{"id":25874,"date":"2015-10-16T09:55:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T13:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/?p=25874"},"modified":"2015-10-16T09:55:00","modified_gmt":"2015-10-16T13:55:00","slug":"bearing-the-weight-in-and-outside-of-the-gym","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2015\/10\/16\/bearing-the-weight-in-and-outside-of-the-gym\/","title":{"rendered":"Bearing the Weight – In and Outside of the Gym"},"content":{"rendered":"I went to my second Olympic weightlifting class last week. What is Olympic lifting? Well, it\u2019s pretty straightforward really. Olympic lifts are the ones you see in \u2013you guessed it- the Olympic Games. Someone walks up, makes a lot of noise, and throws a few hundred pounds over their head. No big, right?\r\n\r\nWrong. It\u2019s really hard! I consider myself reasonably experienced in the art of lifting things and putting them back down\u2026 Apparently there\u2019s a lot more to it.\r\n\r\nSo far, we\u2019ve been working on two of the three Olympic lifts: \u201cthe clean\u201d and \u201cthe snatch.\u201d\r\n\r\n
\"I<\/a>
I tried!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\nWhile throwing barbells around is hard, the less-tangible weight of being stressed, overwhelmed and exhausted has been far more of a challenge lately.\r\n\r\nYou see, I like to pretend I\u2019m Wonder Woman most of the time:\r\n\r\n
\"I<\/a>
I actually had this picture prior to writing this article, it was my uniform for work one day. I coach gymnastics and we run a superhero-themed meet for the non-competitive athletes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\nI take on A LOT. I train, work two jobs, I\u2019m the president of two clubs, I\u2019m a mentor, a volunteer \u2013oh, and a student! I\u2019m a campus tour guide and on a recent tour a prospective student asked her mother how I could possibly have time for it all. I laughed when her mother replied that I probably don\u2019t have Netflix.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s certainly not easy, and can be super taxing on my mental and physical health often times. This semester has already been especially hard. The struggle however, has helped me to develop better study habits than I\u2019ve ever had and motivated me to explore my options and resources on campus.\r\n\r\nWhen \u2013at the gym- the weight on the barbell is too much, you do one of four things:\r\n1. You take some of it off \u2013duh!\r\n2. You put it down \u2013double duh!\r\n3. You call for help.\r\n4. You drop it \u2013and risk hurting yourself.\r\n\r\nThe same applies to those things that weigh on my mental health. First, I have the option of taking some of the weight off. If I can\u2019t handle keeping up with everything I\u2019ve signed on for\u2026 I need to give something up. It\u2019s hard for me to do because I hate quitting and I really hate letting people down. I know however, that I\u2019m better off with some extra time to decompress at the end of a long day or to study when crunch-time comes around. I think the important thing to remember is that we\u2019re all human \u2013as much as I\u2019d love to be Wonder Woman- and we have limitations.\r\n\r\n
\"Stick<\/a>
Stick figures are not my specialty.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\nMy second option is putting everything down. I do this when I\u2019m trying to gain some clarity to evaluate my situation objectively. It can be hard to think when I\u2019m balancing a ton of weight over my very breakable toes. Some people call it a mental health day. For me, it\u2019s sometimes only a few hours. Again, it can be very hard. When you\u2019re completely swamped, not studying, not working on that assignment, can induce a lot of anxiety. I\u2019m getting better at it though and I find those few hours \u201coff\u201d -doing nothing that I need<\/em> to do- do a lot of good for me.\r\n\r\nCalling for help is another strategy. One thing I love about being in a big city and on a big campus is the number of resources we have at our fingertips. Help is always steps away. This week I had a lovely chat with someone at my registrar\u2019s office. Not only did I gain some insight, it really helped to just \u201ctalk it out.\u201d I have a tendency to go over things in my head again and again. And it\u2019s exhausting. When I speak my mind to someone else, I can quiet the internal monologue.\r\n\r\n
\"Now<\/a>
Now my go-to for academic advice! I recommend the Registrar\u2019s Office 100%. Plus, Woodsworth College is beautiful, I should spend more time here.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\nThe last option is to wait until I\u2019m completely burnt out and the weight comes crashing down on its own. Obviously, this is far from ideal. t I want to avoid it and \u00a0I\u2019d love for you to avoid it too! Sometimes it\u2019ll happen regardless of the measures you take to avoid it. Life can be unpredictable. Having said that, I find that most of the time if I take advantage of the other options I have, I can complete the lift \u2013so to speak- and stand tall.\r\n\r\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\nI went to my second Olympic weightlifting class last week. What is Olympic lifting? Well, it\u2019s pretty straightforward really. Olympic lifts are the ones you see in \u2013you guessed it- the Olympic Games. Someone walks up, makes a lot of…\n<\/div>
Continue reading “Bearing the Weight – In and Outside of the Gym”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>
Continue reading “Bearing the Weight – In and Outside of the Gym”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":274,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1758,7204,62,1,70,69,58,67,68,77],"tags":[25512,1905,86,15631,259,11071,1190,10926,15635,1439,15634,15633,1119,85,15632,12589,15636,1883,1274],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25874"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/274"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25875,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25874\/revisions\/25875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}