Do You Exercise?

I walk a couple miles a day, 5 times a week. I ran a half marathon in 2004 and was working my way up to a full marathon but an injury in early 2005 knocked me out of that. Now I run a few times a week always with the idea I can build up again and as I extend my distance and frequency the lower spine begins to act up. If I just stay with-in the limits of this body and not listen to my ego, I do just fine. Basically, I'm going from infancy right to senility and never bothering to pass through maturity! LOL
john

Curt, Throw those cigarettes away! PLEASE!!!!!!!!

Okay, I tried, I really, truly did, to not say anything here, but the Physical Therapist in me (who is supposed to be retired after 35 years) and the family heritage of many, many firefighters compelled me to post a reply to this thread.

First, re: Curt's comments about firefighters: "More firemen die every year from heart attacks than are killed in fire related accidents. That's because they sit at the firehouse all day doing little, then when there is a fire, within minutes the adrenalin is flowing and they are working their butts off."

This stereotypical typecasting of firefighters as people who sit all day playing checkers or cards or wrestling thumbs is just WRONG. There are incredibly strenuous chores involved in keeping that equipment clean and ready for the next event. Ask permission to pick up a part of a fire hose (empty of course) and discover the demand for upper body strength coupled with the bracing needed in the legs and the back. Climb on and off the Fire Apparatus (one of the specialty trucks) and discover mountain climbing on a level plane. Heft around the hatchets, that must be kept clean and honed sharp, the boots and coats and helmets, insulated to protect, and you will discover the fun of free weights. Hey, just take a look at active duty firefighters and discover how many of them are portly with beer guts hanging over the waistbands and a need for suspenders to hold up their pants. Your tally should equal zero.

Part of what Curt wrote is true: More firemen die every year from heart attacks than are killed in fire related accidents....When there is a fire, within minutes the adrenalin is flowing and they are working their butts off"...because they are overheating, and breathing in toxins despite attempts to mask the smoke, getting chilled despite intensely sweating, fighting the fatigue that naturally accompanies that intense rush of adrenalin, carrying oftentimes heavy, dead-weight or worse, the dead. When they get back to the station they must clean and thoroughly check every piece of equipment before they can rest and they must make sure all housekeeping duties are complete within the fire station itself. And when they do rest it is never completely relaxing and re-energizing because there will always be another blaring fire horn alert, another adrenalin rush, even years after the station is just a memory.

Now, about exercise.

There has been one of the most insane sayings EVER associated with exercise: "No pain; no gain". As a result, people have done some really stupid stuff to the human body--which is great for Health Care Providers because it keeps us in business, but not so good for the damaged bodies. Ben Franklin was very wise when he quipped: "All things in moderation"--something he did not practice when it came to good food, alcohol, women, (too, too much) or exercise (too, too little).

Walking is one of the best exercises a human can practice. Running puts incredible strain on many bodies and wears down bone mass and alters musculo-skeletal alignment in all bodies. Running should be very carefully practiced by well-prepared humans. Swimming is one of the best cardio-vascular stimulating exercises humans can perform.

Lifting, tugging, pushing weights has a place in a careful exercise program. But a basic law of physics needs to be kept in mind. In order to burn calories one must perform work and work requires repetitive exertion. If an activity allows muscles to reach a set length or shortening, it is no longer work and it therefore no longer is burning calories.

There is a tremendous difference between having muscle endurance (sustained ability to perform an action and little caloric burn) and stamina (the ability to perform that action repeatedly and the potential for significant caloric burn). Every time a human moves the body forward, there is work involved and therefore calories burned. But the body quickly adapts to this action and so each step thereafter burns only a set number of calories (this is why a human needs to walk so far/so long for the weight to be burned off/kept off). Carrying a set weight anywhere on the body becomes part of the mass of the body and does not burn additional calories. In order to make that happen, the weight must be shifted with each step--which is why you will see walkers/runners carrying a hand weight in each hand and keeping that weight in motion. They are achieving caloric burn due to the work involved in exercising upper body muscles against resistance while lower body muscles are doing a smaller amount of work and trunk muscles are essentially in endurance mode and therefore not burning calories. The heart, because it is a muscle, is exercising to keep blood flow and oxygen at the correct levels needed for each different group of muscles.

