Six weeks ago, I was having trouble sticking to my running routine and goals. Physically, I was almost fine. Mentally, the thought of running, my all-time favorite sport, made me roll into a blanket burrito and couldn’t leave my bed. I started hating myself, and none of my regular fitness apps and trackers were helping. One Saturday, after completing my week-long streak, I couldn’t muster the energy to get out of bed. I broke it and spent the next day wallowing in guilt and self-pity.
After getting fed up and scouring the internet, I decided to download the Gentler Streak app.
Gentler Streak looks like this. It’s an iOS and Apple Watch app with a more thoughtful approach to building fitness habits. You can set the status of your activity (active, resting, sick, injured). Selecting one of the latter three will not break the streak. Instead, your activities are displayed on an “activity path” that visualizes your overall training load. There are educational readings about nutrition, exercise, rest, and the interaction of the three. Open the app every day and get advice. If you are well rested, you may be asked to push yourself a little harder. When I’m tired, I remember that rest is good. And if you really don’t know what to do, tap the Be Gentle button on your Apple Watch to see a series of recommended exercises based on your favorite activities, along with suggested duration and intensity levels.
There’s a lot to like about all of this. First and foremost, I love that it builds breaks and “failures” into your ultimate success and doesn’t judge you for it.
That lack of judgment was exactly what I needed. After 11 years of running, I was in the worst slump ever. I was stuck in a vicious cycle of falling and getting back on the horse and getting angry every time my efforts weren’t perfect. A crappy walking app helped me rethink my all-or-nothing mindset. The problem is that an evil supercritical goblin lives inside my brain, picking up on every little failure and taking up residence while minimizing all my successes. So what if a fun walking app gets me out and about? Walking isn’t running. So what happens if you run twice a week for a few weeks? I used to run 4-5 times a week and it was so easy.
We know we shouldn’t listen to the evil brain goblin, but sometimes life rudely hands us a powerful megaphone. Adding a Gentler Streak helped silence it. It’s not far-fetched when an app says that taking a rest day won’t affect your overall fitness. But many people don’t. Seeing this phrase so many times emphasized that, against my better judgment, I was beginning to confuse continuity with consistency. Stripes are just one measure of consistency, and they are flawed at that. A single break (which may actually be a better choice for your health) can ruin your streak and be perceived as a bad thing.
The only thing worse than breaking a streak is feeling like you won’t be able to complete it.
Nothing Gentler Streak is doing is new. Recovery-focused features are also prevalent in other fitness apps. It means guiding with intuition rather than data. The emphasis is on creating space for everything rather than clinging to anything. One teaches you how to adapt. The other relies on willpower, which is constantly depleted.
The only thing worse than breaking a streak is feeling indebted to yourself.
Incorporate the “Be Kind” suggestions every day. Rest and active recovery (e.g., yoga, walking, low-intensity activity, etc.) are always options 1 and 2. The other three are usually things that help you stay where you are, push yourself a little harder, or push yourself further. A lot. You don’t really have to think much because the suggestions are ready for you. On those stressful days when your willpower is gone, it will help keep the evil brain goblin from waking up.
Like any app, Gentler Streaks still has its drawbacks, one of which is its dependence on the Apple Watch. It can be used with other trackers, but I’ve had issues reliably getting sleep data from the Oura Ring. The other is subscription. $7.99/month or $27.49/year. I paid for features like Go Gentler’s suggestions and additional data insights, which are protected by a paywall.
Despite these drawbacks, a more gentle approach seems to work well for me. Some people with iron wills may scoff. To them I take off my hat and say that I envy their blessedly silent brain goblins. However, I can now run faster, longer, and more happily than I did six months ago. My calf remains intact. If you say to yourself, “I’m busy today, so I’ll focus on that run tomorrow,” then it actually happens. I’ll take it.
