Numbers, exercise, and levelling up
Friday, June 11th, 2010 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
afunaNote, so you can decide if you'd like to skip ahead: I'm going to be talking about exercise in this entry. I'm not going to be talking about weight or food or anything similar, just exercise, and I don't see this becoming a regular feature in this journal.
Okay, so when I was in university, I got hooked on an MMO. It was pretty bad! I'd play a minimum of four hours a day (probably reached six hours even most weekdays). I'd start playing as soon as I got home and stop a bit after midnight. I was very happy when finals week came along, because the lack of classes meant I could come home earlier and play more :D.
I kept up my grades and stuff like that by finishing as much as I could while I was at school and then fitting in the rest whenever I had to regen. Occasionally, when I was feeling very responsible, I'd go to places where I'd definitely need to regen, so that I'd have lots of time to do my homework. And, one semester where I arranged my schedule to make sure I would be able to go online during non-peak times so the lag wouldn't be so bad :D :D :D
Now! Unlike a lot of people who played to hang out with friends, or who played to get a good level or a good build or good armor, mostly I played so I could count numbers while killing stuff. It wasn't strategic: I wasn't crunching the numbers to get good stats, or trying to figure out how I'd need to allocate stats/resources for armor in order to get the optimal build. I just wanted to do stuff, and count stuff while doing stuff.
:D
At some point, I wanted to stop but couldn't. So I stopped this way: I got a Powerbook, which OS didn't support MMO client. And that was that.
Fast forward years and years to two months ago: I was catching up with a friend of mine, and he brought up WoW (which was not the MMO I'd been obsessed with btw!). He also mentioned that he was trying a "9000 exercise points in 30 days" self-program to challenge himself (1 point = 1 rep of any exercise = 100m run/walk/jog). And I realized how much I missed counting stuff while doing stuff in order to reach stuff.
Two weeks ago, I was at my grandpa's condo, and I realized that summer was over and I hadn't gone swimming. I had my swimsuit with me, it felt like a waste not to try out the water... I set myself a goal of 30 lengths of the pool (it was a small pool!), and to my complete surprise, I managed to reach that goal. By the end, I even kinda looked like I was swimming *G* (I don't know proper stroke or style or whatever it's called, but I can happily splash along in the water)
And at the end of that day (okay, the next morning. I was very contentedly exhausted and too sleepy to think that evening), I decided that I wanted to do something that involved counting towards something concrete.
So I decided to aim for 9000 points in any form within 30 days. Which isn't a formal strength training program or such, just a way to count things and to set limits for myself that were challenging, but not impossible to accomplish.
I'm not doing all these in one sitting ;-) Also, I don't need to do exactly 300 a day. I have light days and heavy days to make up for the light days and light days to relax from the heavy days. I thought at first that exhaustion would be the biggest barrier, but I'm finding that it's actually *boredom* and maintaining sufficient discipline that are the biggest barriers, and working towards a numerical goal helps against both of those quite nicely.
When I ran across the One Hundred Pushups program, I realized that that fit nicely into what I was trying to accomplish, so I integrated it into what I've been doing.
It's been two weeks now, and I can do twice as many repetitions in a row without stopping, of the easy exercises (jumping jacks, crunches), than on that very first day. And pushups... um. Okay, so I had always classified pushups as "exercises I cannot do". This class of exercises includes: push ups, chin ups.
I have always taken it for granted that I will always struggle with pushups. Before, after doing one shaky pushup, I'd feel like giving up. Today (this is with a lot of breaks), I did 79. As far as I can tell, they are even good form. And I didn't feel like giving up until the middle/end. It feels weird, it feels good, it is exhausting ahaha. And good.
It's not just about getting stronger, though that's kind of fun. It's also that my attitude towards exercise has changed a lot, recently. It used to always be this boring thing, which highlighted just how clumsy and awkward I am in my body -- always unbalanced and falling over, always bumping into things. Just, things I grew up with, and which I learned to accept and which had stopped hurting a long time ago, because I knew I couldn't change any of it.
About a year ago, I started doing kickboxing, which which let me move and enjoy the moving. As my punches and kicks grew faster/higher/stronger, I started feeling more connected with my body somehow. I am still awkward when I'm not trying to kick something, but I also recover better from my awkwardness. I'm still not sure whether it's because I'm more aware of my body, or whether it's because I have more strength, so I can react better if I stumble/etc. I don't think it matters, because it's not a big enough change for anyone else to have noticed -- but I notice, and that's enough for me.
More recently,rydra_wong made several passionate entries about weight lifting and climbing, which brought my recognition of exercise as something to enjoy past a subconscious level and onto a level I'm more able to recognize and revel in.
Which means I don't feel guilty about either exercising or not exercising -- I just do it. It doesn't sound like a big distinction, but to me ( and I used to have big issues with my body which I don't feel like touching on right now ) it makes all the difference in the world :)
Anyway! I've rambled on long enough. I guess a shower. I forgot to do anything yesterday, so I'm behind my goal by about 300 points ahahha *g* Will need to make that up over the next couple of days before the deficit grows overwhelming!
