How about trying slow sports?

The principle of slow sports is fairly simple: imagining sports differently by setting aside the performance, competition, physical results or pain that are sometimes associated with exercise.

Practising slow sports also means being mindful of your physical activity and aware of its impact on yourself, others, and the environment.

Slow sports are based on 3 principles:

👉 Physical and mental well-being: doing healthy exercise to feel good in your mind and body.

👉 Reduced environmental impact: exercising with awareness of the environmental consequences of your sport.

👉 Social responsibility: exercising with or for a group, cause, or organisation.

The idea behind slow sports is to find the sport(s) that help you feel better both physically and mentally. A sport in which you can blossom and feel like you're in the right place.

This approach also sees exercise as a way to care for your health. It also means taking the time to observe how your sport develops skills or abilities that, in turn, help you become more comfortable in your body in your daily life and during certain activities or tasks.

This way of exercising is also an opportunity to consider the environmental impact of your sport: how can you adapt it to be more sustainable? How can you serve the environment through your physical activity?

This also considers how to manage and optimise garbage generation, limit waste, your transportation for getting to your physical activity, etc.

So you can think about repairs, trades, and rentals, minimalism, plogging...

Want to learn more? We have everything you need on our "Environment" page.

Slow sport also means taking the time to reflect on your activity and consider how it can be more just, inclusive, or even respectful of various causes. But how? By participating, for example, in sporting or charity events, or by supporting clubs or sports organisations committed to a cause.

Literally, slow sports refer to their "slow speed". But in truth, it's quite subjective. It refers to exercising more gently, so that you can take the time to act and "do good" for your body, for others, and for the environment.

Although any sport (if it's good for you) can be adapted to this style of practice, there are several that are particularly well-known in the slow sports world.

To engage your entire body gently, exercises in these disciplines help you develop your stability, flexibility, endurance, muscle tone, coordination, and breathing.

What's the idea behind it? Walking without thinking too hard about your route, pace or calories burned, but rather opening yourself to what is happening around you - in nature, for instance.

This is also known as slow jogging. This practice involves running at a moderate, gradual pace until you reach a "niko niko pace", or the equivalent of 180 beats per minute.

The idea is not, of course, to focus on the number, but rather to run mindfully and at a comfortable pace.

LIIT, or Low Intensity Interval Training, is an alternative to HIIT. It's a method that prioritizes low-intensity work over a longer workout period (50 to 60 minutes) rather than a short, intense workout. During these sessions, 80% of the workout is done without exceeding the first heart rate zone, and 20% is done in the intensive zone.

I can see it coming! No, don't worry! You'll still feel like you've truly gotten a workout by the end.