The Good, the Bad, and The Hopeful of Discipline in Fitness
By Meredith Clemons
Generation Three Girls continues our January focus on discipline with a new episode of F*ck Wellness, “Discipline or Abuse? A Conversation about Athletics, Group Fitness, and Performing Arts”. Continuing the conversation from last week’s deep dive on discipline, Lara, Mallory, and returning guest, Meredith Clemons, discuss the good, the bad, and the hopeful of discipline in fitness.
The good? Discipline can help us reach goals that we don’t realize we’re capable of right out of the gates. The commitment to a broader something can be a powerful motivator on any journey and can help us discover the wild extent of our abilities. Also, if we choose a path that is largely enjoyable or matches our strengths, discipline may become a less effortful and weighty part of our lives.
"If you can start to influence your choices and your commitments towards things you enjoy doing, discipline does not feel like this gritted-mouth push. There is more ease to it when you are aligned with things that you have a natural propensity for, but you also enjoy doing,” Meredith said. She went on to challenge the assumption that feeling ease in your choices is a bad thing, or that it means you aren’t disciplined in the first place.
The bad? Is it discipline or is it just abuse? It seems that the term “discipline” is on reserve for communities that operate through a grit-your-teeth-and-bear-it standard. Lara shared her experience with the disregard for pain and discomfort in synchronized swimming culture. These “disciplined” environments often look like an authority figure demanding their subordinates dissociate from their bodies’ cues and intuition, something that leaves a powerful mark.
"From a young, impressionable age, discipline is something you are put into. You do it for so many years and that discipline continues on into adulthood. You become afraid to trust your body," Lara said.
Mallory also experienced the “disciplined” push to break ties with her body’s wisdom and tell it what was right instead. “My own experience of discipline was rooted in a distrust of my body. I found discipline and consistency because I figured my intuition or following what I enjoyed wouldn't be enough for whatever extrinsic goal I was trying to complete."
And herein lies the problem. The discipline problem. It’s the unhealthy expectations we’ve drafted to define discipline. Want to be able to use that label? Then things must feel like a fight. There is force involved in your choices – forcing yourself on that run in the morning, forcing yourself to avoid the chocolate. Any deviation from your self-imposed rules is a failure. And by forcing your body to match all of these - frankly, arbitrary - expectations, you have somehow reached higher moral ground. See “The good?” above for an alternative to this hard edge.
The hopeful? This conversation is growing. The volume of self-reflection in the fitness and movement world is higher than ever before, and it’s about topics just like discipline. What do we really need to be healthy? What services are we actually aiming to provide? How can we be more inclusive?
As three members of the fitness world, Lara, Mallory, and Meredith offered their advice on finding a healthy relationship with discipline in a class setting. They cover looking for teachers who offer modifications, instructor language use, the business goals of fitness studios, and a whole lot more. Listen to this week’s pod for their final takeaways and nuggets of advice!
Resources:
F*ck Wellness Episode with Meredith Clemons: “Lifelong Learners”
F*ck Wellness Episode on discipline (the first in the series): “Discipline, the Grit Scale, and How Society Measures Success”
