Holistic Fitness Master Guide, Part IV: Play
What is 'Play'?
You're presumably a gamer if you're reading this, so I know you know what 'playing' is - but what does it mean in terms of physical activity?
Sports come to mind of course.
Games like Beat Saber or Wii Fit intertwine gaming and fitness quite literally. (Might have to blow some dust off the Wii - assuming you didn't lose your Wii remotes by accidentally chucking them out the window during some intense Wii bowling or tennis - can't believe you didn't put on the velcro loop around your wrist...)
It doesn't have to be that on the nose, though.
Play in this sense is simply unstructured physical activity that you enjoy.
Sure, that could mean sports or Beat Saber, but play could also look like:
Running around with your kids
Playing with your dog in the yard or park
Hiking
Biking
Dancing
and more
These kinds of activities have us moving in all kinds of unpredictable yet natural ways. Twisting, turning, jumping, changing direction, moving laterally, rotation through the torso, hips and shoulders, and in a very free manner. Quite the opposite of structured exercise.
It's not necessarily the type of activity that makes something considered play or not - it's the intent and purpose behind it.
The primary goal of play is to have fun doing the thing. Not to burn calories, improve your fitness or to get better at the thing. (Those just happen to be bonuses that we'll gladly take.)
Sports turn from play to training as soon as you go from pickup basketball at the park to running drills.
Similar activity, but the intent is different.
I've often talked about the differences between fun and enjoyment.
You might have a video game, or certain aspects of a game, that you wouldn't necessarily label 'fun', but still find enjoyable.
I never once thought 'oh my god this is THE MOST FUN thing I've ever!' while going for 99 fishing in RuneScape, or organizing stash tabs in Diablo 2... But I still enjoyed those activities (most of the time, anyway).
Think of those relaxing sections or activities in a game - lulls between the action. Rowing the boat around in God of War comes to mind. Fun? Well... Not really. But enjoyable? Absolutely.
We can apply that same logic with play in regards to physical activity.
Maybe you enjoy raking leaves, shoveling snow or something else that is often considered 'work' or a 'chore'. If you enjoy doing it, then count it.
Physical activity tied to your work is iffy; the problem is often that if you are active for work, you're doing a lot of the same types of movement, over and over and over… And you can't just stop whenever you want.
The repeated similar movement and often not enough rest for those stressed areas leads to chronic issues and can lead to injuries. So it's kind of going against what we want here.
Kind of that same feeling you can get if you get stuck playing the same game for too long, especially a 'grindy' game - if you end up doing the same thing over and over, the fun often gets sucked out of it, to the point where it doesn't even feel like you're playing the game anymore. It ends up feeling like work or a chore.
To sum it up:
The primary goal of 'play' isn't to burn calories or improve your fitness level. It is the goal. To play the game of basketball. To chase your toddler around. To run around in the yard with the dog.
Improving your fitness and burning some extra calories comes along as a bonus.
Play generally incorporates a wide variety of natural human movement - twists and bends, lateral movement, starting, stopping, jumping and so on - that you don't get much of in structured exercise.
Why Play Matters
Physical activity is inherently enjoyable. Our bodies crave it.
Nobody had to tell you to run around as a kid - in fact you were probably told to slow down or stop more often than not.
You're not supposed to stop playing when you become an adult. Unfortunately it gets sucked out of us due to other responsibilities and feels like a 'waste of time' if it's not working towards some goal. It's so easy as an adult to just rush through a game so you can finish it, so you can move on to the next game so that you can... Just rush through that one, and the next and the next? Meanwhile, you missed all the side quests, easter eggs, hidden gems and random NPC conversations.
You didn't stop to smell the roses and actually enjoy the game.
Time spent doing something you enjoy is never time wasted.
Doing something simply for the sake of enjoying it is one of the most beautiful parts of life. It's easy to lose sight of this.
Even in gaming, so many of us get a bit 'stuck' doing things we don't even really like, just for the sake of reaching the next level, improving our rank, running the same boss 500 times even though you hate it but you just need that one drop.
Maybe we initially liked the activity; but now the well of enjoyment has gone dry, yet we keep doing it.
I'm hammering on this point of enjoyment because it is the cornerstone of all this.
When you start to enjoy exercise, you'll become incredibly hard to stop.
Doing any kind of regular exercise on a consistent basis will make this happen naturally, but making sure to incorporate some play into your week will help speed up, amplify and solidify it.
This is how you destroy a negative relationship with exercise. Any negative past experiences you've had with exercise. Feeling guilty about not doing it, or not doing it enough. The daily reminder going off in the back of your head that you 'should' do something.
One of my favorite things to hear from a client is when they turn the corner, and actually look forward to doing their workout. When they don't like to miss. When their relationship with exercise is no longer a negative one of self-punishment or shame, but one of healing and strength.
The crazy thing is this usually happens within ~6 weeks or so - it doesn't take that long.
Another short but important point to add: incorporating physical play into your life is going to help you move better and feel better. Plain and simple.
What is one type of physical activity you used to enjoy doing, but rarely (if ever) do anymore? Think back as far as you need to.
Go do it.
Some version of it. Find a way to scale it back and ease into it.
You restore the ability to do these activities by doing them, even if in a very scaled-back manner. You then maintain the ability by continuing to do them.
How to Incorporate Play into a Holistic Fitness Plan
Since play is by definition the least structured component of this holistic fitness plan we're crafting, it has the most leeway in how you incorporate it.
The important thing is simply asking the question: 'Am I getting any physical "play" time in throughout the week?'
If not, then ask:
'What kind of physical activity did I enjoy in the past, but no longer do?'
'What would it look like to ease back into that again?'
For something like recreational sports with friends, or a hike, you might schedule something for the same time each week - but for a lot of this stuff, it doesn't have to be highly structured. Be spontaneous. Just get outside and play around like a goofball.
Go run around in the grass, just to run around in the grass. No external goal beyond just doing the thing. Start easy - if at the end of the week, you can look back and say 'I played once this week', then you're good.
Now, if you do want more structure to your play but aren't sure where to start, we can incorporate 'play-like' movements into your training regimen. They do not replace strength training exercises, but they often work well as a warm up or 'primer' before strength training. You can do these on a non-training day, too.
Here's a few examples I'd recommend:
Medicine Ball Slams - throwing stuff feels good. This is a safe way to do it. You can even add in a rotational component by throwing the ball down to either side, just outside the feet rather than straight ahead.
Box Jumps - Start low. Focus on power and getting to the box quickly, rather than going for maximum box height. 3 sets of 5 focused, strong jumps, resting in between sets. You do not want to go anywhere near exhaustion with a power exercise such as this - it defeats the point, and with a box jump, it's unnecessarily risky. You can also, just... you know, jump. You don't have to have a box to jump to.
Jump Rope - a more endurance-oriented option. Even though the goal here isn't 'get better at jump rope', you will naturally get better by trying it and it's a particularly fun one to get better at.
Lateral Hops - a simple single leg hop to the side. Lights up the 'outer glutes' quite a bit, which is great for improving hip stability and can actually help with knee pain in some cases.
Cable Wood Chops - you can do these at any gym with a cable tower, which is almost every public gym nowadays. Attach a single arm handle to a cable, set it up above shoulder height, and start with a light weight (you don't usually need much). Grab the handle by interlocking both hands, and chop away. You should be facing 90 degrees away from the line of pull of the cable, so you'll reach across the body and start in a rotated position. Pretty sure this is not how you actually chop wood... But the name has stuck. You can also vary the angle and go straight across, or even from low to high.
Just pick one of these. Do 2-3 sets for several reps - don't worry about the numbers so much. Play around and have some fun with it.
That wraps up Part IV, and the Holistic Fitness Master Guide series as a whole.
-Shane