Carrying a backpack on one's back is only work when the pack is being lifted onto the back and when it is being removed. Otherwise, no calories are being burned and therefore no exercise is associated with the use of that backpack. Motor endurance is being achieved, and that's a good thing, Curt, because at the rate you are smoking, you will need all the endurance your body can scrape together to sit up in bed in order to choke some of the slurry of tar and other by-products up and out of your ravaged lungs one of these days.

As BuiltonRock pleaded: Curt, Throw those cigarettes away! PLEASE!!!!!!!! And take the rocks out of your backpack and put in some bottles of water which you can drink as you pick up the pace of your walking (a good way to increase the benefits of your exercise program) or as you increase the distance you walk (another great benefit) or as you repeat the number of times a week or in a day that you take your walks (yet another great way to exercise.)

Okay, the Physical Therapist in me is going to go back into retirement now and all the deceased firefighters in my family are resting easier. Good, good luck to all of you who do exercise. May you reap the full benefits but please keep in mind: When there is pain, there is no gain. Pain is your body's way of telling you that something is wrong. Ignore those messages and your body will have its eventual revenge BIG TIME which is why there are so many older patients with chronic pain problems in Physical Therapy clinics everywhere.

Lady B

Ok exercise is a bad word for me.
I get exercise at work, jump off my truck, walk 2 steps and grab a chute that weighs about 50#, walk 4 steps and put it on my main chute. I do this maybe 4 times a load if they need 4 chutes, then I sit in the truck and exercise my right wrist, (it's not what some of you are thinking) on the joystick to move the chutes up and down and sideways to pour. Then after I wash down my chutes after a load I take the chutes off and stack them back on the truck. I might have 4 or 5 loads a day, then I come home and really put a workout on the right wrist, (again, not what some are thinking) on the computer mouse and eating dinner. It takes alot outta the wrist moving that optical mouse around for 3 hours an evening and putting forkfull after forkfull of dinner in my mouth. Sometimes I even put both wrists through a workout, when we have steak on the grill. The left wrist gets a good workout every day also, by smoking 3/3.5 packs of smokes a day. I normally use the left hand to smoke. Quiet often I ride the Harley and then the right wrist still gets a workout from twisting the throttle alot. Sometimes I twist it nice and slow, other times I twist it real fast.
So, my wrists get the most exercise in an average day. Legs get a heck of a workout also, walking from living room to kitchen and from living room to the Hog Barn for the Harley and from my car to my truck. I'll tell ya, at the end of the day, I am wore out from all that strenuous activity of everyday life.

Do 12-ounce arm curls count as exercise? ;D

Does mowing the lawn count? LMAO

My exercise: going to office by foot, about 30 mins. There are some days when it takes at least the same time if i go by car.

Curt, my father also smoked about fourty-something years and I think I don't smoke thanks to him (as a child I HATED the cigar smell). He quit smoking about 5 years ago, because of serious health problems.
When you want a cigar, take a pet wood and admire it, even give it a kiss and a hug, maybe it works
I have a doctor in the family and he says it's far better a glass of wine than a cigarett.

WTG about your exercises, you're good!

Adrian

Thank you Lady B

Thank you Adrian

Curt

Curt--how the heck old are you?! Put the ciggies down!!!!
And EDog--you DO NOT smoke that much---do you???!!!! If you do, I'm getting the Screamin' Eagle out and coming over to do an intervention on you right now!!!!!!!
And absolutely no rudeness intended, but to be honest, in my city, the majority of firemen are fat, lazy, and way overpaid. Many nice guys, but the rest is true too. But that's just the way it is, and it is accepted. We still need 'em.

Curt - here's how I got my dad to quit smoking - poke multiple holes in the cigarettes - if that does not work - flush down toilet - and then run like heck! Oh that was me....

I bike to work on days when it's not pouring rain - about 20 kms - (12ish miles) takes me about 40-55 minutes depending on which way the wind is blowing and how many green lights I get

Hubby is a postie and gained 10 lbs when he was on holidays for a month - lost them again when he went back to work but when we both retire (in about 17 years - yeah I'm already counting down) we'll have to walk quite a bit. My parents walk the neighbors dog every week day (unless its absolutely freezing & even the dog doesn't want to leave his doghouse)