Physical Fitness Does Not Look a Particular Way {episode 012}

I'm getting a little personal in this episode, talking about body image and the myth that physical fitness can only look one way. In fact, how we look doesn't really indicate whether or not we are physically fit. Being fit is all about having enough energy to do our work and still have energy to…

The post Physical Fitness Does Not Look a Particular Way {episode 012} appeared first on Ky Autumn Russell - Pilates, yoga, & relaxation.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the bless ful body podcast. I'm your host Chi Autumn Russell. And I'm here to share with you my best fitness and healthy living strategies and tips. And they are so good. Your body, mind and spirit will be thankful that you listened. Hey there, friend. It's chi. And welcome to the blissful body podcast. I am so delighted that you are here with me today. And I really do appreciate your tuning in. If you are enjoying the podcast, I would love it if you would subscribe, rate and review the bless full body on whatever podcasting platform you listen to it on. I I really do appreciate it. It really does make a difference and help to just get more folks tuning in to our bless. Full message. Okay, so I wanted to talk today about, um what physical fitness actually is. And the reason I wanted to talk about this. I had this really interesting experience about a week ago. It snowed here, and if you don't know, I live in Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz County and it does not snow very often. It's pretty rare. Definitely a rare occurrence. And on this particular day. I was driving to work, which meant that I was going to drive up into the mountains to go over the past. Not a very big one, but high enough that there was actually snow up there and there was snow on the ground in the morning during the commute. And I pulled over because I had left really early. I knew that there might be traffic because of the snow, but there wasn't, and I had plenty of time to get to work. And so I pulled over and I just got out of my car and it was gorgeous. It was so beautiful. The redwood trees all had snow in their branches, and it was just so beautiful. I'll actually put a picture, Um, on this podcast episode, somewhere in the show notes so you can see cause I took a bunch of pictures. It was very exciting and I got out and I just wanted to take a little walk. There was kind of this little driveway that went off and was a little bit removed. And a lot of people were pulling over right to see the snow and play in the snow and little tiny people were building little tiny snowmen and snow people. It was very cute. And so I went over and I walked on this path and there was this woman who was next to me and we were talking and she was getting really emotional. And, you know, I just said, Isn't this amazing? Where are we? This is so surreal. Toe have snow here. And she was so excited, and she shared with me that this was the first time she had ever seen snow. And she was probably in her twenties or thirties, definitely in adult, probably young twenties. And she was so moved, obviously, right. Remember the first time you saw Snow? It is gorgeous and beautiful and mystical and then even to have it, you know, in your home, when you're not used to it, it does feel extra special, magical. And I'm not even a snow person. I will say that I don't really do a lot of snow sports and or any I grew up in Florida. We don't get a lot of snow there either, much less than even here. And so it wasn't just something that I kind of grew up doing, and anyway, so I'm chatting with this woman, and she's getting very emotional about the snow. And I kind of suggested to her that she could touch it because she wasn't than she did. And, you know, that was really fun. And she just kind of played with it a little bit. And then I asked her because she was taking all these pictures and I asked her if she wanted me to take a picture of her with the snow. And her first reaction was she literally said, I don't know. I look like crap. That's what she said to me. And it kind of almost broke my heart. Okay, so at night, first of all, um, she was gorgeous. She looked great. She wasn't really wearing makeup. Okay, Okay. This is from someone I never wear makeup. Pretty much. Never. Maybe if I'm gonna be in front of lights and might need it, I might put some on. I have no judgment about whether or not you might want to wear makeup. However, I do get really disturbed when people think that they're only presentable when they are wearing makeup. Okay, so she was like, Oh, I haven't put on my makeup yet. And I was just like, Well, you know, it is your first time seeing snow, and then she I kind of thought for a second. And she's like, Oh, whatever, yeah, let's do it. Will you take my picture? And so I did. I took multiple pictures of her with the snow and kind of holding some snow and with the snow behind her. And then she left. And I really just set there for a moment and was just It just really touched me and really just made me think. And I just started thinking a lot about What is it that we particularly women, What is it that we think of when we think of what it means to be fit in general, right, like she obviously was equating this toe looking good. And then and then I just