I’m amazed at how our bodies adapt. Mine has grown stronger, more resilient as I've learned how to treat it with more dignity.

Twelve years ago, I probably wouldn't have been able to shovel as much as I did yesterday without hurting my back. I was 33 at the time, in grad school, and not aware of how my three-decades-old body was softening.

I would find out several times during this stretch how important my core strength is to my health. I periodically moved in a way that hurt my lower back, and I'd be out for 2 weeks until my back got better. It didn't take much. I remember trying to lift my mortar mixer to attach it to my truck. It was a Saturday morning and winter in South Carolina when I felt it go. I could barely move. Broke down in tears in front of Brooke because I wasn't able to earn the extra money for that week. Another time, I was trying plyometrics and felt it go out when I went into a deep quadriceps bend.. I hadn't done any sort of prep to get to plyometrics. Just assumed I could do them. My body had changed.

Aging doesn't play favorites. I've known about this for ever, but it was somewhere around 10 years ago when I took a different approach to exercise. The goal was to use exercise as a way of self-care, which included making sure that my back didn’t go out. This new direction then recognized the benefit of focusing on core strength when HIIT came to my attention. My body had adapted to the aging process by getting softer, but then it adapted to the HIIT training with a strengthened core. Yesterday, when I shoveled for 4+ hours and moved some heavy tree limbs, my core was strong and prevented me from hurting my back. Sure, I'm sore today. Moved some muscles in ways they haven't been moved recently. But I'm strong and agile and can keep moving.

My body has adapted to the exercise I've placed on it.

But how is this me treating my body with more dignity? I used to connect weight training to some level of prestige. As if I would be regarded superior if I were well-built, solid, strong. Little thought was given to the worth of the body as an actual vehicle for traveling life's road. I didn't consider how I might make my body the best vehicle possible for living.

Until it broke down. Until it could not bear the way I was treating it. Youth let go of flexibility. That's when I got hurt. I hurt myself.

Which is what prompted me to change. Moving to health-focused exercising required me to release a certain identity I had come to associate with exercise: powerlifting. I used barbells. More weight meant I was stronger. HIIT was the final blow to this identity because it harnesses the power of lighter weights, higher intensity, less downtime between sets. But I was only limited by my imagination. I didn't imagine how fit I'd become. How functional my body would be become. How resilient to injury I'd become. Releasing notions I had about strength required me to embrace new experiences and test new strategies. I'm now happily exercising twice a day with lots of energy and very few injuries. I don't remember the last time I hurt my back.

Establishing good systems is key. It's key to creating buoyancy in life, which some people would call consistency in some contexts. The point, though, is that moving from a powerlifting to a HIIT system revolutionized my health, functionality, and resilience. I simply have to trust the system. I can tinker with it to improve the system, but ultimately I trust that it will get me the results I want. It took some adaptation, but it was worth it, and my body has adapted really well.

I often say that we're limited only by our imagination. Interestingly enough, our imagination is the door to other practices, other levels of resilience, and other lives.

I'm now stronger, more resilient, and more functional at 45 than I was at 33. Wow. I'm so amazed at how the body can adapt.

On my body

On the arrival of a photograph

On a tree outside my window