The Absurdity of Measuring Gains One of the more harmful tendencies in fitness is measuring gains. Measuring progress is incredibly detrimental to your health as you have nothing rational to measure against as this moment is unique, and your experience is being influenced by so many tangible and intangible things. To try to do as much as you did the last time or to try to do more or even to get happy or excited when you notice you can do more is just taking you down the wrong path. Because some days you shouldn’t do more you should do less and forcing yourself to do more is damaging! Ultimately you will do less as you age and change and dealing with that will be much more difficult the more attached you are to your physical prowess. This doesn’t mean that you won’t get stronger or more flexible or have more endurance then previously (at least initially) as you exercise, it just means that you don’t get attached to that and you realize that that’s not important for health. What’s important is that you’re activating your body. This activation is a natural by-product of your participation in any exercise or activity. See the quantity of your action is not important and should only be a by-product of the quality of your action. In other words, it doesn’t matter how much you do what matters is that you do the right amount. I like to say it’s not the quantity of the touch it’s the quality of the touch. Everything that’s good for you becomes harmful when it’s done in excess (except love). This right amount is always changing as your body is incessantly changing. Just like your mind has moods so does your body. Sometimes you feel strong and sometimes weak, sometimes you feel loose and sometimes tight, sometimes you’re energetic and sometimes lethargic. Your body is responding to a whole host of obvious and not so obvious conditions. Our actions should reflect our mood just as our actions take into consideration the mood of those around you. What makes a workout healing is our ability to tune into our experience (what we are feeling) and decide what is appropriate. Not worrying about how much we are doing or how much we did last time or how much you want to do, mindlessly pushing your body to a greater and greater degree in the name of health, simply to fulfill some misguided desire that more is better! Ultimately this pushing takes an adverse toll on our bodies. After all the universal law states “the harder you are on anything the faster you destroy it”. This is why walking is considered the healthiest exercise. We have been conditioned to want more stuff! Whether it’s food, money, beauty, youth, strength, flexibility, cardio, stamina, friends, likes, comments, cars, houses, adoration, etc… This is the rat race internalized. It’s like we are all running around trying to fill a hole within us that’s not there, we have just been told it’s there so much we believe them. Instead of trying to make gains, how about trying to care for oneself? If you didn’t know the only way you can care for anything is to touch it gently.
This content was originally published here.
