I flung the studio door open, heading to my declared space with haste. Everything I left there before my ritual mouthwash rinse: heavy, medium, light weights, a band, a towel, my water. She stopped me with a light graze of her hand.

“I have to tell you.”

I looked at her. Dark eyelashes framed aquamarine eyes under the harsh unnatural light, blonde whisps from her rushed-morning ponytail, like mine, tickled her neck. Her face familiar, yet strangers we remain.

“You have the best energy. The best. No matter what class you’re in. Always the best energy. Just when I’m getting tired, I look over at you and I want to keep going.”

“Thank you! I’m just happy to be here.”

“It’s so motivating. It really is. It’s amazing.”

Some compliments hit differently

Lately, compliments from familiar faces have become more frequent in my fitness space. Compliments have a bigger impact depending on the environment and the content.

The Environment

My last gym had a community of kindness: we were constantly high fiving, congratulating, and complimenting one another, encouraged to engage with each other online and outside of the gym at organized events. The community is what made leaving the hardest, but when I was briefly employed there I learned from corporate training that community is an engineered aspect of the brand, replicated by each franchisee.

What I thought of as an organic group of people who cared for each other was a community manipulated through specific techniques to grow culture like a petri dish. The ones wearing the white coats bad mouthed members via group text, consistently complained about modifications for injuries–even making a joke on more than one occasion about a potential member’s vulnerable “Why.”

Traditional gyms, like the one I where belong, are known to be spaces where people keep to themselves: headphones in, eyes interlocked with their reflection, lips silently counting reps. Gym etiquette says don’t interrupt, don’t take up too much space, don’t take too long on a piece of equipment, don’t bother anyone.

I’ve been using this space consistently for about eight months, which is seems to be long enough for members to be on the receiving end of enough eye contact, smiles and friendly greetings to risk the potential faux pas.

The Content

Compliments from people about intensity or how “cute” I “always am in class,” are appreciated and affirming. But, sweat drenched while grabbing a eucalyptus-scented towel from the refrigerator, a member told me “You have the deepest squat I’ve ever seen.”

She was previously a personal trainer and we had a great talk about my previous “too-deep” squat form & how I didn’t realize I could stay in that third position for so long was because I had long mastered it, not because I was getting stronger.

Or, when a current personal trainer walked by as I was checking my plank form in the darkened window reflection before sunrise: “That’s the most perfect plank I’ve ever seen.”

Faster, Stronger, Better

Group fitness classes lend to competition. You notice the movements of those around you to replicate, motivate, then activate an attempt to outpace them. This competitive spirit was intensified when everyone is doing the same workouts together daily, sometimes turning toxic. If everyone is doing the same exercise, that’s the control. Obviously there are other variables: nutrition, age, sleep, genetics, stress. But we don’t think of those in a moment of high intensity. We think the variables are faster, heavier weights, more reps. So that’s what I did.

Weaker

Even as my agility and physique improved, even as I lifted heavier, ran circles around and out-repped my neighbors, I still found myself injured.

I learned from a Pilates instructor and later, a physical therapist, how things like lazydeep squats led to underdeveloped functional muscles in the lateral rotators. I was so focused on strengthening the glutes & quads that I forgot the little guys, and they made themselves apparent in the form of debilitating sciatic pain that prevented me from walking.

Piriformis syndrome? More like Poor-form-is syndrome, if you ask me!

More

You may know I’m already a proponent of Less-less obligations, less material items that don’t spark joy. But when it comes to attention, I can’t get enough. As an adult child of abandonment and neglect, it makes sense that needing to feel seen is at the core of who I am.

What doesn’t make sense is having a large social circle just because I was once devastated and debilitated by loneliness. It doesn’t make sense to hold space for relationships that lack depth when that time and energy could go towards my life’s work.

Other “mores” I’ve held on to are more blog views and frequency of publishing posts.

Stop Quantifying Quality

Most-viewed posts could be the ones accidentally optimized for search engines, or repinned on Pinterest from an inspiration image I didn’t create. Though frequency of publishing is a metric that is controlled by me only, I learned through Slow Productivity not to emphasize quantity over quality. I felt I was beginning to do so when I was writing a lot of creative update posts and that rushed leap year entry.

People love to count things, place them in boxes, and load them into silos. When everything being connected seems overwhelming, chaos becomes abundance when we graph out all the numbers.

Though I’ve paid attention to the numbers, they never matter more than kind words, stories, and connections, none of which can be quantified. The value knows no number.

Measure What Matters: Showing Up

Consistency has served me well, even in the hardest of times. What’s worth measuring is butt in chair. Time spent on what’s important to me: parenting, relationships, writing, painting, creating, deep thinking.

Measure What Matters: Correct form

Correct form isn’t just posture in a given movement, it’s how I show up. Correct form means being the change I want to see in the world. I’m better off being competitive over having the best attitude, energy, or vibes that other people are able to build off of.

Correct form means standing up for my values in a tactful way (unlike the past, fumbled way). Correct form is calling out classist, sexist, racist, or mean-spiritedness and refusing to be part of groups that don’t relent.

Correct form is authenticity to the self. You aren’t deadlifting in a way that best shows off your assets, you’re thinking of the whole kinetic chain. Don’t worry about what looks good, but rather what is good.

Measure What Matters: Connection & Lasting Impact

And when I say “measure,” I mean one is enough. Knowing that something resonated deeply with another person or inspired them to do something they weren’t sure they could–I couldn’t ask for more. That’s reason enough to keep going.

You Can’t Measure Meaning

I’m on a journey. Affirmations like these are signs I’m headed in the right direction, because there are those who resonate with my gifts without saying a word. I don’t need to know how many miles I’ve treaded, how many people were standing along the roadside as I passed by. I know the path may not be paved but it is worthy. That others want to hitch a ride makes it all the more enjoyable.

There’s plenty of room. I’ll scoot over, hop on in.