Life After Sports: Movement

For the first time in my twenty-two years of life, I am not actively working towards changing my body.

I am not going to the gym and running miles on end in the hopes my thighs shrink.

I am not squatting, dead-lifting, and hip-thrusting every day in the hopes that my behind looks like that of a ~fitness influencers~ on Instagram.

I am not forcing myself to go to the gym seven days a week because taking a day off would mean I had failed and was undeserving.

I am not allowing exercise to be punishment.

I am simply living in my body, and it is the freest I have ever felt.

Let me start by saying this: I still engage in joyful movement regularly. I love running, lifting, workout classes, hiking, biking, etc. However, my perception of this movement, and the reason I choose to engage in it, has changed. This is not a change that occurred over night. This change took time, slip-ups, lots of self-empathy, and a desire to just BE. To be present in the moment, in my body, without feeling as though skipping a workout meant the ruining of a good day. To be very frank, my newfound ~lack of obsession~ with my exterior appearance is still pretty fresh, and that has everything to do with my discovery of the term “Diet Culture.”

What is this “Diet Culture” I speak of? Well my friend, look around you. Diet Culture is a deeply rooted institute in our societal structure. Seriously, pay attention. Watch basically any commercial. Go on Pinterest for 0.5 seconds. Look at social media. Shop for clothes or groceries. Every which-way you turn, someone, somewhere is trying to sell you on what about your body is wrong and how they can fix it.

For almost as long as I can remember, I was under the impression that I had to hate ~something~ about my body. Something about me had to be flawed and I needed to be actively working to fix it. Day-in. Day-out.

My strong shoulders are too manly. I shouldn’t lift upper body.

My large legs are unattractive. I should run more to shrink them.

My stomach is soft. I should do crunches upon crunches upon crunches until I can’t crunch no more.

This internal narrative was constantly in the foreground of my thoughts throughout my youth, athletic career and most of college. It was exhausting.

The funniest bit of it all is that I just assumed that we as women all felt this way. And we had Diet Culture to thank for that!

Being a female collegiate athlete, my body was already likely to differ from that of the praised norm. Hell, my body already differed from that of the a-typical volleyball player. I was/am not incredibly tall or lean, and people were always SHOCKED to find out that I played front-row. (“You must jump really high” –almost every college recruiter I ever talked to) Prior to SEMO, I had actually barely lifted. I was just, as the saying goes, “big boned.” I looked like a sturdy, athletic house, still kind of do. Now I kind of like it. (Fun Fact: We did DEXA scans my Junior year and I found out that my bones are roughly 4x denser than that of the average female. I am, in-fact, big-boned. Take that!)

Let’s talk the joys and pitfalls of college athletics and exercise.

College athletics means following strict lifting programs designed, specifically for you, to increase your performance, strength, and stamina. I LOVED having tailor-made workout programs. I loved having designated times I had to go in. Can’t really skip a workout when sports are your means of paying for college. Sometimes, this even meant mindlessly getting through unenjoyable workouts just to say, “I am so glad that’s done with… so now I can do this.” And by this, I meant chips and salsa (and margarita or two) on a Friday night. I think that was what I enjoyed the most about it. The feeling of “earning” something. This was where I first began to notice exercise becoming a rewards system. I could go in, follow the workout (again, relatively mindlessly), and feel as though I had earned the right to enjoy the rest of my day. As if it were some kind of trade-off.

And then, in the blink of an eye, my four years of college athletics ended. The schedule I had become so accustomed to was just, gone. No more 6 AM lifts. No more 3-hour practices. No more hellacious training sessions that pushed me to the absolute edge in the best and worst kind of way. So, now what? What’s a girl supposed to do? How was I supposed to keep my college-athlete body without the college athletics? How was I supposed to work out and lift without the strict guidance of another? How was I supposed to look? Who was I supposed to be?

Side-note: Let me just say this, when college sports first end, you will have a minor identity crisis. It is completely normal and happens to every newly retired athlete. One day you’re a college athlete, and the next you’re not. It’s jarring, but remember this. You will never not be an athlete. No one can ever take those experiences and moments from you. You shared in some incredible highs and lows with peers that were deep in the trenches right alongside you. However, you are so much more than a college athlete, and your ability to be an “athlete” does not end when the last buzzer of your final game sounds. I loathe when people start throwing around the term NARP: Non-Athletic Regular Person. In all actuality, an “athlete” is anyone that is out there moving their body, pursuing a passion, & engaging in something that makes them feel powerful and a part of a community. You don’t need a college scholarship or professional contract to be an athlete. You just need good ol’ wonderful you. I stand proudly and firmly behind this stance. Don’t ever let someone box you into one category or characteristic. Humans are complex, multi-dimensional beings and that’s what makes us powerful. Not some lame label.

Any-who, back to the whole exercise/movement thing. The thing we are here to discuss. If you feel like you have whiplash while reading this, don’t worry, because same.

