From:
Better ways to waste time:
Why fall for the two-year double-bind?
If you jog consistently, then, according to fitness experts,
you'll add two years to your life. Hurrah! The bummer is you'll spend those two
years jogging!
It's no joke. An American heart specialist called Jacoby has
estimated that a lifetime of regular exercise sessions will occupy at least two
years... and lengthen your life by those same two years!
Like, hello?
From: Who needs a stitch in the side:
Most
muscles work themselves.
There are three types of muscle - smooth
(involuntary), cardiac and skeletal. The first two keep working even if you're
in a coma - operating your heart, digestion, blood vessels and bladder.
As
for the others, you use most of them just going to the toilet. If you happen to
be constipated, that includes the muscles of your face.
From: The family factor:
Your heart exercises
every beat.
Endless training's no guarantee of a long life or good
health. Whatever you do, the organism's prone to disease after 75. In fact,
persisting with endurance sports beyond thirty can shorten your life. According
to cardiologist, Dr H. Solomon, "Vigorous exercise cannot prevent heart disease
or slow its eventuality."
Sports writer James Fixx ran 60,000km in his
lifetime. He jogged around 100km even in his fifties and dropped dead of heart
failure after a race when he was fifty-four. Vladimir Kuz died of a heart attack
at forty-eight. Just two examples of many.
Most of the improvement in
function caused by exercise is not directly related to the heart but to the
effect on peripheral muscle cells and their more efficient use of oxygen in the
blood. In other words, track-work primarily trains and conditions the muscles,
not the heart.
From:
Progression and obsession:
Things are seldom what they
seem.
In professional bodybuilding, appearance is all that matters.
Fanatical contenders wreck their kidneys, livers and hearts with so many
anabolic steroids that some gym owners keep drawers full of hypodermic needles.
Some pro bodybuilders get implants in their calves. They'll inject thyomucase,
a drug made from the urine of pregnant women. They'll take hylaluronidase, the
destructive agent in spider and snake venom. And they'll spend seven hours a day
pumping iron. Bodybuilding isn't a sport. It's installation art with the
installation one's own body.
Heard enough? Then avoid the lunatic asylum.
From: Don't flex. Have sex:
Relax and
improve your sex life.
You remember what was said about the
sympathetic and parasympathetic systems? Well the sex-response is linked to the
second. That's why the man anxious about his ability fails to deliver. Impotence
and fear are bedfellows.
The much maligned Wilhelm Reich talked about
muscle-armouring - the tension and defensive blocks that prevent full expression
of sexuality. Sex is classified as a secondary drive, but a drive it is. One
that can be blocked by emotional, metal or muscular tension.
So, to get
ready for sex, avoid exercise and relax. Yes, muscles contribute to hormone
production but the fight-or-flight response is antithetical to the act.
'Sympathetic' lovers are unpredictable at the crease.
From: Breathe, don't gasp:
Jogging promotes lung damage.
You don't
believe it? Think again. Hordes of agonized sweating fools insist on jogging
beside highways. Why? Because it's flatter? Because they're exhibitionists? Or
because they want to inhale maximum carbon monoxide and heavy metal particulate?
Who knows?
If you insist on developing osteoarthrosis, run around the local
oval. If you're determined to jog beside the freeway then breathe by all means,
but don't respire.
From: Smarter ways to linger longer:
Exercise
free long-life strategy two.
Of course, smoking calms your nerves -
permanently when it kills you. But as smoking for thirty years reduces your
lifespan ten years, and as an exercise regime will be lucky to increase it more
than two, then a couch potato who doesn't smoke will live six years longer than
an athlete who does! Ba-boom!
From: Radical
changes:
Exercise creates free-radicals.
Half an hour of mildly strenuous physical activity three or four times a week
can lower BP as effectively as taking potassium supplements. But, as up to 5% of
oxygen used in mitochondria forms free radicals, such exertion also increases
free radicals in the body. In fact, everything increases free radicals - even
sunlight.
Free radicals are molecules missing essential electrons. They are
positive ions that come from oxidative phosphorylation, enhanced catecholamines
release and a whole list of other interactions. Complicated, isn't it? And if
you run a mile, you'll need the antioxidant benefit of four apples, or four
glasses of real black currant juice or five portions of onion to counter the
damage.
From: Natural attrition:
A
supple body's better than stiff muscles.
A seized-up body's an old
one. So it's vital you keep flexible. What do you think is more useful and
intelligent? A simple home-based stretching routine? Or trying to bench press
300k then bend an iron bar with your teeth?
Old ducks who persist with
toe-touching and spine-twisting calisthenics are far more practical than people
who use painkillers for their stiff joints.
They also get
rid of more wind.