The Present State of Fitness

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From my point of view, the present state of fitness is a dismal display of physical fitness and is a huge epidemic. We have obesity rates that continue to bulge, and health costs through the roof. According to the World Health Organization in 2004, of the top top 10 causes of death, heart disease, stroke, cancer, respiratory disease, represent close to 50% of all deaths. These are somewhat preventive, and may be attributed to poor exercise and nutritional habits. Prevention is the best medicine, the worst thing to do is reinforce bad habits by popping pills and justifying to yourself that you don’t need to workout or eat healthy. Your body is in a constant flux or turnover of breaking down and building tissues, bones, etc. The saying, “You are what you eat,” holds some truth to it, because in about 7 years your body has replaced every cell in your body including bone.  I don’t remember where I got that number, but the point being your body replaces dead/old cells with new ones continuously. If you feed your cells with soda, cookies, bagels, and cereal, and low nutritional value foods, then they will not get the proper nutrients they need to regrow into healthy cells. Add on top of that a sedentary lifestyle spent hunched over a computer desk, sitting in the car, for hours a day, and then go walk on a treadmill for 30 minutes, that is an insult to your body. No wonder people are sick, in pain, and miserable all the time. The body is made to move, and if you take a look at the history of physical fitness you will find they were much more vibrant, healthy, strong, and could probably kick our butt! . I have to credit  these pictures, information, and this inspiration of the topic, from a lecture given by Dr. Ed Thomas who is a expert is Physical Fitness and has been in this field for more than 30 years.

The Fitness Industry is always changing and there always tends to a overreaction to certain ideas and thoughts. However fitness is not new, and the things you see in the magazines and TV are not new. Just look at this picture from 250 A.D.

That is 3 women playing with a med ball and dumbells with bikinis on! I think I was born in the wrong era, because I would love to be alive back then when girls in bikinis were working out outside; rarely do you see anything like that these days.

The body must move around to keep those hundreds of muscles in balance and, if you don’t use it you tend to lose it. Gravity acts in one direction….down…. and does not change. Our bodies will adapt to this force and we must move in different planes to challenge these muscles. So get off those machines and get off the ground. The ability to master one’s body weight can last a lifetime, and to embrace that concept is quite humbling. Just look at this picture, which represents the concept of the de-volution of man, and illustrates how we went from primate animal to a strong hunter and gather, to a slouched weak computer nerd. So while you are there staring at your computer screens reading this at least sit up straight and tuck your chin so you don’t look like that guy in the picture.

And now we have schools cutting gym class and replacing the playgrounds with plastic, “safe” play areas. Please, stop! We all know how to run, jump, climb, crawl, etc. What happened to monkey bars? It is so hard to find a good playground with monkey bars, dip bars, things to climb on, and things to jump off. I challenge you to find one. Here is what a gym should look like, and they did back in the early 1900’s when people were more fit. This is a gym that understands SPACE is it’s most valuable amenity, not pools, group exercise rooms, spinning rooms, and all these other cramped up spaces. Fundamental movements like climbing ropes, ladders, swinging, pull ups, dips, jumps etc all need space to do them. This is call off the ground type training, and encourages good movement, skill, strength, and endurance. Americans don’t nearly move enough, and when we do move it usually looks awful and is restricted to machines!  Muscles get tight, stiff and weak when you sit down and don’t use them. Your ability to move helps deliver oxygen, nutrients, and blood flow to your body which aids in cardiovascular health because your heart actually has to pump blood some where. And this is not reserved for the men, look at these women train….

and for the men

Now that’s impressive! They all understood the body functions as one, and should be trained in a 3 dimensional environment that challenges, balance, flexibility, and strength. Remember if you don’t train it, you lose it. Sadly, you don’t see any of this in today’s society, which most people wouldn’t be able to do because they are so de-conditioned and cannot get into the proper positions and/or lack strength. So what does our fitness look like today? Here are a few illutrations that show my point….

can we get any lazier than this? really? And here is a typical seen from a commercial gym lined spinning bikes taking a class where, don’t get me wrong they are working hard, but please….look at that posture and then tell me whether that looks good or not..

We already spend most of our lives sitting in a hunched posture why would go to the gym and continue to facilitate that posture! The body thrives on balance and symmetry. And do we really need advanced ellipticals with all those fancy bells and whistles? That is called good marketing and advertising, and don’t get fooled by it! Nothing can replace good old fashioned HARD WORK. There is no way around it, and you can take that one to the bank.

So please go outside and do something where you move around a little bit. And before I let you go watch this video of this women showing the guy in back up by doing deep squats! Have a good one!