Michelle Obama, wife of our President, is taking a stand for physical education and fitness.
She’s started an initiative called Let’s Move!, that has a website to boot!
The group has four initiatives – Healthy Choices, Healthier Schools, Physical Activity, and Accessible and Affordable Healthy Food.
Yes, let's!
“To support Let’s Move and facilitate and coordinate partnerships with States, communities, and the non-profit and for-profit private sectors, the nation’s leading children’s health foundations have come together to create a new independent foundation – the Partnership for a Healthier America – which will accelerate existing efforts addressing childhood obesity and facilitate new commitments towards the national goal of solving childhood obesity within a generation.”
Linked to in the header above, the Partnership is composed about five founding organizations. It’s a way to provide additional support, financial and outreach, for the Let’s Move! project.
The old me would be suspicious, and doubtful of any change coming from this type of thing.
The new me – or, rather, me, now – sees any effort toward a positive direction as a good thing.
Please support the Let’s Move! initiative by going to the site and subscribing to the blog roll, and enter your email address to receive program updates as they come out.
Exercise, he says, involves sets, reps, forced movements in unnatural or limited planes of motion, etc.
I think he’s right.
Nice gym.
The “Workout” Dilemma
For many of us, even the term “workout” fades into the single word “work.” It doesn’t sound like fun. What’s supposed to be enjoyable about it? Especially after you’ve already been working all week anyway?! Who wants more work?!
A Rose by Any Other Name
It’s important to remember where gyms came from. Original “gymnasiums” in Ancient Greece (the ones the European gymnasiums were modeled after, which are the gyms that ours were modeled after) consisted of an open sandy pit outside, and maybe a large, empty room, with some different apprati and weights to throw around. But mostly, you’d just throw yourself (or maybe another person) around.
In the process, you’d learn some things. Like how to deal with your own body. Or how to deal with disorientation (tumbling). Or how to deal with another person’s body (wrestling, boxing), or an external body of other sorts (shot put, weight, discus, javelin).
In the earlier part of the 20th Century, most American gyms still looked this way. They were mostly empty space, with some weights around the perimeter, and maybe some uneven bars and gymnastic rings. Maybe the gym would be totally outdoors. Or at least have some outdoor space to play around in.
Your “workout” would consist of a combination of strength-skill movements. Things that weren’t as simple as “just pick that up.” You’d have to think a little bit about what you were about to do.
You might even have done some gymnastic-type things in there.
Further, there would be a community of like-minded folks in there watching you, coaching you, helping one another out, and competing with each other. It wouldn’t be a line of hamsters on their wheels…excuse me, treadmills…
Oh The 80′s
In the 1980′s, the bodybuilding phenomenon really took off. Large chain gyms like Gold’s, Bally’s, etc., took advantage of, and fueled the craze.
Group exercise classes became modeled after school classes – One Teacher, Many Students.
People grew competition-crazed.
Muscles bulged and glistened.
And the nation continued to get fatter.
Please adopt a cardio machine...they're lonely
The True Cost of Fitness
And in the melee, we all were swept up.
But what was it all about, in the end? “Fitness?” Fitness to do what? For what purpose? To be able to do our jobs better? No, most likely not. To contribute to our communities? No. To hunt more effectively, or do something better?
No, just fitness. To be fit.
Many of the aspects of our lives have turned into this in the past twenty years – to do something, simply to do it.
No value other than the doing of it. Which is fine, but weird.
Those massive gyms, with all of their equipment, and the fees people pay to belong to those gyms…what is that about?
It isn’t about fitness.
What is your goal? Why do you do it? And wouldn’t you want it to be enjoyable?
Another beauty...
Exercise, Fitness, and Movement
Frank insists that what people need is more movement. I agree with him 100%. But I also see that people must be coerced to move. Calling it one thing or another doesn’t mean much. Changing the way it looks, its external appearance, attracts attention.
All animals are attracted by the new, the novel. They require what is familiar, but they are attracted to what is different.
So while I agree, that people need to move more, and that “exercise” may inhibit them, I think the means to get ourselves moving will come from different sources than from symantics.
We need more toys.
Worlds that change toys.
Toys That Change Worlds
Toys That Change Worlds is the subheader of one of my all-time favorite blogs (linked to the first few words in this sentence). It’s not for everyone. It’s very philosophical…just warning you.
But the point of that blog is that it’s possible to change your perception of reality, to change yourself, deeply and meaningfully, by playing with a new toy.
That’s why I’m not against things like Wii Fit, or the vibrating health saddle, kettlebells, bodyblades, or anything else.
In fact, I wish there were more of them! And I wish that more groups of people would get together on a regular basis to play with all of those great toys.
Imagine if you had a block party, where everyone went around the block, into everyone’s house, and had to use the workout toys in that house for at least 5 minutes. Then you all rotated. Heck, what if you raced from house to house?
Sounds like fun!
And I think there’d be a lot of exercise equipment that would get dusted off, and have the hanging clothes taken off it.
Sure, strong. Sure, flexible. Sure...
Real Strength
In the end, true strength is total-person strength. It is strength of will, strength of character, strength of judgment, strength of muscles, lungs, heart, mind, connections. Real strength knows no bounds. It spills over and out of the individual, into everything they do and touch. It extends beyond them, into their friends, family and community.
Real strength also accepts no limits. It seeks constantly to improve itself, to become more, to become stronger still.
Real strength is flexible. It does not break, it bends, and then springs back into place. It flows like water, wearing away even the hardest material over time.
To be truly strong, you must cultivate yourself. You must accept who you are. You must come to learn and embrace your greatest gift to humanity, and act to express that gift in every word, thought, and deed.
You must “workout.” You must “exercise.” You must “play.” You must “stretch.” You must do it all, and do it from the core of your being, for all you are worth, every day, tirelessly, until your time has run its course.
I was prompted to write this post, finally, after avoiding and/or forgetting about it the past seven or eight times.
DOH
People Watcher
Whenever I’m out in public, I watch people. I love to watch the way they move, and to try to imagine what’s happening in their bones and muscles.
Do they favor one leg over another? Why? Is it the foot, ankle, knee, or hip on one side or another? Or is it something else? Sometimes, people look like they’re “favoring” a leg because they’re carrying a heavy bag on one shoulder.
But I also see people whom I think might be in for some serious musculoskeletal difficulties in their future. Women wearing high heels, clonking like Clydesdales, slamming their already out-of-place feet into the ground, with their pelvis tilted forward…I don’t know. Maybe they’ll have issues, maybe not.
She might have other issues...
And that’s what I thought today. I was driving down the street, and saw a distinguished-looking older gentleman walking along. His feet toed-out a little as he walked…a slight “duck walk.” This type of walking position typically means there are some dysfunctions up the kinetic chain, which can lead to more serious issues over time – as the unbalanced wear and tear on the joints destroys or malforms them.
Then I realized something.
This guy most likely won’t ever experience any issues from this style of walking. In fact, he’d probably been walking exactly that way for most of his life. And here he was, walking just fine, looking happy as can be.
Yes. Just this happy!
Leave Me Alone!
We have a tendency in this country…at least, I know that I have it – to think that people should be doing something better. That things need to be different in order to be good. When that may not be the case.
In the same token as the man I saw, many people will never experience disability from not being physically active or following a good diet. They’ll never notice. It doesn’t matter to them.
It doesn’t matter. It’s not important. In fact, it seems silly.
I’ve gotten that reaction from people a lot over the years – “you’re crazy,”
But, while I personally agree with Craig 100%, I don’t think that’s as meaningful as I used to. You have to meet people where they are. And many of them don’t care if they’re fit or active.
So if that’s the case, how do you convince them? Or should you even try?
Michelle, over at the For the Life of Me blog, recently wrote a post about motivation as one of the key factors to success in incorporating healthy diet and exercise into our lives.
I agree with Michelle 100%, and I really like her take on the issue in her post. Motivation is a key issue in having a healthy lifestyle. But why is motivation so difficult? What’s behind our motivations to do (or not do) certain things?
I think the source of the issue go straight to nature, or, what’s natural in general. The law of inertia applies to everything that exists, and says that a body at rest will tend to stay at rest, and a body in motion will tend to stay in motion. This is also “habit” – we tend to keep doing the things we’re used to doing, and not to do new or different things.
There’s also a law among living things demanding them to be as efficient as possible – to expend energy only when necessary. For instance, one of the first things they’ll tell you in a survival school is to stay warm (conserve energy), and move around as little as necessary (conserve energy). Building a log cabin is something a person does who already knows for a fact where they’re going to get their calories for the next year.
You can see this behavior in still-existing aboriginal/native cultures. They don’t run around any more than necessary. They spend a lot of time hanging out talking. They do what is needed, and then rest.
So, what’s going on with us, in our culture?
First, we have a steady, stable, and reliable supply of calories (not always from the best sources).
Second, we don’t have any difficult physical demands in our lives, especially no demands that are necessary for our survival. We have crafted environments that don’t demand any activity at all (going to the grocery store is a lot different from going out on a hunt, or even digging for your vegetables in a garden, or a natural setting). Our “work” isn’t physical (building huts versus building websites, tending to crops or herds versus tending to your computer).
Third, we’ve created environments that trigger our stress response frequently. Stressful work situations (with no physical outlet) lead to a constant release of adrenaline, and a buildup of cortisol, which leads to malfunction in the body.
Fourth, we’ve created an isolationist society – how many of your neighbors do you know and trust? In an aboriginal culture, you know all of your neighbors (maybe up to 100), and you trust them all equally.
Fifth, and I think worst of all, we’ve created a culture of rules-based thinking, instead of creative-based thinking. Everything we’re taught from an early age is designed to get us to follow rules. Hence, when we get older, we do what everyone else is doing. We think that it’s crazy to go off and follow our dreams – because there are no rules about that, and no one else is doing it (except the odd-ball cousin or friend-of-a-friend that you hear of on some occasion).
