A girl and her sport

I have never considered myself a sporty person, on the contrary! I have always claimed to hate sport for as long as I can remember, probably since middle school. Who hasn’t tried to get excluded from physical education hours at least once in a lifetime? I remember that it was a very common practice, especially to be able to skip that half hour of volleyball, in which who was a better player (the boys), would have had opportunities to make fun of the others (the girls). I just know that I hated that feeling, I hated playing and feeling goofy. Even though I've never really been bullied, I didn't feel comfortable and just looked for any excuse to avoid those moments.

I believe that my conviction to hate sports came from these experiences. But now I understand that it is not right to generalize, when sport is a very broad concept and above all it can be different for each person. I have been thinking about writing a post on the subject for some time now, and what better time than in January, when after all the food we ate during Christmas holidays, we feel the need to get back in shape and start the New Year right?!

I stuck on my concept of sport until I was almost 25. I had tried a few classes in the gym but had never lasted more than a few months. It was the swimming pool that made me change my mind for the first time. Needing to move, I started a water aerobic class and for a few years I was constant. I did it together with a group of older ladies but I enjoyed it very much also because after every lesson I had the chance to relaxed in the tub with the hydromassage. This was how my body began to understand that it loved the feeling of exercising, it was just a matter of finding the right way for me.

Having to start going to a gym was more of a necessity at the beginning, due to my back problems. I left the pool to try the weight room. I started with a light program focused on strengthening the muscles, created for me by a personal trainer with blond curls that I had nicknamed Varro, as the gladiator best friend of Spartacus in the first season of the homonym TV series. (Yes, I had given a series-inspired name in my mind to all personal trainers XD). But I wasn't constant in following it. In fact I went to the gym and did a little bit of everything and that's why I didn't achieve great results in that period.

MyGym Bussolengo, Year 2014

At the time, two things certainly influenced me again in my choices. The first was getting to know the one who is now one of my best friends, during a quiet training session at the gym where I went for the lunch break. I am of course talking about him, Marco Dal Castello. In fact, not everyone will know that we did not meet at a fair, or in some cosplay event, but that yes, we met in the gym because I recognized him in one of the photos of a friend we have in common. So I started talking with him on day, and from there it was all an adventure. Before starting cosplaying, traveling and cooking together, Marco and I became the most fun and noisy in the gym (especially him), so going there was no longer just a duty, but also an opportunity to have fun and socialize.

RodiRide Surf - Rodiles, Spain 2014

But the big revelation came to me in the summer of 2013 when I agreed to participate in a surf camp in the south of France, together with some other friends. That summer I realized that I actually do love sport. Not the group one, where you play in teams and potentially create multiple opportunities for conflict, but the individual ones, where the only challenge is against yourself. That summer I loved a sport for the first time. Even though I haven't been able to get up on the table even once, I honestly didn't care. I had challenged myself in something new, which many fear, and I found it exceptional. Maybe one day I will write a post only about surfing but even if after that experience I was able to practice it again only one more time, I can say that surfing has changed my concept of sport in general.

That was how I returned to the gym and started training again but with the goal to be able one day to surf, not like a pro, but at least in a decent way. And I'm sure I will! In the meantime, I tried different training plans: the program of the "Bikini Body Guide" of the Australian trainer Kayla Itsines and the one created especially for me with the application of Freeletics that I practiced until a few years ago. It is thanks to these that I realized that the right sport for me is fitness. Where you don't need a lot of equipment, just the weight of our body. But one last thing was still missing…

In 2018 for some reason I went obsessed with Calisthenics. For those unfamiliar with it, it is a discipline that combines strength and mobility, and its purpose is to develop the muscle of the body in a harmonious way. In the advanced versions of this sport you get to perform very difficult movements and exercises, always and only using the weight of the body. You have surely seen those guys who hang from bars, perform numerous sets of pull-ups without getting tired and exhibit steel abs. Here I don't know why but I thought I would like to do it. By pure chance I found a guy on Facebook who was doing courses in a small gym very close to my house and I decided to try.

Calisthenics equipment

Although for a woman, especially for a person who has never followed a target training, achieving results in this discipline is a very long path that requires incredible perseverance, I had been committed for three months and even if on a practical level I did not make big changes (except to “wake up” the triceps ahaha) I learned a lot of things.

And you should know that I didn't stop because I gave up, on the contrary. It should be noted that when you want to practice any sport at a level that is more than just a hobby, you need to know how to listen and know your body. Following the advice of the coach himself, I started seeing an osteopath due to some recurring pain in my right shoulder. The diagnosis, as expected, was that my muscles were not sufficiently developed to be able to withstand a workout like that of Calisthenics. For this I returned to the gym, but this time with a targeted training program, built together with the doctor and the personal trainer. Since that day I also never stopped practicing stretching and now after a few years, I can say with satisfaction that I can keep all my problems and body pain, that once assailed me much more frequently, under control.

But let's come to the present day. I arrived in Spain in February 2020 and after two weeks I had already enrolled in a gym because I had no intention of quitting my program. Then, as we all know, COVID decided to mess up our lives and we had to adapt. With the gyms closed and half of the world confined, the best option was to go back to training at home. It was in this situation that one morning, by chance, while looking on YouTube, I came across one of Pamela Reif's videos.

Her entire community call her “Pam” and she is a 25-year-old German fitness influencer. Her fans increased exponentially during the lock down as they like me, were looking for some new training opportunities. I have been following her plans for almost two years and I must admit they are the best I have ever tried. They are complete, varied, suitable for all levels of preparation and above all fun. It is no coincidence that she is loved so much by everyone. She is a simple girl who shares advices on training and nutrition with her community and promotes values such as body acceptance and eco-sustainability. For those who want to spend only 25 euros a year, there is the possibility to follow through her app, the training program together with a meal plan, which are updated weekly with new videos and recipes and that can be modified by the user according to his tastes and the goals he wants to achieve. I'm not so obsessed and I only use the free version, but I recognize that for those who want to try some more challenging path, it offers excellent tools at a super affordable price. Nothing in comparison, for example, with Kayla's Sweat App which is much more expensive and recommends recipes, in my opinion, more difficult for us Europeans to recreate.

I have written a lot and I would still have a lot to say. I hope you are not bored now, but I want you to know that today at the age of 38, my body is better than when I was 28, and this is also due to constant physical activity which I can no longer give up. Just me, the girl who at 25 said she hated sports. Please, don't ask me to play volleyball, dodgeball...not even hide and seek, because I still don't like those games, but fitness has become my sport. I'm not particularly thin or athletic. My muscles aren't super defined (although I'm glad I still have tonic arms) and I don't have Pam's round butt, but I'm not the one who gives up on sweets or McDonald's when she has the opportunity after all, and it’s totally fine.

What I learned in all these years is that sport has not to be practiced to be beautiful or to adapt to a social model, but for one's own well-being. Not only physical but above all mental. It is scientifically proven that physical activity produces a multiple amount of happiness hormones and that is why if you put in a little persistence, then it becomes a "good drug". To understand which sport is right for us, we need to do a little research, try new things and get out of the patterns we have built for ourselves. My path has brought me this far but the body changes constantly and with it I could have to change direction once again, one day.

In the end what matters most is to know ourselves, listen to our body and accept ourselves in order to be able to work on our life. Fitness has helped me a lot in this and once again, I start a new year with energy and with new goals to achieve. I wish each and everyone of you the best, and invite you not to stop in front of your difficulties. It is precisely from these that will come the opportunity to make you discover the right thing for you!