First Gentleman with Wilson Orhiunu
Email: babawill2000@gmail.com Twitter: @Babawilly
Fitness is not tax deductible. It is one of the few things that you can do for yourself without the government snooping around for a cut of the action. You get all the benefits and enjoy an extra spring in your step.
Knowing a lot about the human body can never make you fit. The greatest athletes are not PHDs in human biology neither are the medical doctors all physically fit. Fitness is an equal opportunity activity. If you exercise your body, you set in motion a chain of events that makes your body more equipped to do the exercise to be done.
People try to make it more difficult than it is but it is really simple. What makes a baby transform from lying on its back all day to crawling and then walking is growth, instinct and exercise. A baby cannot be trained to exercise muscle groups but instinctively exercises the legs daily right from the womb. After birth a baby never stops moving its legs and soon the tone and strength develops. Babies get progressively stronger and more agile as they grow and next thing they are running.
The body was meant for movement and we all can increase the amount of movement we do each day.
I ran every day in 2016 and I learnt a lot of lessons from the experience. The first one is quite simple; it is possible.
I had never consistently run daily for a year in my life before and I really wondered if I could do it. There were no people I could discuss it with as the few who discussed my exercise routine with me were already complaining that three to four sessions in the gym a week was excessive. I however discovered why few people would exercise daily. It is simply the fear of the unknown. Everybody doubts if their bodies can cope with a daily routine.
The interesting thing is people usually don’t stop to ask what the distance in question is. They remember the last Olympics they saw on the television and are filled with dread imagining going through that ordeal daily.
The truth is you train at your pace. A five minute run can be the starting point, and once done for about a month the distance can increase.
The next obstacle to training is working in isolation. People like to do things with immediate positive reinforcement from those around them. Well, fitness benefits only the one who is exercising and other just watch to see if you would give up by the time they anticipate you will.
No one is going to ring you daily to encourage you to go running. The motivation has to come from you. And when the inevitable muscle injury comes, discussing it with people gives them licence to tell you to stop. Everybody has heard about a man in the news who died of a heart attack while exercising but for some strange reason no one ever hears about the thousands worldwide who have heart attacks while sat down at home doing nothing.
Once you are past the first month a habit is beginning to form. The next problem that comes in would be boredom. Running the same routes can be as bad as watching paint drying on the wall. Those with hobbies they are really into can run with podcasts playing topics on their areas of interest.
For those who love sports, watching documentaries of their favourite sports stars in training can serve as a motivating factor. Personally I like watching interviews of Michael Phelps the great USA swimmer who at one time trained daily for five years straight; sometimes doing two sessions a day. That was impressive and is a good motivation on cold days.
There are so many training videos online that you are spoilt for choice.
Of course anyone wishing to take up any form of exercise should consult their doctor for a medical before doing so to avoid health problems. However, with time you would gain experience in listening to your body and knowing just how far to push yourself.
Finally there is the language of the fitness enthusiast. You never discuss how hard it is especially with people not involved in any physical activity. People tend to have an urge to rubbish anything they don’t understand or are not disciplined about. The language of a go-getter is a can-do, will-do language. The weather report is never on the agenda. You exercise in whatever weather nature blesses you with. All that is required is the correct attire and the right attitude.
“It is too hard”, “it is too cold”, “it is not worth it” are examples of self-defeating language that have a way of drifting to the legs and locking them up.
In all matters of fitness the slogan, the change starts with you rings true.
