Point and shoot fitness

When I start a session of cardiovascular exercise – rowing machine, elliptical, hiking- I feel a strong emotional resistance to the workout. I previously interpreted this opposition as my body telling me that it was incapable of performing the task at hand. But after a month of pushing through the resistance to engage in daily exercise, I came to realize that my greatest obstacle was not my poorly- conditioned body, but the saboteur in my mind.

About 1-2 minutes into every workout that involves cardio, the annoying voice in my head tries to derail me. I named her Atë in a previous post, after the Greek goddess of mischief, delusion, ruin, folly, rash action and reckless impulse. Atë thinks I should give up the moment it gets difficult or boring.  Atë pressures me to stop after 5 minutes in favor of less demanding pursuits like reading or playing Words With Friends.

But Atë isn’t the one doing the work. When I hear Atë’s impassioned plea to stop the workout, I check in with my body. How does my body feel? Is it struggling? Is it in pain or showing signs of cardiovascular injury? Is the workout compromising or damaging my body? 

Invariably, my body answers “Thanks for checking in, but I’m fine, I can keep going.” Through this initial month of daily exercise, I have learned that my body is point-and shoot. I set it to a task and it will do its best to complete it. My physicality is trustworthy. My body is absolutely willing and increasingly able to engage in exercise, including cardio, weights, core exercise, yoga, or anything else I ask it to do. The obstacles are in my mind.

When I do cardio, my body settles into a rhythm, my muscles working in a strong, satisfying way. I feel physically challenged, but clearly this work is well within my capabilities. Atë screams ever-louder “NO! this is too much, we hate to work out! Lets stop. You don’t need to do more than 5 minutes.” I remind Atë that she is not the one doing the work and my body is comfortable engaging in the work I set before it.

At some point in the workout- at about the 10-minute mark for the elliptical and 12 minutes with rowing- Atë's presence begins to fade away. My body still feels strong and capable. It can do more. It wants to do more. Human bodies are built for exercise, and to become fit is to reach one’s biological potential in this capacity. Strangely, I find that the pressure to quit is much stronger after exercising for 5 minutes than it is after exercising for 20 minutes.

How do I feel after the workout? GOOD! Proud. Strong. Astonished. Empowered. I am astonished that completing workouts of this magnitude was even possible for me. What a crazy idea, that my tachycardic, breathless, pulse-pounding, jelly-muscled body can engage in respectable workouts without complaint!

For those new to my blog, the backstory goes like this:
A month ago I redefined myself as a person who incorporates serious exercise into my daily routine. This paradigm shift was monumental. My self-concept was that of a person who hates aerobic exercise. My heart pounded with even the lightest exertion and that was very unpleasant.

I had been diagnosed with dysautonomia decades before I was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. Dysautonomia is a malfunction of the autonomic nervous system, a control center that regulates involuntary functions like heartbeat, breathing and digestion. I have had issues with rapid heartrate and fainting throughout my life. These cardiovascular symptoms appear mostly when I am standing for a long time. Whenever I exercised vigorously, I felt a similar pounding of my heart and shortness of breath, my pulse racing out of proportion to my activity. I concluded that my autonomic malfunction rendered me unable to exercise, and I operated under that assumption for decades.
I was wrong.
In this month of daily rigorous exercise, I learned that my racing heart on exertion was merely the response of an unfit body. My heart was pounding because I hadn’t been exercising. My misperception had become a feedback loop that reinforced the belief. My mind said “I cant do cardio because my heart races”, so I didn’t exercise, then became progressively weaker and deconditioned, which decreased my tolerance for exercise, which strengthened my belief that I “couldn’t” do cardio.
I was wrong.
When I started working out on February 24, 2022, I could do 1.5 minutes on the rowing machine and 0.11 miles on the elliptical. After reaching these thresholds, I felt exhausted, with racing heart and burning thighs. My saboteur mind chimed in “See, you cant do cardio”.  Yet after a month of daily workouts, I could work out on the elliptical for 50 minutes/3.7 miles or on the rower for 3 eight-minute sets, each followed by a weight-lifting regime for arms or legs. Once a week I had a mega-workout day, wherein I would row or elliptical, lift weights or circuit train, then take a 2.5 mile brisk hike over hilly terrain. Astonishing. 
  
For me, the key to fitness is to listen to my body and ignore the inner voice that seeks to derail me. I know now my body can easily complete my workouts. In fact, the exercise has improved my dysautonomia; I have fewer episodes of tachycardia and I am better able to tolerate prolonged standing -after a single month of daily exercise! Wow, what a game-changer! All of my obstacles are self-imposed and come from that inner voice of negativity and resistance. I am learning to quiet my inner critic and focus on the health of my body, mind, and spirit. Because that is the true source of my wisdom. 

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