After my career ended in late November of 2018, I really wasn’t really sure what to do with myself in terms of exercise. I understood the basics of lifting but had absolutely no idea how to make myself a plan or even where to begin. I also felt this deeply rooted need to continue training for the sport I had just played for 10+ years. By this I mean no running, because long-distance running hurts your vertical, and if you are of shorter stature and play volleyball, you need all the bunny-hops you can get. For about a month after my final game, I didn’t regularly exercise. I would go to the gym on occasion, throw some weights around, and just be done with it. Working out before had always been for an external reason (AKA athletics), so I was lacking motivation. I had many a discussion with a good friend about these feelings and she surprised me with a SUPER sweet Christmas gift; sarcasm intended.

She signed me up for the Nashville Rock & Roll Half-Marathon, scheduled for April of 2019. I had a little under four months to prepare. Mind you, at this point in my life I had never run over 3 miles. I was so scared, but, that fear was greatly over-shadowed by a feeling of excitement! Of purpose! I finally had a “reason” to make myself go to the gym. If I do something, I never do it half-heartedly, so I dove into training and bada-bang-bada-boom, I ran a half-marathon four months later. Well, more like ran-walked a half marathon because it was unexpectedly hill-y and I got a side-cramp at mile 9 that made me want to die but yeah, other than that, smooth sailing. I plan to write about training for the half another time, so for now, that’s all ya get.

So, I finished that feat, and was again left with the prodding feeling of “now what?” While I trained for the half, I didn’t lift at all, so I knew I wanted to get back into that, but I didn’t even know where to start. So, being the young person that I pretend to be, I hopped over to our favorite Instagram ~fitness influencers~ and begin slapping together workouts of theirs so that “my body could look like their body.” Fun Fact: If every single human ate the same, worked out the same and lived the same life, we would all still look different. Genetics people, they’re incredible.

So on and so forth, I continued the exploration of “how do I truly like to move my body?” While working in STL for the summer, I got super into fitness classes. I tried pilates, barre, hot yoga, HIIT, cycling, circuit training, ya-know, everything. I loved group classes because it brought me right back into the community-dynamic of volleyball lifts. I was finally able to compete against someone other than myself. No matter the class, I would ALWAYS have to lift a little heavier or run a little faster than the stranger beside me. Not really what the classes were made for, but a girl loves a little competition.

And then school started again, and I lost my readily available access to workout classes, along with my motivation. And I was sooooooo frustrated. But, for the first time, I decided to address those feelings before forcing myself through another half-a$$ed run or lift. Before this moment, I had never realized how much I used exercise as a crutch rather than a way to feel engaged and in-tune with my body. I had managed to make it not fun, at all. So, I did some self-reflection.

How would my life really change if I had my “dream body?”

And after lots of thinking, here is what I came up with:

Having your “dream body” would change nothing. Absolutely nothing. Your friends and family wouldn’t love you any more or less. It wouldn’t benefit your studies, career, or aspirations. It wouldn’t make you a better person. And it for-damn-sure wouldn’t make you any happier. You would probably quickly turn around and find something new to fixate on.

And all of a sudden, but truly not that suddenly, I just cared a lot less. I don’t need a perfect body; I just need to be comfortable with the one I am in. Fixating on every flaw just takes up brain-space and energy we (as women) could be using to figure out the cure for cancer or something else amazing. Extreme example, but you get the idea. Diet Culture tells us each and every day that we aren’t good enough unless we look a certain way and reach a certain weight. I am here to joyfully tell you that that is a load of garbage.

I am not saying you need to love your body; you just need to appreciate and respect it. Body neutrality is an incredibly important step in the road to self-acceptance. The less time you spend fixating on what you perceive to be wrong with your exterior, the more time you can focus on the important stuff.

By giving up the notion of achieving a “perfect body”, I have started to enjoy movement again, the joyful kind. If you haven’t heard of it, joyful movement is an approach to exercise that emphasizes finding pleasure in the ways we move our bodies. It is in direct opposition to the idea of going to the gym to “earn” food or make up for consuming “unhealthy” food.

My gym motivation has it’s on and off days, but when it’s on, I feel as though its roots stem from a desire to feel powerful and strong in the skin I am in, rather than being an act of self-punishment. I may not love my body every day, but I do appreciate it. It helps me take up space. It is my one and only home. And it is mine and no one else’s’. Letting others dictate how your body should looks takes away your power and puts it in the hands of another. Don’t let this be the case.

To all my fellow former athletes, your body will change post-athletics, and that’s okay. I don’t need bunny-hops anymore. I don’t need to squat an absurd amount of weight, unless of course I feel like it. You will never not be an athlete, and while change of any kind is uncomfortable at first, allow your body grace as you transition into this beautiful new period of life. Take this time to explore new interests and move in ways that make you happy. Take a dance class, run a marathon, do whatever the heck you want to do. Choose to move in a way that brings you joy, and for the love of all that is good, unfollow any account on social media that makes you feel bad about yourself or causes harmful comparison. We don’t need that kind of energy up in here. You are a beautiful and strong ray of sunshine. I love you. Mean it.

XOXO,

Mads