in point: A friend—you know who you are and will probably be reading this at some point—did as much after a climbing accident which resulted in a broken back and a few months in bed. He still has some challenges, but he was able to get back to climbing within 8 months of the accident and has a super-positive attitude about continuing to live and love his active life.)
- Remember that capacity fluctuations are part of the process. This is particularly useful when you experience natural decreases in performance after changing your training plan to focus on improving another movement or physical characteristic. You’ll still probably feel a twinge of frustration when you notice a drop in capacity. However, expecting it’s occurrence makes step #1 even easier to implement.