Exercise isn’t a sport. Well, it certainly doesn’t have to be. There’s certainly a whole world of people competing to be the fittest. Sometimes, this becomes an endurance sport, like the triathlon, or a strength sport, like powerlifting. Sometimes, it becomes a CrossFit or a Hyrox, which is a bit like a workin’ out contest. No smoke if that’s your kind of thing because the communities can be great. But it also leads to the framing of fitness as a competitive sport, not a means to an end. That kind of thinking is not only unnecessary for most of us but also frequently counterproductive. For most adults, priorities live outside of the gym – in their careers and families and (other) obsessive interests. So, facilitating those is the name of the game AND the only real scorecard.
As that father to a sterling young gentleman (a thing I call him when I want to see a huge eye roll), I am deeply aware of the lack of recreational sports for kids between 12 and 18. If you want to get on the pro track – or spend a lot of money trying – there are boundless opportunities for you. Leagues, and camps, and expensive coaching. But what if you just like playing the sport and are not particularly serious about it? Good luck because there’s far less out there for you. And that’s a shame because it turns a lot of kids away from both athletics and more physically active lives. It also eliminates space for beginners.
In the adult world, some of those artifacts remain. There’s an idea that your worth has something to do with how elite your gym performance is. That you have to be oh so excellent at your hobby. And that maybe that beginners are still not always welcome. But exercise is also a self-care practice and, to my knowledge, there’s no such thing as the Meditation Olympics or the Reading a Book in a Very Hot Bath Games. You can just to the thing and enjoy the fact that the value is in the doing.
The best athletes in the world, not incidentally, don’t have to get all juiced up (mentally) to do their regular workouts. The work itself is often boring and repetitive to viewers. But inside of an athlete’s mind, the work is meaningful. It is moving them toward something important. And if that’s a specific and measurable type of performance, that’s great. But it can also be toward a much broader or long-term goal like living well into old age, reducing pain, or feeling at home in your own body. Personally, I exercise because I have a sport I love and want to do for a long time. And because I want to age well. And – most of all – because I am so much more at peace when I move regularly. That’s the stuff I really try to share with everyone because it’s been so personally important to me.
I always feel like I have to caveat this kind of explanation by saying that exercise as a non-sport doesn’t mean low standards for performance or low effort. It’s just that these standards live in a different place. For the competitive among us, those may translate into a sport or a sport-like vibe and that’s cool and fun and wonderful. But it is not the entire landscape either. Exercise can be a sport but it can also be so much more.
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