For my whole life, my sole motivation for working out was sports. It was always something I did with a specific purpose in mind. I was running to pass my fitness tests or I was lifting to get faster and more explosive. While I had always heard people talk about working out to feel good or just to get your body moving, I never fully grasped what they meant. That all changed when I was sidelined due to COVID-19 and my season was cut short. For the first time in my life, I had adopted a sedentary lifestyle. My carefully constructed training regime was gone with the wind. Days filled with running to class, hours of practice, lift, and conditioning overnight turned into what I had always dreamed of: not having anything to do. While every 6am wake up used to have me wishing I could have a day like this, I got way more than I asked for.
The transition from 20 hours a week of strenuous and structured physical activity to having nothing was a challenge I didn’t expect. With the routine and lifestyle I had developed around a sport that had been a part of my life since elementary school gone, I had to work to incorporate exercise back into my life. Wanting to exercise to be healthy and for myself instead of for a sport was something novel to me.
For one thing, it was difficult for me to feel fulfilled in my workouts. Every workout I thought about doing at home seemed inconsequential and pointless compared to what I would’ve been doing at school. I would go for long runs and feel unsatisfied because I knew I could be doing so much more. This led me to avoid exercise altogether at one point. I felt like, if I couldn’t get the workout I was used to at school, there was no point in working out at all. I saw what I considered to be ‘easy’ workouts as a waste of time. It was also really difficult not having anything specific to be working towards. Not knowing when the next time I am going to be playing lacrosse has made it hard to stay motivated. Why would I run those stairs an extra time when I might not even step on the field again until spring? And without my teammates there to push me, coaches to yell at me, I was forced to look introspectively for motivation.
After about 2 weeks of not moving my body (which felt like a lifetime), I felt sluggish and unhappy, and I realized how much of an impact activity actually had on my well being. My mental health was so affected by the lack of exercise. I started off with doing some yoga and going on distance runs again. This time, I focused not just on what I was working out for (to be faster or to win the next game), but on how exercise made me feel. Getting over the mental hurdles of lacking extrinsic motivation helped me to recognize all the benefits of exercise besides how it helps me in my sport.
While this time is one still filled with stress and uncertainty, it has allowed me to realize all the things I don’t appreciate as much as I should. Taking a step away from my ever present performance mindset these past few months have allowed me to develop a new appreciation for my body and what it does. Every day, I am grateful that I AM able to move my body and workout, while I know others can’t. I am appreciative that I was able to rediscover the joy in exercise. Guided by this newfound appreciation and my internal drive, I know that I will return to the field (whenever that is) with a special place in my heart for the 20 hour pre-season weeks and grueling conditioning sessions. Because now I know one day, I will be missing them.
