Six weeks ago, I was struggling to stick to my running routines and goals. Physically, I was doing pretty well. Mentally, the idea of running – a sport I usually enjoy – made me roll into a burrito and never leave my bed. I started to hate myself, but none of my usual apps and fitness trackers were helping. After building a week-long streak, I couldn’t muster the energy to get out of bed on a Saturday. I broke it and spent the next day wallowing in guilt and self-pity.
Fed up, I searched the Internet and ended up downloading the Softer series application.
Gentler Streak, that’s what it looks like. It’s an iOS and Apple Watch app with a more compassionate approach to building a fitness habit. You can set an activity status: active, paused, sick and injured. Choosing one of these last three will not end your streak. Instead, your activity is represented on an “activity track,” which is a visualization of your overall training load. There are educational readings on nutrition, exercise, rest, and the interaction between the three. Every day you open the app and it will give you a boost. If you are very well rested, you may be asked to go a little further. If you’re tired, you’ll be reminded that rest is actually good. And if you really don’t know what to do, you can press the “Go Gentler” button on Apple Watch to see a series of suggested exercises based on the activities you enjoy, with durations and intensity levels recommended.
There are a lot of things I like about this. Most of all, I like that it factors pauses and “failures” into your eventual success – and doesn’t judge you for it.
This lack of judgment is what I needed. Eleven years into my running journey, I had encountered the worst slump in my history. I was caught in a vicious cycle of falling off my horse, getting back on, and then getting angry every time my efforts weren’t perfect. A silly walking app helped me reframe my all-or-nothing mindset. The problem is that inside my brain resides an evil hypercritical goblin who will find and dwell on every little failure while downplaying all my successes. What if a fun walking app got me outside? Walking is not running. What if I ran twice a week for a few weeks? Before, you ran four to five times a week, it’s easy.
I know I’m not supposed to listen to the evil brain goblin, but there are times when life crudely hands him a very powerful megaphone. The addition of Gentler Streak helped silence him. It’s not complicated for an app to say “taking a day off won’t affect your overall fitness.” But many don’t. Seeing this sentence over and over again highlighted that I had, against my better judgment, begun to confuse sequences with coherence. Sequences are just one measure of consistency, and an imperfect one. Just one break – which may actually be the best choice for your health – will ruin your streak, and that’s seen as a bad thing.
The only thing worse than breaking a streak is feeling indebted to it.
Nothing Gentler Streak does is new. Features that emphasize recovery are prevalent in other fitness apps. It’s more about leading with intuition rather than data. The focus is really on creating space for everything, rather than sticking to one thing. One teaches you to adapt; the other relies on willpower – and willpower always runs out.
The only thing worse than breaking a streak is feeling indebted to someone.
Follow the daily “Go Gentler” suggestions. Rest and active recovery (e.g. yoga, walking, low-intensity activities, etc.) are always options 1 and 2. The other three are usually things that will help you maintain your position, keep you push a little or push yourself a little. plot. You also don’t need a lot of thinking because the suggestions are there. On stressful days when you lack willpower, this helps prevent the evil brain goblin from waking up.
Like any app, Gentler Streaks still has its flaws, one of them being its reliance on the Apple Watch. You can use it with other trackers, but I had issues reliably pulling my sleep data from the Oura Ring. Another is subscription: $7.99 per month or $27.49 for a year. I paid because features like Go Gentler suggestions and additional data insights cost money.
Despite these shortcomings, a gentler approach seems to work for me. Some iron-willed people may scoff. To them, I take off my cap and say I envy their happily silent brain goblins. But I run faster, longer and with more pleasure than in six months. My calf is still not injured. When I tell myself, “I’m busy today, I’ll do this race tomorrow” – the race actually happens. I take it.
