Exercise: Why More is Not Always Better (Lessons Learned from Sesamoiditis)

I am an active person. I love to walk run jump dance play do handstands and spin around poles. Ever since I was enrolled in toddler gymnastic classes, movement was in my blood. Being active throughout my life has blessed me with so much: Flipping around in acro and gymnastics classes gave me a sense of confidence and self-worth that didn’t come easy to me as a kid, and playing rep hockey for four years gifted me teammates that became like family. Running and yoga gave me an escape and a place to channel all the feelings that threatened to overwhelm me at times, and often still do.

In all these ways, movement has been a source a connection, therapy, and identity for me at various times of my life.

However, my relationship with movement and exercise has not been entirely positive.

For me, the biggest challenge I have with exercise is not motivation, or following through, or pushing myself . My problem is knowing when enough is enough, and when to ease off.

There is such thing as too much of a good thing— including exercise. Just because a walk a day is good, does NOT mean that more walks (or runs) a day is better. Just because a couple days of back-to-back training sessions makes me feel good doesn’t mean I never need a day off.

I tend to overdo things rather than under-do them. And this is the lesson I am learning right now, as I am icing my foot and resting it on the chair beside me as I write: sometimes, the best thing you can do for yourself is less.

Several years ago, when I had developed a highly restrictive mentality towards food, I developed a a similarly obsessive relationship with exercise.

Movement of all kinds became inundated in compulsion, stripped of all possible enjoyment and pleasure, and recalibrated as means of punishment, compensation, and control.

The “success” of any activity I did, from a gym workout to a walk was measured by how many calories it burned, how exhausted it made me, and how long I could endure it without taking rest. Running went from being an outlet to relieve my stress to the biggest source of stress and anxiety in my life. For a time, the only thing that felt worse than running was missing a run. I no longer had a choice.

However, since I had grown up being so active, and among a family of athletes and avid exercisers, the shift in my relationship to movement happened rather stealthily. People in my life were more concerned about my weight, and what I was eating rather than my exercise. However, looking back, I know that it was my mindset towards movement that was even more compulsive and rigid than my eating habits.

This was about 11 years ago, and as far as I have come in my relationship to exercise, I still struggle to find the balance at times.

These days I walk much more than I run, and really only do activities I enjoy like dance, pole, and yoga. And still somehow, I can overdo it.

This week I woke up with a swollen, bruised and throbbing foot— specifically the ball of my big toe. Getting out of bed, I quickly realized I couldn’t bear weight on it.

“What the hell?” At first, I had no idea what was wrong. My foot had felt perfectly fine the day before. So fine, in fact that I had gone for a 7 km walk, and did a barre class, a pole class, and a conditioning class. Not to mention a whole lot of snow shoeing and trekking through snowy cottage roads over the weekend.

Okay, maybe I was overdoing it, just a bit.

Several ice packs, one podiatry appointment, and a few x-rays later, I had a name for my extraordinarily swollen foot: sesamoiditis.

Apparently Sesamoiditis is an injury very commonly had by dancers and runners to the two sesamoid bones that make up the joint of the big toe. And while I am not a runner or a dancer, I do enough activities that put pressure on the balls of my feet that I have landed myself with this less-than-glamorous injury.

The prognosis? With proper rest and treatment, my lil’ sesamoids should make a full recovery.

The treatment? At least three weeks of no weight bearing. Meaning I am in a walking cast and to walk as little as possible and do everything I can to avoid weight on the ball of my big toe.

“And how’s that going?” You might be wondering, for someone whose innate love of movement still flirts with obsession?

Well, considering I have been getting outside for at least an hour walk and a pole class everyday during this lockdown (and often multiple of both) I’ve been doing pretty okay.

Day by day, it is actually rather nice to have that space in my day and my routine, and not trying to fit things in around a class or a walk before it gets dark or the weather turns.

However, its thinking about how this will play out for the coming weeks (and slow rehab back to my normal levels of activity after) that send me into a bit of an anxious tailspin.

In my bouts of anxiety, I turn to google, and find articles like “how to keep your fitness while injured” and “what not exercising does to your body.” And then I feel guilty for for doing essentially nothing but rest.

But this seemingly “bad break” (pun intended) is once again, the universe giving me what I need… even though I do not want to need it.

With little else to demand my attention during this lockdown, I’ve been spending many hours of my day doing - and thinking— exercise.

My walks of twenty minutes during my lunch break crept up to an hour. A couple classes a week became a couple classes a day. And as much as I was enjoying the movement, there was also a feeling of “should” beginning to creep in with the more I did. Slowly, walking anything less than an hour was unacceptable. One class a day became the bare minimum— and an intensive conditioning session beforehand to “warmup” was no longer optional.

The standard for my daily movement had been hiked up, and every day I had to jump a little higher to clear it.

Something had to give— and the universe chose the sesamoid bones in my right foot.

Rather than having a pity-party for myself, I am using this as an opportunity to continue to strengthen my recovery, and redefine my mentality to movement once again.

I am leaning in to my fear of not exercising to prove to my body and my brain that a couple weeks without so much as a few measly steps a day will not break me.

I might lose a little strength, perhaps even put on a couple pounds and get a little softer around the edges, but I have to trust that when I do resume some activity again, my body will return to its happy place.

…

“So why not just eat less?”

That thought crossed my mind too. But after years of restriction, I’ve caught on to what happens when you start fighting your body and hunger cues. it only makes us more fixated and focused on what we are denying ourselves.

And I also know that in order to heal an injury, our bodies require extra energy in order to regenerate and repair tissues. Not fuelling it with the appropriate energy and protein will only cause it to take those nutrients from my muscles, and prolong the recovery process.

So I fight the occasional waves of guilt about not having “earned” my food, and I am continuing to eat as I usually do: including lots of popcorn and pancakes, and all the peanut butter.

And you know what? It’s not even that scary. Not only is this stress fracture an opportunity for me to strengthen my recovery, but it has also allowed me to recognize just how far I have come. Even two years ago, when I severed the tendon of my big toe (on the same foot!), spending the subsequent month in a walking boot caused me much more guilt and anxiety than I am feeling now.

But perhaps that’s just it- I had to go trough a period of time without movement to realize that the anxiety and stress I was feeling is NOT necessary. I will be back on my feet soon enough, and the minimal changes that take place in my body are just that— minimal.

So here’s to “feet-up February.” I will be using the next few weeks to write more, read more, finally finish the pair of leg warmers I started knitting an embarrassingly long time ago, and continue eating all the foodz.

My pole, and all my other favourite forms of movement will be waiting for me whenever my foot is healed and ready—

—and even better, my mindset a little more free and little more flexible.

As the saying goes, “absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

After a few weeks away from movement, I am looking forward to the first walk I take outside in the snow and the first spin around the pole I get to do first dance I do with a healed foot and a healthy mind.

I am always learning, testing my limits, and overstepping boundaries. As long as I continue to recognize what is too much and when to back off, I will continue to experiment with what I am capable of, what is sustainable, and where I can challenge myself to lean in to discomfort— including taking time off to regroup and refresh, and rest when I need it.

May this be a gentle reminder to anyone who needs it that our bodies are NOT machines or calculators. It. is. okay. to move a little less or a little more one day or one week or one month.

Every athlete has an off season, a time of little training and lots of rest. Mentally or physically, you might find yourself in need of some time off what ever kind of movement you usually do. Embrace it, enjoy it, and keep the big picture in mind.

Five years from now, the hiatus of time in which you were “out of routine” will NOT matter. You might not even remember it.

So stop wasting time worrying about what you cannot change, and embrace the challenge of leaning in to whatever life throws at you— chances are you will come out of it stronger, more resilient, and more content to face the next hurdle in your path.

Oh, and happy love day, celebrating all kinds of love, and loveliness.

xxoo

Jordan