Thought for the Weekend

A comment to this piece, from a reader:

After a bad front-end/head-on car wreck a few years ago, I'm a poster-child for the benefits of movement and focused exercise to keep the parts working and to accept mild muscle pain instead of debilitating nerve and joint pain. It makes you strong and hungry (which makes food taste better) to work out regularly.

If you are over 30 and not in good shape or injured, a few visits to a professional physical therapist to investigate your condition and design a program of conditioning might be a good investment of time and a few dollars. You may be covered under work or private medical insurance, and insurers like to spend on PT because it's so cheap compared to surgical or hospitalization (post-injury) medical intervention.

Start slow. Don't push it and get hurt. Hot spots mean blisters soon: stop and fix. Wear good socks and boots. Listen to your feet, muscles and lungs. Get home believing that you could have gone 20% more (in the morning, you will be glad that you didn't).

Drink water.

Drink water.

Drink water.

Quarts per hour should be consumed when moving.

Stop-drink-breathe-move.

You don't have to let them know that your objective is to carry a 40 pound pack and a rifle 6 miles in 3 hours (up hill both ways over broken terrain).

Nice side effect of exercise is that lung capacity goes up, making hands and eyes steadier, and intentional breathing pauses can be comfortably longer. Your groups will tighten.

Talk to your doctor and pharmacist about what meds can be safely dropped and how. Blood Pressure, blood sugar, E.D., attention span while reading, and other annoying troubles of getting older can only be improved by conditioning. This alone is worth the time and effort.

You are going to live longer, too.

Cheers.

Consider too this piece from a while back.

Now get out there and walk this weekend.