There I was with my fifth load of manure pushing with all my might to get the load to our upper garden. Puffing away, arms aching under the strain, I reminded myself to get the truck load delivered up hill next year. Five loads is all I managed, I would do another 5 next week or get my 16 year old to run up a couple of loads, I’m sure he will be thrilled with that task.
Back at work the next day I find a picture of a weighted sled with a note from a co-worker, “Rob, can we get one of these?” The weighted sled is designed to mimic the pushing motion I was fretting about on the weekend. Mind you, training people in my fitness centre with a wheel barrow loaded with manure probably wouldn’t go over to well but why in the world would someone in their right mind want to mimic that motion? Why not pop over to any gardener in the neighborhood and help them move some dirt? Heck, I could put you on an exercise program for free that could go on for hours if you wish, just come over to my place.
The sled is just another example of a trend that is so prevalent in our modern world. The new buzz word is “Functional Fitness.” In short, fitness routines and equipment that mimic everyday movements. We have become so inactive that we are paying for the privilege of moving. We drive our cars to the local spin studio, to sit on a bike, or go for a run and then pop in the car to travel to work. Why not run or bike to work? The average car trip in Metro Vancouver is under 2km so distance isn’t the issue. From a physiological perspective, training the body to mimic real life movements is supported by science but one needs to ask themselves, why not do the real life activity, why the substitution?
Our predecessors had a much more physical existence. Most work pre-1900s would be considered hard labour by today’s standards. Our productivity was largely governed by the physical strength of the human body. Want to dig out that foundation? Get your shovels out and if you want to speed up the process, hire some more guys. The industrial “revolution” brought some amazing labour saving practices along with lots of smog, gone were the days of wheel barrows, in came the big diggers.
The process has pretty much continued to the point that we even have devices that physically lift us up a flight of stairs. With all that labour saving technology, stress on the human body diminishes, stress is what grows muscle and bone. Add to that an endless supply of food energy and a culture of consumption and who could possibly be surprised at the current state of fitness, which is at an all time low in Canada.
I often question my role in the “exercise” industry. Yes people need to move and be active to stay fit and I play a big role in this but am I just a cog in the wheel of this new paradigm, one I intuitively know is messed up, where will this all end?
The signs of our fitness future do not look promising. Obesity is up, inactivity with the dawn of the computer has skyrocketed and with all the health talk out there it seems like the more talking we do the less action takes place. Canadian kids recently scored a D- in fitness by the Canadian Society of Exercise Physiologists, a score that seems to be dropping year by year. Solutions to this problem will be tricky, in some ways it means going back to what life used to be like and that flies in the face of our current thinking around progress. There are some signs of change popping up, ironically in our more urban centres.
Vancouver recently announced with much fan fair that it had met its target of more than 50% of all trips in the city being made on foot, bike or transit.
What our physical lives will look like in the coming years is anyone’s guess. It could continue on its way and wind up in a dystopian future portrayed in the movie WALL-E which garnered rave reviews for its satire on consumer culture, in which future humans are depicted as a group of obese gluttons who never leave their padded floating arm chairs. Maybe our future could resemble a version of Mad Max where human struggle for survival is based on a very physical future, with lots of ugly cars racing around a dessert landscape.
I did wind up turning down the request for the weighted sled but put out an offer to pop over to our property and help split some wood and haul more manure, I’m still waiting for a reply on that.
