Sunday 29 April 2007

Pic of the day: Screenshot from The Sims 2, because I don't do things like that in real life. Or not when I can avoid it.

A little more about exercise

Looking back, I seem to go on and on about how you only need half an hour of light exercise each day. Perhaps it is my own bias that makes me do this: I am a physically lazy person, so I tend to stick with as little as possible. Possible in the sense that my body is convinced that it is still inhabited, and should not collapse around me. But of course this is not the only reason one may want to train the body.

For instance, staying in shape means you are able to run faster and further the day your life actually depends on it: A tsunami, a knife-wielding maniac, a swarm of bees. Should you be on your way away from any of these and many other threats, you would appreciate being able to run as far and as fast as possible. With my minimalist approach, I would not be able to get out of such a situation reliably. By virtue of my Y-chromosome and intolerance to dietary fat, I am spared the humiliation of waddling like a pregnant dachshund; but any sufficiently crazy delusional murderer is probably able to chase me down unless I have a really good head start. If you run regularly, you have that much less to worry about.

Also in more everyday situations, being strong and having good stamina comes in handy. Moving, building or repairing your house, helping a cute friend drag the furniture around to yet another new position. And there are some lines of work where having a strong or enduring body is still useful, although they seem to make up less and less of the workforce with each passing year.

Then there is the small detail that a body with more muscles and less fat tends to attract women, which is often seen as a good thing by men (less so by most women). This is probably a major reason for working out if you are a young and single man. Unfortunately it seems that this motivation tends to evaporate once you are in a stable relationship, and for this reason we see a lot of flabby husbands lounging around. And anyway, if you want to look good to women, giving them alcohol is faster. Not that I would do either of the above, of course.

And to some people, some types of exercise are actually fun. I guess this depends on your personality and probably your age as well: Children used to enjoy many kids of sports, back when I was one, though these days many don't look like it anymore. These days I prefer long walks, but I admit those are not very exciting. Perhaps you'd like a good bike ride, you can get pretty good speed on those and the speed is more up close and personal than in a car. Not to mention that you have a greater chance of going splat, which evidently adds to the excitement for people who are easily bored. Anyway, hard exercise releases some natural painkillers (endorphins) which make people feel good, or so I have read. I have never found it enjoyable in any way myself, but lots of people do.

Disclaimer: Don't start hard training without a clean bill of health. Speak with your doctor first, especially if there have been heart problems in your family on either side, and otherwise too if your body is past its half-life. (That is to say, if you are more than half as old as your grandparents were when they shed their mortal coils.) If you are not already training, make sure to start from the start: First a few weeks of light exercise, to get your body used to being used, as it were. Then some more weeks of moderate training before you start on the seriously exhausting stuff. Frankly, if you don't have the patience for the period of light training, there is no way you will stick with the rest either. In that case, you are risking your life for nothing. Don't do that. Life is a precious thing, and already so very short.