Some people train for a sport from the time they’re very young and become elite. Some people don’t even begin to get active until much later in life but become high level competitors. This week’s guest is here to remind us to never underestimate what we can accomplish regardless of age, even those of us who’ve spent most of our lives as couch potatoes.
Our guest this week is Fitness Trainer and Coach Robin Legat, host of the Seasoned Athlete podcast. It’s your home for stories, inspiration, motivation, training tips and more directly from elite athletes from a wide variety of sports who all share one common bond: they are all over 40 years old. We're here to prove one story at a time that age does NOT have to prevent you from achieving bold athletic and fitness goals, and living your best life.
Robin herself is a "late in life athlete". After spending most of her life as a self-proclaimed music and theater nerd, Robin discovered the full-contact sport of roller derby at age 28. She played for eleven years before retiring in 2014. She has now found a new sport to channel her athletic energy - obstacle course racing. She has run nine Spartan Races since her first race in December 2015, earned her first Trifecta in 2016 and has recently begun competing at the elite level. Robin's goal is to podium in the Masters Division in the coming years - sooner if she has any say in the situation.
As a trainer, Robin unlocks the full athletic potential for busy professionals in Los Angeles and beyond who want to push their physical and mental limits and live their healthiest and most awesome life. And she has a lot to say on the subject of play.
The links I promised you:
Free play, also known as child-directed play, is becoming more and more restricted for American kids. We’ve talked on PlayGrounding many times about the importance of free play, how it’s where many children first encounter risk and freedom. It’s where they first begin to encounter “otherness,” where they find ways to work together with kids of various ages and backgrounds in an undefined arena. Play helps us cope in the realm of personal relationships, helps us develop innovative minds and healthy bodies.
But today we’re taking a step back from the benefits of play to us as individuals and diving into what it could mean for our society, for the health of our democracy, when we restrict free play in the lives of our children.
Pratik Chougule, an executive editor at The American Conservative, wrote an article entitled Is American Childhood Creating an Authoritarian Society? I was immediately fascinated by the idea that there could be political implications to a lack of free play.
In this episode, we’ll discuss studies showing possible connections between child rearing practices and the likelihood that those children will tolerate authoritarian forms of government. We’ll also talk about how free play helps us learn to handle opposing ideas and work toward consensus.
I hope you enjoy the episode and as always, please feel free to submit your own ideas in the comments or by contacting me to keep the conversation going.
Pratik Chougule is an executive editor at The American Conservative. He was previously the managing editor at The National Interest and served as the policy coordinator on the 2016 presidential campaign of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Chougule has contributed to projects for the Trilateral Commission, International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and Baron Public Affairs. He has assisted a number of senior officials with their memoirs, including former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. From 2008-2009, Chougule was a Bush appointee at the State Department in the Office of the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security. Chougule graduated from Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School.
Do you remember what it was like to be a child at the playground? When you first arrive and see the equipment, the sand, the grass? I remember that feeling well – the desire to jump, crawl, run, do summer saults and cartwheels. But somewhere along the line, that feeling began to fade. For many of us, our enthusiasm for physical play went out with our teddy bears and blankies.
I think many adults have these memories and, dare I say, even the desire to be able to play that way again, but our bodies are very different than they were when we were children. If we tried to crawl, jump, do somersaults and cartwheels, we’re afraid we’d end up in the ER. But JJ and Brian would like to challenge us all to give our bodies another chance to embrace physical play again.
In this second episode of the “Can Fitness Really Be Fun?” series, I’ve invited personal trainer JJ Kovacevich to join me and Brian Bristol to explore how adults can re-learn the basic movements children take for granted. We also discuss the role of shame and how it can keep us from even trying in the first place.
JJ Kovacevich is a movement junkie with a fierce commitment to body positivity, and she wants to help you find ways to celebrate what your moving body is capable of! She has a diverse movement background as a professional dancer, vinyasa yoga instructor, and circus artist and is a NASM Certified Personal Trainer and a Certified Functional Strength Coach (with additional certifications in modalities such as TRX and kettlebells). Sessions with JJ are tailored to fit each unique person’s needs and abilities, and her passions include working with folks new to movement practices and those working with challenging relationships to body image, food, and exercise.
Show Links: