You truly have to know that exercise is meant to be a healthful activity, whether for improved health or just to maintain it. When doctors, nurses, educators, and medical shows recommend various forms of exercise, they, hopefully, do not recommend lifting weights like the majority of people do at the gym or spending hours upon hours on that treadmill every day. That is not a healthy form of exercise, let alone a healthy behavior. You may be getting in shape, but is it worth it?
This is a difficult concept for many people to understand today because there are so many mixed signals and blind spots when it comes to exercising properly. Your cousin Rick or your trainer Sally might offer you advice about how you are supposed to be exercising, but their advice is probably tainted. Tainted by the impression that excessive and grueling or even a notion that once-in-a-whiling it is healthy. Coupled with dietary advice and other lifestyle suggestions, we are often at a disadvantage from the get go.
Do you have to be that big-muscled guy or that skinny and fit young chick? Can you achieve this without grueling exercise and what seems like nine to five shifts at the gym or on the pavement? Will you be able to maintain such a level of fitness for the rest of you life? More importantly, do you want to?
It is sad, I even kind of hate to see it. I am talking about that fifty to sixty year old man or woman who never felt it necessary to add exercise to their to-do-lists for the past however many years. Their faces, when you see them doing some crunches or jogging, say it all: Pain from this seemingly tortuous activity.
Use or lose it, and they lost it. Just as there is no such thing as a wonder pill that will cure you of your obesity, there is nothing that can instantly remove that writhing feeling of pain. Can they overcome this pain and turn exercise into something meaningful and beneficial? They can, but I truly believe they’ve lost much of that ability.
Overuse it and you will surely lose it too. This one goes out to all those used-to-be HUGE bodybuilders and marathoners who felt it necessary to hurdle the natural limits of their bodies and keep pushing forward. It happens when you reach that age when four hour shifts, then three, two, and so on are no longer permitted by your body. Muscle turns to fat, fat turns your gym membership into an official couch membership with a complementary cane and pain medicine as needed.
You still exercise at this point, but you need that couch membership to deal with the strenuous exercise you still put yourself through. For some reason, you feel the need to: lift inhumanly amounts of weight, run/bike/etc… distances that would deem a car ready for new tires, and let the small hand on the clock do more than a few laps around along side you. As time continues, that small hand on the clock does indeed lap you and you are left to face reality.
Our bodies can deteriorate due to nutritional inadequacies, but they can also deteriorate from the literal daily grind. Exercise is supposed to be challenging. It is a challenge we are always meant to win and only we can rig the results to be not in our favor. I personally believe it is wickedly awesome to see how our bodies can perform when confronted with these grueling feats, but that exists purely as entertainment for me. Do what you have to, avoid rationalizing it, and strive to LIVE longer with a longterm focused exercise strategy.
What is your favorite form of exercise?
Do you actually enjoy it?
Do you see yourself continuing this form of exercise into old age (an age defined only by you)?
Exercise + You ≠ Misery
You truly have to know that exercise is meant to be a healthful activity, whether for improved health or just to maintain it. When doctors, nurses, educators, and medical shows recommend various forms of exercise, they, hopefully, do not recommend lifting weights like the majority of people do at the gym or spending hours upon hours on that treadmill every day. That is not a healthy form of exercise, let alone a healthy behavior. You may be getting in shape, but is it worth it?
This is a difficult concept for many people to understand today because there are so many mixed signals and blind spots when it comes to exercising properly. Your cousin Rick or your trainer Sally might offer you advice about how you are supposed to be exercising, but their advice is probably tainted. Tainted by the impression that excessive and grueling or even a notion that once-in-a-whiling it is healthy. Coupled with dietary advice and other lifestyle suggestions, we are often at a disadvantage from the get go.
Do you have to be that big-muscled guy or that skinny and fit young chick? Can you achieve this without grueling exercise and what seems like nine to five shifts at the gym or on the pavement? Will you be able to maintain such a level of fitness for the rest of you life? More importantly, do you want to?
It is sad, I even kind of hate to see it. I am talking about that fifty to sixty year old man or woman who never felt it necessary to add exercise to their to-do-lists for the past however many years. Their faces, when you see them doing some crunches or jogging, say it all: Pain from this seemingly tortuous activity.
Use or lose it, and they lost it. Just as there is no such thing as a wonder pill that will cure you of your obesity, there is nothing that can instantly remove that writhing feeling of pain. Can they overcome this pain and turn exercise into something meaningful and beneficial? They can, but I truly believe they’ve lost much of that ability.
Overuse it and you will surely lose it too. This one goes out to all those used-to-be HUGE bodybuilders and marathoners who felt it necessary to hurdle the natural limits of their bodies and keep pushing forward. It happens when you reach that age when four hour shifts, then three, two, and so on are no longer permitted by your body. Muscle turns to fat, fat turns your gym membership into an official couch membership with a complementary cane and pain medicine as needed.
You still exercise at this point, but you need that couch membership to deal with the strenuous exercise you still put yourself through. For some reason, you feel the need to: lift inhumanly amounts of weight, run/bike/etc… distances that would deem a car ready for new tires, and let the small hand on the clock do more than a few laps around along side you. As time continues, that small hand on the clock does indeed lap you and you are left to face reality.
Our bodies can deteriorate due to nutritional inadequacies, but they can also deteriorate from the literal daily grind. Exercise is supposed to be challenging. It is a challenge we are always meant to win and only we can rig the results to be not in our favor. I personally believe it is wickedly awesome to see how our bodies can perform when confronted with these grueling feats, but that exists purely as entertainment for me. Do what you have to, avoid rationalizing it, and strive to LIVE longer with a longterm focused exercise strategy.
What is your favorite form of exercise?
Do you actually enjoy it?
Do you see yourself continuing this form of exercise into old age (an age defined only by you)?
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