“Unknown by you, they really watch you!”: experiencing the ageing, physically active body in cardiac rehabilitation

There is a dearth of research on how the physically active body is experienced during rehabilitation from serious illness. This paper presents data obtained through fourteen interviews completed with participants in a cardiac rehabilitation scheme. A figurational approach was utilised which emphasised the need for participants to delineate their own logic of experience from the perspective of their active body during cardiac rehabilitation. Data were thematically analysed and individual experiences were situated in wider power relationships within and beyond the exercise class. Recurring themes emerged including participants’ under-estimation of initial symptoms, shock and dislocation created by diagnosis, and uncertainty created by treatment in unfamiliar circumstances. During rehabilitation, participants negotiated a complex interweaving of identities which centred upon their changing sense of embodiment. Self-images were socially produced and moderated by others in the rehabilitation figuration, including via health and exercise professionals and other participants. Respondents constantly defined and revised their own embodied identity in relation to other rehabilitating bodies and their own changing identity. The extent to which participants were empowered within the exercise setting was highly heterogeneous. Findings suggest that the messages participants receive about cardiac rehabilitation must reflect the heterogeneity of recovery trajectories that could be experienced.