Exercise: An alternate view

I would like to talk briefly about a view of exercise that is likely foreign to most readers.  The vast majority of us think of exercise as activities or sports that are used to raise our heart rate, train our muscles or in general require a measure of exertion.  Even though one could make arguments to support those views of exercise, I would like to propose an alternate view.

I have heard many times when encouraging people to take up exercise, "I get plenty of exercise at work!  I don't need extra on top of that!"  So here is where I would like to divert your attention to an alternate definition of exercise.

Any action where the task being performed defines the movements you make, the intensity they are made with, the repetitions necessary and the total duration of the action is work not exercise.  Take a moment and think about that.  What that means is that even some of our favorite pass-times qualify as work.  You may love gardening, but that is work.  You may enjoy an afternoon on the golf course, but that is work.  You may be athletically involved in a variety of sports, but each is work not exercise.  They each have specific movements that are required to perform the task, movements that allow very little room for modification.

So what then is exercise?  Exercise is the opposite of work.  That is to say, exercise is any action you perform on purpose where you control all of the factors that the task controlled in work.  In other words, you decide the movements you make, the intensity they are made with, the repetitions necessary and the total duration of the session.  In short, work is where the task defines the activity, exercise is where you define the activity.

This becomes profoundly useful to us as work tends to reveal our weaknesses, we can now use exercise to change those weaknesses into strengths!  "I do enough exercise at work!", is no longer a valid excuse for opting out of exercise.  In fact, when we exercise properly and regularly we actually increase our capacity to work!  Isn't that a concept to think about.

How nice would it be to finish a day at work and instead of collapsing on the couch in sheer exhaustion, say to your family or friends, "So what do you guys want to do now!"  Sounds like a foreign concept doesn't it!  But it is entirely possible.  If we can migrate our thinking away from exercise being a chore, toward exercise being a tool--a tool to obtain and maintain healthy bodies, then we will be much more likely to enjoy both our literal work and our play to the fullest extent possible.

So don't give up your job, and don't give up your favorite pass-times, just fine tune them with the right stuff!