My Journey With Health And Fitness – Why Form Is Important To Me

How to tell I am in Mexico? Well the dermatitis is back around my eyes. I don’t know why but each time I come here it flares up again. Ok, I do know why, the heat and humidity make me rub my eyes with a cloth which then brings on the dermatitis and the worse it gets the more I tend to rub. However, this time I am prepared. I have ointment that I got at a local pharmacy in January and as soon as I saw the dermatitis coming on (yesterday) I started applying it. Hopefully by being proactive I won’t get to the point where it looks horrible. Usually a couple days with the cream and all is good.

I’ve talked before about how when I doing a fitness class I watch myself in the floor to ceiling mirrors. I’ve also mentioned how frustrated I get when other participants block my view (which I tell myself is completely unintentional but it is still frustrating). This is not a vanity thing for me, rather it is all about me watching my form. I find that I need to actually see the motions I am doing to know if they are correct or not. It helps me to focus on things such as is my core engaged or am I engaging the right muscles, is my back being protected. It’s easy to think that I should be able to do that without staring into a mirror but in actual fact there is a lot of stuff to think about doing correctly. To me, focusing on that mirror and what I am doing helps me.

But really, why I do this is to try and avoid injuries. Since I started on my fitness journey I’ve had a few issues. The first was a repetitive strain injury from doing so much walking (seriously it was nowhere near the amount of walking I normally do now). I was able to correct that injury with the help of some strengthening exercises via my chiropractor. The next was my arthritic knee bothering me after walking up steep hills which actually turned out to be caused by issues with my hip muscles. Again, corrected by adjusting my posture and more strengthening exercises provided by my physio. Finally we are at the ankle issue which I am hoping will be resolved with my daily targeted exercises and the supportive brace I am wearing. While I realized none of these is really related to my form if I can avoid an injury by simply ensuring I am doing exercises correctly then I will do everything I can to watch my form.

I will acknowledge that it is a little more challenging when I am not at the fitness centre but rather am doing the classes online. However, I have realized that I can use the large living room mirror in the condo to assist me as well as positioning myself so that I can see as much of my body as possible on the Zoom video. While it is not quite as good, it is still helpful.