kind of took that because I am so focused on movement and how movement can help us feel better. And often there is a really focus on how movement and exercise in particular can make us look better. And I'm not immune to this by any means. I am socialized in the same culture I identify as a woman. I'm CIS gender. And so I do. Really, Um I get all of the inputs from the way you know, my body is supposed to be the way I'm supposed to look. I definitely am not immune to that. None of us are really immune to that to the media and the messages and, you know, growing up in this in this culture. And so I was so glad that she wanted to take the picture, but also just really I couldn't really It was very hard for me to encounter this and think that someone almost missed a picture in this magical moment that she clearly was already taking pictures. It wasn't like she didn't want to take pictures, but that she thought that she didn't look good enough to take a picture of her first time touching the snow. And so I really thought then that I wanted to really be clear that what I do and what really drives me is not this idea around what someone looks like. Although if that is your motivation, I'm not judging that either, right? I'm not saying that that's wrong. Certainly when we you know, feel like we look good. We definitely are gonna have a more positive outlook, and we're going to have even things like better posture. We have better interactions with others. They're, you know, definitely does have a cascading effect. However often people who are really preoccupied with appearances don't ever really think that they look good. And that's where it gets really troubling when people think, Oh, we'll all look good when I've lost these £5 or all look good when, um, I color my hair or I cut my hair all look good when I have all of my make up on. And that is not honestly in my in my opinion, that's not when we look good. Like when we look good is when we believe we dio And so that could be a really personal thing for each other and for ourselves. And certainly I did want to bring just kind of highlight that being physically fit does not necessarily mean that you look a particular way. Okay, so we're gonna talk about what is physical fitness, because this, you know, this that exchange it really impacted me. And I just wanted to share it with you. So what does it mean to be physically fit? Well, I'm going to give you the definition of physical fitness and this is what you we learn in school. And what is basically put out there as the definition of physical fitness is that one has the ability to do their work. So the ability to do one's work and have energy remaining for recreational activities and emergencies. So basically, if you can wake up, have your day, right, You wake up, you have energy to get going. You were able to do the work that you're gonna do throughout the day, and then in the evening, you're gonna be able to recreation. You're gonna be able to play with your kids. You're going to be able to even just have meaningful conversations with a significant other or a friend or, you know, whoever you are interacting with. Or maybe you have, you know, the energy to employ some type of hobby goto a Pilates class goto yoga class, and then also that if an emergency comes your way, it isn't devastating, right? So if you do have to deviate from the normal, do some extra work that you have those reserves for that. That is the definition of physical fitness, and it does not necessarily entail looking a particular way for many people. When they are more physically fit, their body shape might change a little bit. But there are certainly people who are smaller and just a smaller stature that do not match that that definition right? They do not have physical fitness, yet they might be very small, they might be slender and that in and of itself does not necessarily mean that they are physically fit. And then there are people who are my of larger stature that do have physical fitness that are able to do their work and have energy remaining for recreational activities and emergencies. And so that's really important to me that people understand this right, that the idea that people have the ideal body that is kind of held up and we think that that is what physical fitness is, that's what looks good is not related necessarily to actual physical fitness. It is not related to health. It is related to the representations that people are exposed to on a continual basis, day in and day out And that is which driving this idea that physical fitness looks a particular way. And so I really just want everyone to hear that that you're perfect. And if you choose to undertake more activity because you want to feel better and you wanna have more energy and you want to be able to recreation and live exciting fun life, then I'm your gal and I'm here for you. And even if you just want to look better, I'm also your gal and I'm here for you. But we're gonna also be talking about a lot of other stuff. Okay, Now, physical fitness is a little more complicated than just the kind of basic definition. There are these components of physical fitness and it is ported toe Understand them because they do help us basically become physically fit. So when you are also determining whether or not one is physically fit, you're gonna