Fitness Strategies

Lesson 1: Why, How and When?

Why get fit?

Equipment and preparations.

Fitting it in.

Featured fitness activity - walking.

Why Get Fit?

Why should you get fit? It's a reasonable question.

There's a reasonable answer, too.

Fit people feel better.

Fit people look better.

Fit people feel more in control.

There aren't many things we can control in modern life.

You can't change your height. If you're short, you're short. If you're tall, hey, you're tall!

You can't change your figure type. You can fatten up or slim down, but a pear shape is a pear shape, a sturdy is a sturdy and a yard of pump water is a yard of pump water.

You can change your level of fitness. You can build muscle and firm up what you have. You can build strength and stamina. You can improve your balance.

If feeling better and looking better doesn't tempt you might like to think of the bigger picture. Your heart, your blood pressure, your joints, your lungs and your blood sugar are all set to benefit. You might even lose a bit of weight.

Why Do We Need To "Get Fit"?

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we're all as fit as we need to be. Unfortunately, modern life isn't geared to staying fit.

Most human children like to run about. If you watch preschoolers out shopping with their parents, they run ahead, hop from foot to foot, swing on hands or arms or get down and play crawl-chasings through the clothes racks.

What do we do? We tell them to stop.

Why? We don't want them to get lost or hurt. We don't want them to annoy other people. We don't want others to think we're breeding undisciplined brats.

By the time kids are in their teens, most of them run only when they're in a hurry, or when they're out on the sports field, playing team sports.

Adults who don't play sport hardly ever run at all. They say it doesn't fit into their everyday lives. They think people would stare. Most of all, they find that running is uncomfortable.

Ankles turn, hair flops into eyes, spines jar, feet slide in shoes, groins and breasts and thighs chafe and flop about. Lungs ache, and what's that sinister fluttering feeling starting in the chest? I think I've got a heart!

Most of us don't seek discomfort, so we don't run. We don't even walk very far. When we do walk there's a good chance we're carrying bags of groceries, or chatting to a friend, or window shopping.

On the odd occasion that we do, do some unusual activity, we end up with sore and aching muscles, blistered feet, and sunburn.

It doesn't have to be like that. If you only get fit, most of these problems will swiftly vanish away.

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