Okay, so when I was in university, I got hooked on an MMO. It was pretty bad! I'd play a minimum of four hours a day (probably reached six hours even most weekdays). I'd start playing as soon as I got home and stop a bit after midnight. I was very happy when finals week came along, because the lack of classes meant I could come home earlier and play more :D.
I kept up my grades and stuff like that by finishing as much as I could while I was at school and then fitting in the rest whenever I had to regen. Occasionally, when I was feeling very responsible, I'd go to places where I'd definitely need to regen, so that I'd have lots of time to do my homework. And, one semester where I arranged my schedule to make sure I would be able to go online during non-peak times so the lag wouldn't be so bad :D :D :D
Now! Unlike a lot of people who played to hang out with friends, or who played to get a good level or a good build or good armor, mostly I played so I could count numbers while killing stuff. It wasn't strategic: I wasn't crunching the numbers to get good stats, or trying to figure out how I'd need to allocate stats/resources for armor in order to get the optimal build. I just wanted to do stuff, and count stuff while doing stuff.
:D
At some point, I wanted to stop but couldn't. So I stopped this way: I got a Powerbook, which OS didn't support MMO client. And that was that.
Fast forward years and years to two months ago: I was catching up with a friend of mine, and he brought up WoW (which was not the MMO I'd been obsessed with btw!). He also mentioned that he was trying a "9000 exercise points in 30 days" self-program to challenge himself (1 point = 1 rep of any exercise = 100m run/walk/jog). And I realized how much I missed counting stuff while doing stuff in order to reach stuff.
Two weeks ago, I was at my grandpa's condo, and I realized that summer was over and I hadn't gone swimming. I had my swimsuit with me, it felt like a waste not to try out the water... I set myself a goal of 30 lengths of the pool (it was a small pool!), and to my complete surprise, I managed to reach that goal. By the end, I even kinda looked like I was swimming *G* (I don't know proper stroke or style or whatever it's called, but I can happily splash along in the water)
And at the end of that day (okay, the next morning. I was very contentedly exhausted and too sleepy to think that evening), I decided that I wanted to do something that involved counting towards something concrete.
So I decided to aim for 9000 points in any form within 30 days. Which isn't a formal strength training program or such, just a way to count things and to set limits for myself that were challenging, but not impossible to accomplish.
I'm not doing all these in one sitting ;-) Also, I don't need to do exactly 300 a day. I have light days and heavy days to make up for the light days and light days to relax from the heavy days. I thought at first that exhaustion would be the biggest barrier, but I'm finding that it's actually *boredom* and maintaining sufficient discipline that are the biggest barriers, and working towards a numerical goal helps against both of those quite nicely.
When I ran across the One Hundred Pushups program, I realized that that fit nicely into what I was trying to accomplish, so I integrated it into what I've been doing.
It's been two weeks now, and I can do twice as many repetitions in a row without stopping, of the easy exercises (jumping jacks, crunches), than on that very first day. And pushups... um. Okay, so I had always classified pushups as "exercises I cannot do". This class of exercises includes: push ups, chin ups.
I have always taken it for granted that I will always struggle with pushups. Before, after doing one shaky pushup, I'd feel like giving up. Today (this is with a lot of breaks), I did 79. As far as I can tell, they are even good form. And I didn't feel like giving up until the middle/end. It feels weird, it feels good, it is exhausting ahaha. And good.
It's not just about getting stronger, though that's kind of fun. It's also that my attitude towards exercise has changed a lot, recently. It used to always be this boring thing, which highlighted just how clumsy and awkward I am in my body -- always unbalanced and falling over, always bumping into things. Just, things I grew up with, and which I learned to accept and which had stopped hurting a long time ago, because I knew I couldn't change any of it.
About a year ago, I started doing kickboxing, which which let me move and enjoy the moving. As my punches and kicks grew faster/higher/stronger, I started feeling more connected with my body somehow. I am still awkward when I'm not trying to kick something, but I also recover better from my awkwardness. I'm still not sure whether it's because I'm more aware of my body, or whether it's because I have more strength, so I can react better if I stumble/etc. I don't think it matters, because it's not a big enough change for anyone else to have noticed -- but I notice, and that's enough for me.
More recently,
rydra_wong made several passionate entries about weight lifting and climbing, which brought my recognition of exercise as something to enjoy past a subconscious level and onto a level I'm more able to recognize and revel in.Which means I don't feel guilty about either exercising or not exercising -- I just do it. It doesn't sound like a big distinction, but to me ( and I used to have big issues with my body which I don't feel like touching on right now ) it makes all the difference in the world :)
Anyway! I've rambled on long enough. I guess a shower. I forgot to do anything yesterday, so I'm behind my goal by about 300 points ahahha *g* Will need to make that up over the next couple of days before the deficit grows overwhelming!
