Music & Exercise
Growing up, I wasn’t a very athletic person. When I was living in Hong Kong, I did ballet, gymnastics, and swimming, all flexibility-based exercises. Naturally, because those abilities were practiced the most, now my favorite forms of exercise are elliptical, exercise bike, yoga, and Pilates.
Yoga is an essential part of my day that I always try to begin my day with. After waking myself up, I begin my day with a short prayer. Then, I like to practice yoga for five minutes to awaken my muscles for the day. I like to follow this video by Yoga with Adriene:
However, I’ve always had a very complicated relationship with the gym and working out. I recall watching the Victoria’s Secret fashion show in eighth grade and feeling the pressure to look like the models on the runway. So, I began working out, naturally unsurprisingly gravitating towards a video called “Victoria’s Secret Model Ab Workout.” Ever since then, I understandably only worked out solely to achieve a certain look: to stay skinny. So it’s no surprise that I wasn’t able to keep a consistent routine of working out until recently.
Since last week, I can proudly say that I have been going to the gym everyday and sometimes even doing 2-3 workouts in a day. I went to the gym one time with my good friend Christian because he goes to the gym at 6:30 a.m. everyday. So, that day, I went to the gym with him that morning, only doing workouts that I enjoy and find essential. I went on the elliptical for a mile, then did some leg and ab exercises.
That day later, I hung out with my friend Livvie, who told me that she was no longer in the mindset that she needed to “transform” her body at the gym. I realized that I had gotten to a point where I was confident enough in how I look that I didn’t feel the need to transform my body too and that I could incorporate light exercise into my day-to-day life, no matter how busy I am.
An absolute essential for me in my exercise, though, is music. High tempo tunes always motivate me to continue pushing to work harder. I’ve embedded my full workout playlist below, but here are some of my favorites:
“Hablamos Mañana” by Bad Bunny, Duki, and Pablo Chill-E
The first line of this song sets the tone for me: “Yo hago lo que me dé la gana,” which means “I do whatever I want” in Spanish. Though such a simple phrase, it is so empowering and gives me the motivation to not only finish my workout, but accomplish everything else I want during the day.
“Back to Back” by Drake
This track is actually a diss track against Meek Mill when they had a public feud in 2015, but I continue to listen to it because it’s so upbeat and I appreciate the lyricism.
“You love her, then you gotta give the world to her
Is that a world tour or your girl's tour?
I know that you gotta be a thug for her
This ain't what she meant when she told you to open up more”
“Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa
Dua Lipa is an artist that I’ve always loved since her early days but am getting more into these days because I’ve been loving a lot of the songs on her “Future Nostalgia” album. The lyrics also talk about getting over a breakup, which are so empowering for me and immediately lift my spirits.
Here is the rest of my playlist for those of you who are interested:
