Finding Your Footing

For most of us, if we’re lucky, we grow up with a handful of things that stay constant as we transition into adulthood. Despite leveling up in school, shifting friend groups, or even moving homes, I bet most of you can think of something that has kept you grounded from start to finish.

Now if you’re really lucky, you never lost that touchpoint. But for many athletes who don’t go on to compete post-high school, losing a sport that’s been a huge part of their upbringing can be fairly devastating. A sport that guided them amidst all of life’s changes and helped shape who they are. Something that for nearly two decades was a huge part of their self identity.

Transitioning out of athlete-hood is both liberating yet daunting. After competing at such a high level on a strict schedule, many are excited by the freedom that comes with the end of their career, but for truly driven individuals that excitement is short-lived. No longer having a training schedule or a coach to guide you comes like a punch to the gut the second you realize everything that comes next is completely up to you.

I am a little too familiar with that feeling. Hi there, my name’s Maddie, and I am a college senior at Lehigh whose 12-year-long swimming career ended around this time four years ago.

As someone whose seen and tried it all when it comes to maintaining my athletic fitness without the structure and motivation of an organized sport, I understand just how hard it is to lose something that once was your lighthouse in life.

While it’s changed a lot in terms of how it looks and what it entails, my athletic mindset and eventual working routine in the fitness realm has kept me grounded and in check with my life’s stressors the same way swimming did all throughout my life. But the road to getting here was far from easy, especially in a media culture that values monetized diets and MLM workout programs. But now that I’ve come out of this four years later and experienced all the ups and downs this transition has brought me, I’m here to guide you on creating a routine for yourself that is in keeping with your own personal needs.

I am a firm believer that your overall health and wellness is just as much mental as it is physical, but it wasn’t until this past year that I truly came to realize what that all meant. Lucky for you, it is my hope that I can share all the tips and tricks I’ve learned along the way so that you don’t have to make all the same mistakes I did, and hopefully create a lifestyle that is enhancing.

Four days after moving into my freshman dorm I decided it was time for my to get in my first-ever workout at college. After moving three states away, making an abundance of new friends and enduring freshman orientation, the first day of school felt like a break rather than a new beginning.

Although I’d grown up with after school swim practices my entire life, I remember this workout feeling different. Prior to coming to Lehigh I had been running here and there in addition to sticking to the Kayla Itsines Bikini Body Guide (BBG) since I had stopped swimming six months prior. While I had the luxury of both an at-home treadmill and tiled basement floor, I had somewhat familiarized myself with the gym atmosphere, or so I thought.

Being the “runner” I was at the time, I opted for a four-miler on the treadmill to kickstart my back-to-school workout routine.

I remember leaving my first ever Media and Society class, heading back to my dorm to change (I must admit I really had it together with wearing real-person clothes to classes four years ago), lacing up my shoes and heading towards the gym.

I swiped in, headed toward the treadmills, popped in my earbuds and turned to my BBG app to record the workout session. This was pre-Apple Watch era, but that’s a whole different soapbox for a different story.

“40 minute LISS session. Ready? 3, 2, 1. Begin.” the aqua app flashed back at me.

I mindlessly shuffled on the machine for 40 minutes, increasing my pace by one-tenth of a mile each mile I hit, bored with myself to say the least. The way our gym is set up at Lehigh has all the cardio equipment on a mezzanine overlooking the weight floor. If anything all the commotion going on down there beneath my feet provided entertainment for me until the four miles were up. Until I wanted to move on to some bodyweight exercises, that was.

Being a 5'2'’ freshman amidst a sea of incredibly strong upperclassmen boys seemed like the most terrifying activity I could throw myself into. I had zero interest in using any of the weights or machines down there, but rather just wanted a mat and maybe a few dumbbells to complete the workout my Kayla app had curated for me. On the mezzanine there was one giant mat with tower of medicine balls nearby, yet the idea of attempting to workout next to other girls in that awkward space felt almost worse.

I admit that at the time, I had somewhat loosened my need to do the exact BBG workouts the app scheduled for each day given the fun summer goodbye stuff I had been engaged with leading up to my arrival. However, I was determined to get “back on track” with my BBG regimen with this new gym available to me one staircase away from my dorm.

I quickly panicked that I would not be able to keep up with my strength training routine that app provided for me given the challenges the gym space posed. I later learned that there was a studio space commonly known as the “girls floor” of the gym (which is another soapbox for another story as well) with all the equipment I was comfortable using up to that point.

But I don’t tell this story to talk about how scary it can be to see boys double your size lifting weights or critique the architecture of Lehigh’s gym. I share this more because of my mindset. I absolutely hated my workout routine. I was doing things that I felt like I “had to” in order to maintain my fitness to a fraction of what it had been when I was swimming. I was working out at the wrong time of day for my body and I didn’t even know it. I was performing exercises that didn’t do much for my own strength let alone physical figure.

Part of this was due to the fact that I was grappling to do any form of exercise I could to “replace” swimming, but most of this was because I was scared to try new things and preferred the comfort of familiar habits.

It took me a majority of my freshman year to figure out what types of exercises I enjoyed, what made me stronger and most importantly, what made me feel good about myself.

For so long I struggled to hold on to a routine that mirrored what I kept in high school, when in reality, I needed everything to get completely shaken up in order to grow into this next version of my athletic self.

Amidst a period of transition in quite literally every single facet of my life, I clung to the workout routine that reminded me of home. At the time I didn’t really realize this, nor did I have an appreciation for the fact it was doing nothing for me in the physical sense, knowing that I was keeping the formula of my day similar to what it was in high school kept me wildly grounded.

While I’m fortunate I no longer exercise with help from the BBG app or run mindless miles, dreading each step, I appreciate my sense of dedication to my routine. I truly believe it was in those first few weeks as a freshman that it wasn’t swimming itself that I needed to keep me grounded, but rather a routine and a consistent workout pattern that could help me deal with all of life’s stressors.

My routine has changed wildly over the last four years both in terms of my courses as well as my workouts. But for us ex-athletes it is crucial that we iron one out in order to stay rooted in all we are doing, especially when it feels like so much of our surroundings are changing.