The Fat Positive Lounge

[nycfem]

I'm on break from work this week (I work at a school) so I'm rereading this thread and jumping back where I've had a thought but felt like I didn't have time to post

istolurboxers38 posted (snip):

Originally Posted by istolurboxers38

I have a hard time playing raquetball with my knee it has the arthritis

This made me think about exercise for larger people in general and what works / doesn't work. I love to exercise and by experimentation and research over the years have found ways to minimize the chances of injury as a fat girl.

Here are my thoughts on exercise for bigger women, not as a professional, but as a fat woman who loves to get physical in a big way!

1) Swimming is great when available. Exacerbation of knee issues (e.g. arthritis) can be minimized by doing the front stroke and the back stroke and avoiding the breast stroke. I've been told and found that kicking in water doesn't tend to cause problems while doing strokes in which the leg is pushing at an angle (e.g. breast stroke) does. I like to swim laps and then stretch in the pool. For instance, for the past week I've been having lower back pain due to having lifted too much weight and pulled something (a rarity for me but oh so annoying when it happens) at the gym. So yesterday I did laps for half an hour and spent another half hour just stretching in the water. A plus for big swimmers is that we don't get cold as easy. I see smaller people shivering but I've got that extra layer of fat that keeps the water comfortable. I have read about fat, long distance cold, open water swimmers who say the same thing. And, of course, we are more buoyant. I have had times in my life where I would regularly swim a mile or two a day in one to two hours. So much for all fat people being sedentary and incapable of serious, regular exercise. Yes, people can be fit and fat

2) I love to use a stationary bike. I find it helps to choose a medium level (not too high and not too low- as either extreme, I find, negatively impacts the knees). When we are on a bike, we are not bearing down on our full weight, so aside from swimming, I find it to be the best exercise for larger women in terms of not being injured. We have natural butt padding which helps me go longer distance. I can bike hard (where I'm sweating and breathing hard) for up to three hours (Usually I do one hour.). I also lift weights or do arm exercises sometimes while I bike which gets the heart rate higher.

3) Regular walking (ideally not on a treadmill) is relatively low injury. Jogging and running, on the other hand, put a lot of weight on the knees for larger women, and I find it riskier and don't do it.

4) I stretch and do floor exercises for a minimum of 30 minutes every time I go to the gym. Stretching after long work-outs feels fantastic and, again, minimizes injury for me.

Anyone else have thoughts on exercise? I also like the kind of exercise that 1QuirkyKiwi described: getting physical in the context of an adventure. While off this week from work, for three days in a row I went hiking / rock climbing / walking at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, going off the designated paths at times (I'm incorrigible.). It was so much fun to be negotiating the forest and sliding down rocks. Extra padding can be a real plus