A runner ran 170 kilometres without hydration and felt just fine during the run. Later he collapsed, and while he survived, he was in the ICU for several days, fighting for his life.
A cyclist who took to it as a weight-loss tool, and to recover from a personal loss, rode daily. Until she did the Delhi-to-Ahmedabad route. Her passion seemed to wane, and the group she’d co-founded began to flounder.
‘Go big or go home’ is the new mantra, and fitness hasn’t escaped from its lure. It’s interesting to see how we appear to be rocking our boats to the extremes: sedentary and unwilling at one end and frenzied and driven at the other. You have to look harder than expected to find people positioned somewhere in the centre. We are increasingly seeing herding at extreme ends and I see this as age- and gender-agnostic.
You might think that being super-driven, competitive and hard-wired is a better choice. After all, being fit is a much-talked-about goal. ‘Fit’ is one of the most loosely-used words I come across ever so often. Sometimes I smile at the context it’s used in, and sometimes I want to pull my hair out at the sheer absurdity of it. Common sense is an oxymoron now.
Focusing our attention on the ‘extreme’ end of fitness, could we be going bonkers? What’s ‘extreme’, you ask? It’s of course an individual definition, based on where you are currently positioned on the fitness spectrum and where you want to go on it.
Having said that, let’s look around. There has been a sharp escalation in fitness events and a spike in the number of participants. Per se, that’s a good development. But there has been a noticeable fallout of this. It’s led to a degree of zealous obsession, the genesis and nature of which need some questioning.
Not everyone in the game is in it to get athletic laurels under their belt. Some may be happier simply exploring a new activity, or wanting to increase activity compliance and pursue it with like-minded people. Yet, sometimes they find themselves being swept away by peers and questioning their relatively placid goals. They fall victim to the new-age malaise of FOMO or the fear of missing out defined by a study in Computers in Human Behavior as: “a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent”. It’s social anxiety (with proportions of being officially dubbed a ‘disorder’) which manifests as “a desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing”.
Social media triggers have muddled goal-setting and clarity of intent. There’s the claim about needing to challenge yourself. But are you really clear about your influences? What makes you select a particular goal at a particular time? Is it something that genuinely appeals to you and seems a natural progression to whatever it is you are doing? Do you have the clarity of thought and vision to hold ground and make sensible choices that may not constantly keep you in the spotlight but could go a long way in ensuring longevity, health, performance, and better ageing? Given today’s reality, I have to ask bluntly: Do you have it in you to resist falling prey to the glorification of extreme sport?
Take periodic, honest stock of your choices. Be your own judge. There is a case to be made for focusing on the joy and celebration of movement sans the continuous drive to keep notching up speed, mileage, and intensity, podium finishes and social-media accolades.
Vani B Pahwa is an ACE-certified Personal Trainer, a certified Cancer Exercise Specialist, a Master Rehab Trainer, a Functional Movement, Barefoot Training Specialist, BarefootRX Rehab Specialist, Foot & Gait Analyst, and a BOSU Personal Trainer. She is also a Mohiniyattam dancer
