A man slowly jogs past you. A women adjusts her Fitbit as she attempts to reach her daily 10,000 step target. The Park Run app gets more clicks with people looking for their nearest session. Marathons and half marathons take place all over the world. Individuals of all ages attend 'Weight Watchers' or 'Slimming World' sessions to maintain a healthy size. A mother sets up her sleep app to ensure her light and deep sleep sessions are optimum. Veganism, that plant based philosophical lifestyle, is a multi-billion pound industry. Our generation is in an age of fitness. The activities, pressures, apps and technology are visible wherever you look.
Of course, sport, a key element of fitness, has always been visible on a large scale. The cricket world cup, Formula One and Wimbledon have been going on for years. It was just dodgy timing that they all coincided last Sunday, making the weekend a true sporting spectacular. People most certainly, judging by my twitter feed, enjoyed watching the events. Indeed, I can imagine many people burnt calories with all the excitement and anticipation of the close finals. But that is clearly a passive activity. People have sat watching sport, even when football involved a pig's head, for hundreds of years. It is only recently that sport - and fitness as a whole - has become so ingrained in our individual lives. For a while, my interest in the fitness lifestyle had been less than lacking. Sport, moving about, physical endurance - call it what you will - and I had never gone well together. I was born with low muscle tone, poor balance, appalling hand-eye coordination and just, well, wasn't very fit. In the education system, physical education was far too aggressive and competitive, based on your intrinsic skill at a specific sporting activity rather than learning how to keep fit and the benefits of moving about. There was no pleasure to be gained; I hadn't been inspired of the necessity of moving around. Thus sport and I, following the end of secondary school and compulsory P.E., bid each other farewell. This has largely remained the same today. I take part in few sporting activities and am sorry to inform you that I shall not be joining the British Olympics team any time soon - or ever for that matter. The physical vices that I mentioned remained just as true today. However, a number of practical and physiological circumstances have altered that have given me the opportunity to become more engaged in fitness. Practically, my A-level exams have finished (hurrah!) allowing me far more free time to spend as I wish. Granted, much of that has been engaging in culture and relaxing but I have used the time actively too. Psychologically, I have wanted to engage in some activity, just to become slightly healthier weight wise and enhance my self-confidence. I have resisted the temptation to join a gym however. You know how the process works; it's as reliable as the quadratic formula. You sign up for your gym membership, costing, even on a New Year discount, megabucks, never end up going due to the trials and tribulations of life and then feel guilty about it. Thus, you are no more fitter and far more insecure. Yet a number of people still attend the gym. Whether it's having a specific place to train, all the equipment at one's availability or just having a chance to impress others, the enclosed area of training does appeal to people. Instead, I have opted, with a friend, to start jogging. Who needs to begin fitness resolutions in January? I was hesitant to begin for years and years. It was painful, with few rewards, exhausting, uncomfortable with the potential for further injuries. What would motivate anyone to take up the sport? It was a form of unwinding, de-stressing - pfft! You had to be joking. Yet, there were multiple factors guiding me towards the running. It was free, no equipment rewards, with the chance to embrace the environment as often or as little as I liked. Sometimes we would go for 5am runs round the park, only the sounds of nature rushing through our ears. Often, I'll just go around the block, even listening to a podcast to distract me from any pain. It's a slow process. My jogging pace is that of an elderly, overweight old man. Frequently (though less often recently), I'll have to stop to catch my breath and walk out frequent stitches. By the time of my return home I am shattered, gasping for some water as a tool of recovery, even when the run has been a tiny amount. It is nothing easy, even when I have someone else to motivate me. But I know that I am lapping everyone who is sitting down. Yes, it is an awful cliche, but when you are clambering around, feeling like the most unfit person on human civilization, to know you are moving while others are not is an excellent motivating tool. I feel fitter, healthier and better about myself following the run. Along with lifting some weights (2kg!), I have managed to gain a level of confidence involving fitness that had previously so put me off. All this fitness malarkey is reflective of our self-improvement society. In this liberal age, we have become increasingly individualistic. We are all about bettering ourselves. Whether this is in academia, employment, family relations, interior design, nutrition foods, we have an obsession with being the best. Admittedly, this could be for ourselves, but often I believe this is to impress others, show that we are making the most of our lives by contributing to society. Ironically, fitness could be the release from that. In the stresses caused by employment, academia etc, fitness can be the perfect place to unwind. Yet this retains the self-improvement through creating a fitter body. Society, whether through the government, media or the saturated globalized culture has allowed a form of self-improvement to develop that allows people to unwind from self-improvement. Nevertheless, fitness regimes can have other affects, most notably through the form of socialisation. While there will of course be elitist, physically exceptional runners or sportspeople who wish to engage in no form of discussion, many other activities, even veganism or walking, allow people to engage in conversation through a shared form of enjoyment. They have a shared purpose, and while this can be competitive, ultimately, for personal enjoyment, it can be based on friendship. Just the socialisation with others is likely to make people fitter, healthier and mentally enhance them. The exercise is just a bonus. So if you ever see me staggering around performing something that might, in some strange universe, count as jogging, know that, however much I appear to be loathing the movements, I know they are wholly worth it.
1 Comment
CK
16/7/2019 07:38:26
Excellent blog, Noah.
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