Beeing a free spirit. Beeing free. Beeing fit.

[Claudius]

This is meant to be a philosphical/spiritual post.

what is "to be fit" ?

We could talk about here, not on facebook.

just a few words.

Athletes tend to have a different perception of themselfs, they are chalenging themselfs, they also have to care about recovery. Here we have this dualism we are finding so often, also in philosophy, take Nietzsche: Dionysus vs. Apollo. Take Christanity: good and evil. And so on...

[Claudius]

forget about that fb group, if there ever will be a discussion, then we do it here

[Claudius]

I just wanted to have some answers from some real athletes, i love your quote Peter: Athletes row, others just play games

[alien878]

Speaking of dualism, I had a coach that used to tell us “It’s all fun and games until someone gets it in the eye. Then it’s a sport”.

[Claudius]

“It’s all fun and games until someone gets it in the eye. Then it’s a sport”.

Yes, and you can make out of this a concept, too.

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[Claudius]

I started this conversation here to bring up some fresh air. Because of our recent conversation "is anybody out there". Be as limitless, as free you want to be. Just be brave and run with a thought experiment. It can lead us into any direction.

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[Draggon]

what is "to be fit" ?
...
Athletes tend to have a different perception of themselfs, they are chalenging themselfs, they also have to care about recovery.

One thing I've noticed as I age is that "being fit" changes over time. As a young man, I thought being fit was getting as muscle-y as I could with my body-building and strength training. These days (closing in on 57), I'm of a mind that "being fit" is simply being as active and healthy as I desire to be and hopefully still being able to do the things I want to do without hurting myself too badly...

Most of my fitness training has taken on an aerobic quality vs the anaerobic weightlifting that I used to do a lot of. Now my weight-training sessions are short and my rowing/cycling/hiking sessions are long.

[Claudius]

I had to smile about that bodybuilding thing, I was in it,too, as a Teenie, Arnie the big hero, more muscles you want?

"being fit" is simply being as active and healthy as I desire to be and hopefully still being able to do the things I want to do without hurting myself too badly...

This is good, by elaborating this, one can say, beeing fit is a feeling, which derives if ones ideals and the given reality match. The difficulty in this equation is that most of us are not fully aware of one's ideals and reality. One simply represses the ideal or reality, in most cases both of them, or due to a sudden change in life, maybe an accident or injury, reality changes, the dams of ideal and reality breaches. In a fantasy way this marks here the descent into the Underworld. I have learned to forget about those ideals, to enjoy every ride,run and row workout, every hike and swim unit, be thankful for every cold air intake in a xc skiing or winter walk. You do not knows what comes tomorrow.


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[JonT]

This is exactly why I am not a philosopher, although technically I am a Doctor of Philosophy, which always struck me as odd for a mathematician and computer scientist! But philosophy is hard and I have never become familiar with the frameworks and models. Anyway......here is a bit of a ramble, in the spirit of not overthinking with the result that I end up writing nothing.

For me being fit is not being unfit. Being unfit for me would be to be unable to do the types of physical activities that I wish to do - "that looks like a nice mountain, I will walk up it without a near-death experience".

Somehow, in my mind there is a relative scale which I would not actually be able to define. This would range from unfit->fit->very fit. I used to strive for "very fit", always competing with someone or something, pushing myself extremely hard, and wanting to be far "fitter" than the majority of the population. This is only a few years ago. Now I am much more relaxed and my definition of "fit" has changed to more of a mental state of "not worrying about whether I should be doing more exercise and being more active". If I am exercising regularly, and in a meaningful way then I would consider myself as "fit" in some sense.

There is also a link for me between physical and mental fitness. I definitely feel far more "blue" when I am not exercising 4-6 times each week. I forget about this and wonder why I am feeling a bit glum, and then I do a workout and remember about the link.

I also think there was a link between fitness and being able to compete in the recent past. I would definitely have linked how fit I was to how I was doing in terms of SB/PB performance and also in events like IRL, CTC and Nonathlon. I am far less worried about this now, and so my definition of "fit" has also probably changed. In previous years I would have easily said "my Nonathlon scores are below 900, I am losing fitness". Now I can't imagine saying anything like that....well, I don't think I can anyway.

End of ramble.

Jon

[Iain]

Strange, from the title I assumed that this was something connected to Ian Bee, perhaps what could possibly drive someone to do multiple HMs without even the encouragement of the Crazy Bear Challenge! Not to denigrate it, I admire it, I just know that unless HMs get a lot more pleasant I couldn't face the repeat tooo often without some externa encouragement. Perhaps that puts me closer to Jon's previous state. For me the encouragement is just to challenge myself, somehow seeing the numbers get better lift my spirits in a way that makes no sense.

So what is fitness to me? Well, fittingly for a philosophical discussion I would say it depends on context. In the Indoor rowing community what is normally considered as fit is mediocre. How often does someone who finds out that I use a Concept2 regularly do they appear completely confused when I talk about "rowing" for > 15 mins. That isn't a fair benchmark however as "rowing slowly" is equally bemusing to them. But before I came to the Concept2 Forum, I was in awe of the rowers in my College First Boat who each recorded their distances for a 20 min row each week. I used the erg, but never rowed continuously for >2k and couldn't contemplate rowing at >2 min pace. I had started rowing in the gym I had joined and initially rowed until my instantaneous pace dropped to 2:00. But I digress and am in danger of annoying the Forumpolice (sorry). This is not limited to indoor rowing however. Looking at my son's friends, any that could comfortably run a couple of miles I would probably grade "quite fit", but looking at his football team, any that are not able to keep their pace up for 60 min of an ordinary paced game I think of as "unfit". So I think that this is a relative term that means that someone has the fitness required to perform a normal level of activity for that group without undue stress.

