Sometimes people ask me about my workouts. I am happy to tell them what I do, but I try very hard to emphasize that MY workout should NOT be their workout. I am older or younger than whoever is asking. I have a different injury history. I have different skills I’ve acquired over my lifetime and my own set of aptitudes. Heck, I have different stuff on hand to use for my workouts and I definitely have my own preferences.
It goes against so much in our culture to avoid comparing what we do to someone else’s deeds. We have been trained from the start to compare and compete with each other. (Spoiler alert: life goes better if we cooperate instead.) We even compete with ourselves in not-so-healthy ways. I can only work out with the body I have today. Sometimes this is good news (I am stronger now than I was in my twenties) and sometimes less good news (I pay more now if I don’t do enough warming up). It is all right to say that today’s workout was not as hard as yesterday’s or that we want to work a bit heavier tomorrow, but mostly we just want to show up and do our best with what we have available in the moment.
Go play. Your way.
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