Exercise for a traumatic fracture: experience and benefits

A A few minutes before modern dance class started, I felt it was important to set some expectations with the teacher. “Just so you know, the last time I danced, I dressed up as a tiger and ripped off another girl’s tail at our Father’s Day recital. So it’s no surprise that I wasn’t invited back. And I was 7 years old,” I said shyly.

The teacher, as full of effortless grace in stillness as in movement, nodded understandingly and assured me that this was a class for all levels, joking that our lack of costumes might help me resist the temptation to harass other dancers. Then she asked, “What made you decide to come back?”

“I have no idea,” I replied. But I did—the answer was just too long and complicated for a pre-class conversation. Simply put, I was hoping to change my post-breakup brain and found that the more unfamiliar and unexpected an activity was, the greater its impact on my healing.

My restart point

The dance class was just one of many new physical endeavors I’d taken on since getting over the breakup of a nearly 14-year relationship. This wasn’t the “grown apart but still friends” kind of ending we all hope for; instead, it was a betrayal-filled, gut-wrenching, burn-to-the-ground finale that led to me creating a lengthy Taylor Swift playlist to marinate in on the way to therapy.

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Talking helped immensely, along with reading a gazillion books on grief, emotional resilience, and empowerment. But at some point, words just didn’t work as well as they used to. What pulled me out of the pit of burning memories was movement—and the more uncomfortable, the better.

In addition to dance lessons, I took up paddleboarding, and when my local lake in Minnesota froze over, I went snowshoeing. I tried indoor rock climbing, then moved on to outdoor climbing in an old quarry, and then ice climbing, where I got scrapes on my cheeks from falling chunks of ice. After buying a VR headset, I spent hours in the virtual world, smashing floating blocks and learning the difference between an uppercut and a right hook.

I was drawn to hybrid classes, so I did PiYo, bootcamp HIIT, natural movements that involved lots of crawling, and lots of Yoga Sculpt. I joked to friends that it “combines the worst parts of yoga and strength training and adds cardio to the mix to help students bond.” My ridiculously fit and much younger nephew challenged me to a Tough Mudder, and I said, Game on.

“When you do something that wakes you up in a new way—whether it’s climbing a mountain or knitting a sweater—you reinforce the idea of ​​self-reliance and confidence in yourself.” —Naomi Bernstein, PsyD

With each repetition of the exercises, I felt awkward and uncoordinated, and sometimes a little afraid that I would fall or get injured. I would wake up with sore muscles in places I had never thought about before (hello, gluteal hamstring attachments), only to find kettlebells after a morning yoga session. I often found myself laughing at myself, especially after a particularly awkward moment, but I didn’t give up because it didn’t take long for me to realize that it all worked.

By moving in these different ways, I not only began to worry less about the relationship, which was a huge daily challenge, but I also began to change my perception of myself. Instead of the broken, sad, angry, rejected person I struggled to be every day, I became stronger and moved forward, both literally and figuratively. Despite the frequent stumbles, I began to learn how to get up faster and with more strength, and with each day, and each new, strange fitness choice, my brain changed as much as my body.

The Healing Benefits of Play

When I look at my exercises as a whole, most of them involved a degree of controlled risk, joyful movement, and progressive control. These are all elements of play, and while research¹ often emphasizes the benefits of frequent play in children, which extend to adults as well. These include better emotional regulation, discovering new passions, building self-confidence, and creating a foundation of empowerment and agency.

“Mastery is an especially important part of getting over a breakup, whether you’re the one who ended the relationship or not,” says Sarah Gundle, PsyD, a psychologist who specializes in relationships and life transitions. “When you get better at something, and that includes physical activity, it improves your ability to become more mentally flexible. If it’s an activity that comes with a sense of lightness and enthusiasm, it can be even more profound.”

That’s true for kids jumping over the monkey tail for the first time, but it’s true for adults, too. Despite the fact that I fell into every water obstacle during the Tough Mudder, stomped across the dance floor while others floated, and lay panting like a puppy on the snow after trudging through icy snowdrifts while snowshoeing, I began to feel two distinct sensations that had eluded me for years: I was getting better at what I was trying to do, and I was actually enjoying it.

The more original the activity, the better

Another aspect that felt like play was the novelty of each choice. How do you even hold an ice climbing axe, let alone use it to propel yourself upward? What is a “rond de jambe” ballet step and why can everyone do it so beautifully? Did you know that tensing your muscles while standing on a paddleboard leads to epic foot cramps?

“After a breakup, it’s easy to shut down and hibernate and cling to what you know brings you comfort, but that can ultimately leave you feeling stuck,” says Naomi Bernstein, PsyD, a psychologist and co-host of Betches Media’s Oversharing podcast, which focuses on relationship issues. “It’s also possible that in a relationship that’s ending, there’s a sense of stagnation, both with each other and in your own identity as part of that couple. Finding a healthy way to inject novelty into the experience takes you off autopilot.”

You also get better at paying attention to your body, and focusing in general, she adds. These are essential for giving a sense of forward motion and balance, and especially for building self-confidence—a quality that was definitely depleted during my breakup.

“A lot of people find that they have to learn to trust themselves in a different way after a breakup, especially if the relationship wasn’t empowering,” Bernstein says. “When you do something that wakes you up in a new way — and that could be climbing a mountain or knitting a sweater — you reinforce that idea of ​​self-reliance and trust in yourself.”

I discovered that movement is not just a way to navigate the world after a breakup, it is also a great way to honor yourself and find new paths when you need it most.

Recovery as a metaphor

In the same way that exercise literally and figuratively helped me move forward, so did the recovery time. Research shows² that you are not building muscle when you are in the middle of strength training – you are actually creating strategic damage to the muscles during exercise. It is during recovery that those muscle fibers repair themselves in a way that makes them better able to handle stress.

The same can be said for breakups and other emotional traumas, Gundle says. Thoughtful, restorative, and nurturing recovery efforts can build resilience, both mentally and physically.

“When you come back from a recovery period, you often have a different perspective,” she adds. “You often feel a greater sense of power and control. Those are qualities that you generally don’t feel after a breakup, so finding a way to build those up is crucial.”

To be honest, I started my constellation of new exercises simply as a way to distract myself, because I needed to stop replaying all the conversations and events that had happened not only during the breakup, but also more than a decade before. In order to relive the dance class moment, I kept pulling off my own little tiger tail. But what started as a distraction ended up being the one thing I didn’t expect: healing.

I discovered that movement is not just a way to navigate the world after a breakup, it is also a great way to honor yourself and find new paths when you need it most.