• Home
• /
• Opinion

Rough day at the golf game, cart wouldn't work, had to walk

As the Fitness challenge season begins it is worth sharing with you exactly how vital this wake up and move call is to our wellbeing.
In the old days men were hunters and their bodies and their senses were sharply honed. Add to that the much-desired label of being warriors and you could appreciate why their bodies were sculpted and defined.
Now we don't hunt. We go to the supermarket and we sit in chairs and watch the minority do things. We eat and drink beyond our needs and our maximum exercise is twiddling our thumbs on a keyboard or pad.
If we continue like this, men will become soft, pear shaped and their limbs will shrink from disuse. Their backs will turn slope shaped and the spine will have the texture of jello.
This is not some sci-fi nonsense. This is a scenario knocking on the door of reality.
Give it a couple of generations more and watch it manifest itself. First as medical ailments that will become endemic and then as a natural transformation into short, stubby pencils of men. Aches, pains and arthritis will manifest themselves as the first signs of the body readjusting itself. Osteoporosis at your service.
Paradoxically, as men fade away as breadwinners, it is the women who until now had to contend with prejudice and be marked as weak and febrile, that will come into their own. They will hit the ball harder, go that much farther and jump that much higher.
It is already happening, the first inklings of where we are going. Strapping young men standing at the first floor elevator waiting to go . down one floor.
An average of 6,000 steps a day for a middle-aged male being the basic requirement sans exercise regimens we are now down to an average of 3,000. And that is also doubtful. An experiment that took a middle level executive from his bed to his office through dressing, getting to the elevator, his car, from the parking bay to the elevator to the office to the desk required 600 steps. The same for returning.
In the interim very little to reach even the first rung.
Most of us laugh away these reports because we feel we can go back to fitness again. But what we fail to realise is that it is a dangerous mindset towards crossing the couch potato line and turning into little human circles of pulpy flesh and thinned blood.
See how this attitude manifests itself in our daily lives. No, seriously, stay with me.
What is more drastic than losing a remote control? Even the disc must flip without our having to get up. Folks will circle a Mall for twenty minutes just to find a parking space near the entrance and avoid a thirty metre walk. At an airport one in ten passengers will avoid the mobile walkway and walk normally. Nine will ask to be transported.
And sitting, by the way, whether for work or lounging for leisure has been medically proven to be life threatening. It is just not a human body position.
Then there is the athletic con game. Walking at 3kmph on the treadmill. Playing amateur doubles in tennis. Then there is the Finger Muscle Maker (FMM) which covers pressing the car music system and hitting the buttons on the mobile phone.
To quote a prediction from 2010 made by yours truly. It is no joke that a new physical deformity expected to hit the human race along with the flippers and appendages will be neckitis, a sort of leaning tower of Pisa effect between the chest and the head with the neck tilting to a thirty-degree angle. This will be caused by the incessant cradling of a mobile phone while driving, eating, drinking, standing or doing anything. Medical practitioners have already indicated the tilt has begun.
So how active are you?
*Do you waits minutes for the elevator even though you could just rush down?
* Can you hold your breath under water for the standard 52 seconds?
* Would you play golf from a cart or walk the course?
* Do you have time to play outdoor games with your children?
* Is going to the gym boring or do the endorphins flow with anticipation.
* Are you active on a measure of 1 to 10?
* Is snooker or carom your idea of a sweat out?
* Can you play 10 minutes of badminton today?
* Is this quiz boring you?
*On a holiday morning is sleeping in more fun than going swimming.
*If you went to the beach would you swim or simply loll on the sands.
*Would you work in the garden.
*Do you think dancing is an exercise?
*Would you walk the dog regularly?
*Does the idea of mowing the lawn horrify you?
*Do you engage in strenuous housework?
*Could you hula-hoop for 3 minutes?
Assessment
More than three areas of doubt whether yes, no or give it a try and you need to get into a bit of a sweat. Off you go, then, off the couch and on the run.
-bikram@khaleejtimes.com