It’s more multidimensional than that.
Today I met Jennifer, the owner of a local gym called Joust Fitness. She mentioned a sign at the gym’s entryway that says: “Fitness is not thinness”. A perfect message right before jumping into movement!
For Jennifer, fitness is multidimensional, including strength and hard work. I was interested and a bit intimidated to hear about the very hard physical workouts her gym provides and how much the clientele enjoys it. They feature a type of workout called “CrossFit” .
If you check out the CrossFit website, you’ll see that it is an extreme type of exercise experience. As someone who does not seek out very hard workouts for the majority of own physical activity, such physically challenging experiences are not typically a draw for me. But, as someone who also wants to become really strong for functional reasons (and injury prevention), I have to say that I am intrigued.
Jennifer mentioned that her clients are very goal oriented and want to see and feel “results”. She also mentioned that everyone in the gym supports and encourages each other and that they have created a wonderful community around time spent” in fitness”. This mutually supportive environment can be great for enjoyment AND sustainability. (See recent More article about Dirty Sports)
Any of my regular more.com readers know my position on exercise: Women need to personalize exercise so that it works for them, and throw out any gold standards or “shoulds” related to what type, how much, how intense, etc. This is my stance because I don’t think most individuals can keep up exercising if they do it to meet other people’s standards or rules, especially if the physical activity/ies don’t feel good. But I also think we can give ourselves permission to try new things and to provide opportunities where we can develop new skills and grow with new experiences.
So, while I do like a high intensity activity such as running, and wish I could run more, I have to admit that I am a bit intimidated about such an intense workout in group-based format like Joust Fitness offers. I typically haven’t enjoyed group-based exercise experiences, regardless of the intensity. But is it time to try again?
