by Rich Fahmy
The other day someone that I know to be very active said that since he doesn’t exercise he worries that he’s not getting the benefits of it. I started to laugh and said “You’re one of the fittest people I know!” It dawned on me that my buddy Joe (the names are changed to protect the innocent) believed that health benefits associated with regular exercise must be had at the expense of time in a gym.
When you really think about it, the health club is one of the most ludicrous concepts we’ve come up with in the past few decades. We actually GO INTO a building to be active! Sometimes we take escalators into the building, we look for the closest parking spot possible, and we even take the elevators once we’re inside. We run for miles but go nowhere, we take stairs that lead nowhere, we place ourselves in elaborate contraptions to move pulleys and levers, and we lift inanimate weighted objects around our body and place them back on a shelf. THIS IS WEIRD!
Ok, maybe not THAT weird. We have become a society of desk jockeys. Our jobs consist of little activity and largely the transfer of information. We wake up to sit in traffic, then sit at work so we can sit in traffic again on the way home, only to sit more at home because we’re so tired from our day of sitting. We no longer forage, run from predators, or have to kill lunch. So, we come up with a place we can go to be active.
So please don’t get me wrong here, GO TO THE GYM if you don’t get regular activity otherwise. My point is that if you are someone that walks three times a week, kayaks twice a week, then finishes off with a 50 mile bike ride on Sunday, don’t think that you’re not getting the benefits of exercise. And my other point is to the gym rats of the world: real life activity counts and counts big time. Swap a day of working out in the club with paddle surfing, a hike, a walk/jog with the family dog, running on a beach. Your body sees more benefit from actually propelling itself over the ground while running rather than trying to catch up to a speeding belt. Go have fun while you work out!
Enjoy and be healthy!
About the author: Rich Fahmy, M.S. is a respected industry authority on personal training. He owns Oracle Fitness Education, a company that provides continuing education designed for fitness professionals.
Posted by on November 4, 2009 at 11:54 pm | Fitness, Life is Fitness, Outdoors and tagged Fitness, Lifestyle, Rich Fahmy, SOMA GET FIT
