Excited to work out?! Really?

There are those people out there who love going to the gym and can do hours of the machines or get invigorated by the totally intense experience of a spinning class.  I am not one of those people and I have always felt like I need to make excuses for why, in a society obsessed with working out, I can’t stand the gym.  Don’t get me wrong – I like exercise, I have started taking tennis lessons, I play squash, I love hiking and many other activities.  But I can’t exercise just for exercise sake.  It has to be fun, creative and reduce my stress instead of making me feel like I’m not as “in shape” as the person beside me.  It also has to have a component of health that includes body and mind. 

Like many of you I have a tough job that isn’t one that you can leave at work.  And we all have many other demands throughout the week.  So when I have the time to “work out” I want it to help me in many ways.  I don’t want my work out just to focus on how my arms may look after six months of the same exercise.  I want it to have a component of helping keep my mind focused and healthy in a very demanding world.  On the physical side, I also learned a valuable lesson working with geriatrics.  Many physical workouts may not help you as you age and they can actually harm you.  When I did research on hip fracture patients, the only intervention (including surgery, physical therapy and many standard gym workouts) that prevented falls and hip fractures was Tai Chi.  This opened my eyes and had me start to look for a balanced workout that would help me remain healthy into old age and help me look good today.

With this in mind I started hearing about Nia Dance.  “Nia blends an invigorating cardio workout with global dance forms, martial arts, yoga, creative movement and powerful imagery.”  Set to music, Nia is the ultimate "East meets West" method to tone body, mind and spirit.  “Nia’s barefoot, grounded approach maximizes body efficiency and teaches us to consciously move in a gentler way”.

Last week I took my first Nia class with some colleagues from work.  We started with some moves that felt similar to yoga but with a connection to the rhythm of the music.  They encourage moving in ways that we tend not to do day-to-day.  At one point our instructor said “now just move in any way you like” – we all froze!  We were all so used to following someone’s direction we had no idea what to do.  I couldn’t tell you what felt good to me.  We also all laughed because no one wanted to start – what if the move was “wrong” or it looked silly to the others.  Once we finally started we realized that there is no “wrong” move.  We also noticed that we weren’t watching each other because we were focused on ourselves.  Our instructor encouraged us by saying she felt self-conscious at first as well because we are not used to moving so freely and we often feel that others are judging us.  She then told us that not only does she not feel this way anymore while doing Nia but she also rarely feels self-conscious throughout her day.  She has a different perspective on how she moves and how she feels about her body.  I loved the thought of that!

You may think this class wouldn’t be a real “work out” because you want a challenge- you want to sweat!  I won’t lie to you as it is not like any workout I had done before but sweat I did!  I was also stiff the next day because my body was not used to moving so much.  Muscles on my side I never even knew I had, were sore.  Also, throughout the hour long session I didn’t once think of work, or what I was going to make for dinner or when would I find time to do the laundry.  I was focused on myself and my body.  It was a refreshing change.

Allyson is an urbanmoms.ca member and  a Palliative Care Nurse at a Cancer Hospital in Toronto.  Her experience with pain management and her understanding of the importance of both physical and emotional health have lead her to explore many alternative forms of exercise.