I have begun strength training for the first time in october last year. I had three personal training sessions before I traveled to japan, and when I got back there was a huge covid wave so I decided to train on my own instead. I just put on a n95 mask and use the machines, progressively adding weight along the way. It has been quite mind-altering to see my progress as a beginner – the sense of wonder I feel when the same weights that were a struggle the previous week became manageable the following week.
But just like when I started out running, I feel totally wiped out after the training sessions, especially after eating breakfast. It is like my body goes straight into comatose repair mode after receiving some food. Then it feels like I have to spend the rest of the day in pretty fatigued in recovery mode.
I don’t know about other people, but when I am physically fatigued it is difficult for me have mental energy as well. So I feel creatively flat, and it gnaws at me that I can’t seem to do much creative work. At the very least I am fatigued due to exercise, not because I am debilitated by the pain of my migraines.
I went through similar phases when I started to run. In recent years I often write about how much I love running on this blog, but the truth is I tried running several times in my life before, and I hated it because it was painful, uncomfortable and tiring. It only became enjoyable because I was obsessed with streaks and one year I made myself run every day for 60 days (an actual bad idea for a beginner runner but I didn’t know it back then). The desire to upkeep my streak overcame all my negative feelings, so I gathered enough momentum after a while to start enjoying it. It was also midway through the streak that I had learnt that I needed to run slower.
But somehow after that 60 day streak I went travelling, and when I got back I could never muster the same momentum again. My fitness and health were bad back then, so running often triggered migraines and burn outs. For a long time I avoided any type of strenuous exercise because I was so afraid of triggering a migraine.
Some time in 2022 I decided to go on traditional chinese medicine (tcm) regularly in order to build my baseline health. I had a hypothesis that my body was caught in a perpetual chronic stress loop, so regular strenuous exercise simply added to that chronic stress, and my body could never recover enough to make positive adaptations to exercise. Probably instead of building mitochondria I was killing more of them, so I kept getting more fatigued. TCM is known to help restore the body to homeostasis, so I took a leap of faith to see a physician regularly. Because of tcm I could start running regularly again. Then, I attempted longer and longer distances, till I hit 10km.
I was often very fatigued due to my runs back then, similar to the level of fatigue I feel now after my strength-training sessions. Prior to running I didn’t like going out because I would be severely depleted after merely 2 hours of being out. I know it sounds like I am exaggerating but my face would turn so ashen that my partner would notice it. But after months of regular running I noticed my overall energy and stamina getting better. I was able to be out for hours without feeling a sudden dramatic dip in my energy.
Then of course covid derailed everything.
But because I already had a baseline of regular exercise, even though I tried to recover as slowly as possible in order to avoid post-covid damage, I was able to resume walking more than 10,000 steps a day a few weeks after turning negative. I cannot imagine how it would have been if I had gotten infected while my fitness was poor.
Covid is known to cause mitochondrial damage, so I am somewhat glad I had more reserves of mitochondria to withstand any potential damage versus being in an already-depleted state. When I got back to running again it didn’t feel like I was starting from zero. Till now it doesn’t feel like I’m as aerobically fit as pre-covid, but I am just glad to even be able to walk long-enough distances. Running and being able to strength-train are bonuses.
I often try to pick up new lifestyle changes and often don’t stick to them. I think it is because I have a very low tolerance for the discomfort that comes with learning something new.
In most cases of learning something, there is bound to be phases where we feel dumb, slow, and as though nothing ever happens like no progress is being made. We have to fumble, keep making mistakes, keep having to repeat the same steps over and over again.
Sometimes in my life I go through periods of extreme hyperfocus and obsession, and that hyperfocus is able to tide me through these uncomfortable feelings. That is how I learnt to design and program.
But these periods of hyperfocus are unstable, unpredictable and fleeting. I have no idea when they would appear. Yet for much of my life I relied upon them, which is probably why sometimes I feel like I cannot rely on myself to follow through with things. Without the hyperfocus I find it difficult to feel motivated, learn or progress.
However there are a lot of useful things in life that are just not that interesting or motivating, at least at first. Let’s be honest – exercise is not that interesting to most of us. With my depressed brain, almost nothing ever feels interesting to me. So if I want to continue making the most out of the short time I have on this earth, I cannot rely on the interestingness of things to do something.
So I am trying to build up the appetite to do uninteresting things, and the tolerance to endure the uncomfortable feelings that comes long with learning anything.
I guess this is another longwinded post to try to tell myself that whatever uncomfortable feelings I am feeling now is just a phase. One day I’ll be strong enough to pick up my partner with one arm and feel extremely alive. I kid. I just want to be strong enough to feel strong enough. I had so much difficulty in my bicycle mechanic class simply because I didn’t have enough physical strength. I struggled with holding my frying pan with one arm. I didn’t consider that the lack of strength can be a limiting factor in living.
It is difficult to remember phases are just phases. And to believe there will be a new phases after the current one. Sometimes it just feels like things will be the way they are forever. But both the good and bad thing about the impermanence of life is that nothing sticks around much.
I have this hypothesis that improving both my strength and aerobic fitness will eventually lead me to more feelings of aliveness, and therefore a wider range of creativity. I have never been there, so I am not sure if I’ll be right. But once in a while I catch a glimpse of what it is like to feel energetic even after running long distance. I have always associated myself with a low-energy type of person, and I wonder if this perception of myself with eventually change.
I hope I have enough time and freedom to get to know a physically stronger side of my self (because I’m always paranoid that some shit is going to hit the fan again), that my body is just in an uncomfortable phase of learning how to damage and rebuild itself again and again. It must feel weird after decades of not having to endure much challenge. Isn’t it amazing the body will eventually how to adapt once it encounters a challenge, even if it has never experienced one before?