look at these different parameters and basically you're gonna look at muscular strength, muscular endurance, cardio respiratory endurance, flexibility, body composition and agility. Okay, So muscular strength is that one. It's basically the determination of the maximum force that your muscle can contract the force that it can use to say, Do one repetition of work. OK, so if you have a very heavy box and you need toe, lift it up on the top shelf, How heavy can that box be before you cannot actually lift it? Okay, so that would be an example of a real world application of muscular strength. Right? So it's not just related to, um, the heaviest bar bell you can lift. Okay. But that's also another way that you can determine this. It's actually really hard to determined muscular strength. And I don't necessarily encourage you to try to do that on your own because it is very easy to overshoot this. And then that is where potential injury can occur. Okay, because you're basically trying to lift something or move something that is so heavy you could only do it once, right? And then muscular endurance is basically the ability of a muscle group or muscle to perform work over time. So, um, you're not gonna be able to basically have as much force produced and an individual instance. So each time you would be lifting multiple boxes. And so to do that over time, the boxes are gonna have to be lighter right than your your one maximum force repetition that determines muscular strength. So there's also muscular endurance that goes into this. And then there is cardio respiratory endurance, and that is basically the endurance capability of your circulatory system to move oxygen through your bloodstream and expel wastes that are a byproduct of of your body. And that, in and of itself is also typically people. You can measure that, um, through vo two max. There's also just some very simple tests that one can undertake, and I can talk about those in a future time. But basically just wanting you to understand the concept of physical fitness for today and then flexibility is the ability to move your joints through a full range of motion. Okay, so it's not just can I do the splits and how you know, elongated. You can make your hamstring muscle right? But how are you able to move your hip joint through its full range of motion? And certainly the ability of muscles to release and respond and go into stretch is going to play into range of motion. But there's other things that play into that right in the nervous system and the structure of the joint itself. And your connective tissue is also really involved in flexibility. And then we do have body composition. And so body composition does in some part deal with the way your body is structured. It's the proportion of lean body mass and toe adipose or fat tissue, and so that can sometimes cause people to really get kind of focused on appearance or stature. But I do want you to keep in mind that there are people who are larger and even have a higher proportion. Ah, fat tissue that can still be physically fit. So I that is something that is important to understand. And agility is the ability to move with quickness, speed and balance, obviously very important, right, or you're gonna be ableto you know, step off a curb unexpectedly and not necessarily fallen. Injure yourself. How quickly can you move and all of those things get incorporated into agility? Balance is something that in particular over time, with the passage of time, as we gonna move into the later stages of life, balance and agility actually become very compromised. And so can all of the other elements of physical fitness as well. And so that isn't my friends. That is physical fitness. And I'm gonna just leave it there today cause I was a lot of info and then I'm basically kicking off a whole What does it mean to be physically fit? Kind of Siri's. So the next few episodes air going to be talking about different elements of physical fitness and why we would want to be more fits And, um even what exercises? So definitely stay tuned. In the next few weeks, we're going to be diving deeper into more of these topics. But I wanted to give you a really overview and also just a just a little glimpse into my my belief and my kind of understanding of physical fitness and what is really important to me about it. Okay, so if you enjoyed this once again, please subscribe rate and review, I really do appreciate it. And it is really helpful. And I hope that you are just having a fabulous day. And they also wanted to let you know that if you are interested in increasing your muscular strength and muscular endurance particularly, and agility and flexibility around your core and, um, the core strengthening that I have a free video course available, and I would love it if you signed up for that. It is at my website chi autumn dot com slash love Your core. It's basically a five video Siri's that goes through the different components of the core, teaches you about them and just really gives so much appreciation and love to our bodies and strengthens. But also in a really mindful jump for gentle way and then also has a really fun workout at the last video is a is a full workout, so I'd love it if you wanted to check it out and definitely have a wonderful day and I will be talking to you soon. Take care, friends.