We are constantly being told that muscle, although, natural is out of place on women. A cursory look into the kind of exercises usually recommended for women will show that they consist only of endurance and flexibility variants. But without the other two components of exercise – strength and balance – the schedule becomes more of aesthetics than fitness. It took years of unlearning before I began my strength and balance training. And the gloom of COVID-19 lockdown to further realise that such training can be successfully practised at ‘home’ with just our bodyweight through callisthenics, minus gym and equipment. Practising callisthenics has allowed me to nudge the ideas of sexed bodies and geographies of exercise.

Sampurna Das is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics (DSE). She has been working on the issues of water and land governance, and agrarian relations in the wider context of environment and development discourses.