Bizarrely this definition means that sometimes I am fit (as a middle aged accountant) but not fit as an indoor rower. Even more strangely, I would say that for most of my FS membership I would have said that I was not fit as an FS member, but now that we have aged and lost many of our fitter participants, I feel closer to meeting the threshold of "reasonable" fitness now than when I set my 2k PB.

Interested about the thread title (to go full circle), Being Free (and as someone who spent some time studying Heidegger I will not be drawn to the multiple meanings of "being" in English) is in my opinion a state of mind. It is an absence of being aware of an undue restriction applying. I find it interesting that I can only define it in the negative, but in my experience a single restriction that a person is aware of and impedes what they want to do stops them being "Free" even if they have free choices in all other areas that are normally considered. So someone who is obliged to work when others aren't won't feel free even if in a state that gives them freedom to choose even walking away from the responsibilities / employment that requires that work.

Well congratulations for anyone who has stuck with me so far, I won't impede your freedom any further.

Iain

[Claudius]

Uuh Ohooo ! My mistake. My spelling mistake. Did not thought of Ian Bee or little BeeMaya...just a mistake. Thank you Iain. You will get a propper answer in a few days. If i find the time to write down some stuff ! I wont correct it. Just have it for the praise of honey.

[Claudius]

Indoor rowing and being fit. I have a writing backlog ahead of me. But really little time and other facts, like that it seems to be completely irrelevant at first whether I publish my fantasy stories or not, keep me from writing. A little spoiler here for future articles. Just because they revisit the topic of "what is >to be fit<?". I'll keep it short: spoilers: I think the crown of endurance sports is triathlon. I've always squinted towards it throughout my life, but have always stayed true to myself, I'm a wild mix of formerly on the water rower, cyclist and trail runner - but most importantly now one thing: indoor rower. Being fit, just the feeling, be individual. If you have all the time in the world and a lot of money, you should actually do triathlon. The crown. If you have a job with many shifts and an intensive family, you can do indoor rowing. There is hardly, if at all, something more efficient. Spoiler! Friend has from this perspective, because it applies to so many, or could apply, if the people only would be more interested in endurance sports- Unfortunately, sorry Triathlon, decrowned on #2, Hello #1, Indoor rowing, you're the guy in the middle with the pink colorful outfit, which puts Einstein and Oppenheimer in their place. Joking or serious aside, indoor rowers can learn a lot from triathletes and vice versa. Just like we can learn from OTW rowers and possibly the other way around.

[Claudius]

I just have to share it again, it is in original about classic OTW rowing (Einstein), vs. Indoor (Thats us, Barbieman ), vs. Coastal (Oppenheimer). One can simply put Triathlon as 2nd (Einstein), us as '1 Barbieman , and running #3 Oppenheimer, really one of the best memes I have seen. I am rarely so amused.

[webberg]

Interesting point.

For me the various issues here are subject to age related criteria.

When I was younger and trying to be a reasonable sports player (football/soccer), I would define being fit as being fit to play to the best of my (limited) ability. In doing that I was obsessive about fitness and drills and training (practice). I was very intolerant of team mates who did not turn up for training and became a slave to the demands of the game - which sort of points toward not being a free spirit?

That adventure ended through a lack of talent and eventually injury but that meant I moved from contact sports to non contact (cycling). Again, not really a free spirit (or as it turned out a very good cyclist either).

Perhaps from my late 30's I began to realise that the happiness of people I cared about was "freeing". To a degree I still carry the guilt of being selfish about my younger days but as I've matured (nearly said "got older" which is not the same as maturing of course) and as such being able to provide my family and friends with some security, comfort or material benefit, makes me feel good and is in that sense "freeing".

My children have now all flown the nest and time/injury has limited my sporting options although I'm still cycling and rowing when I can. My days of a single minded training plan to do a 100 miles ride are over but I enjoy the freedom of the road on a bike.

Adjusting my mindset to become a little more selfish again and to identify what I want to do and how that will make me happy is something I'm struggling with. I have always enjoyed my work and letting go of that is proving to be far more difficult than I thought it would be. Letting go of physical ambitions (and accepting that a 67 year old rower is never as fast as a 37 year old rower) is also difficult. I think however I need to do both in order to focus again on my (very patient) wife and impending grand kids.

So am I "free"?

In many ways, yes. Am I fit? Yes but not as fit as I'd like to be. Am I a free spirit? No and never will be because I need targets and objectives and going after them means compromise elsewhere.

[Iain]

I don't see having goals as not being a FreeSpirit so long as you are not bothered if others do not have them.

Re fitness, one ting IUu didn't say above was that when I stopped rowing I started to notice niggling pains that annoyed me far more than the stiffness etc. from rowing, somehow knowing that the stiffness is from something that is "doing me good" makes it much more bearable. Also I like to eat but have never managed to eat sensibly when not rowing.

Freedom and retirement is an interesting subject. Clearly finding interest in enough things to comfortably fill your time with enough things you enjoy that the necessary routine is not in the forefront of your mind most of the time is a desirable object. That said when I was off work for over a year I found many interesting things to do, but whether this would have continued for significantly longer I cannot say.

Re triathlon, one of my best friends has qualified to go to Kona several times and annually for the half-ironman world championships. While I can have nothing but admiration for her being able to run what I think of as a good time for a marathon after an impressive open water swim and stagerringly long bike ride, it only made sense to me when watching it (I wanted to sign up even 'though I cannot safely ride a bike!). While she has run online coaching sessions that I have done on a rower (one runner the rest on bikes!) 30hrs+ of training a week does not seem like a sensible balance to me! Also open water swimming scares the life out of me, I would consider getting to the end of this first part alive an amazing achievement. As someone who likes competing, the apparent discomfort of this has kept me from trying!