I thought this was important for everyone to read but I could not share the link. These are insights from a mentor that passed away. He was a force and will be missed. Thanks Peter for teaching, leading and caring. What Does “Fit” Look Like? August 17, 2011 at 8:53am by Peter Chiasson As a fitness professional and competitive athlete I am frequently confronted with the question, “ can you give me one tip that will help me get (look) more fit?” I have great difficulty not peeling my skin off my own head and restraining the columns of fire that seek to burst from my eye sockets in response, knowing that anything I say at that point in time will probably fall on deaf ears. Not to mention the one thing I tell them is meaningless without context or the other 150 tips that are required to accompany the first one. It all boils down to the fact that there are two very serious issues the fitness industry has with its perception of fitness; 1) Fitness doesn’t have one particular “look” and in fact most of the people who have that super lean and muscular appearance we are used to seeing on magazine covers and on the competitive stage are far from healthy which most seem to think is synonymous with fit… it’s not. 2) The very notion that if it were as easy as doing one or two things and keeping the rest of your chocolate cake eating, binge weekend drinking, taking your car everywhere you can, lifestyles just the way they’ve always been… is simply ridiculous. Most people who ask for “that one tip” are simply not prepared to make a serious life change, and dare I say are likely doing it for the wrong reasons anyway! (If you think the previous statement is implying that people wanting to get in shape purely for looking good is wrong in this writers opinion… you are correct). I have heard that one of the many driving forces for people engaging in fitness programs and boot camps throughout North America has to do with the anthropological concept that adheres to the need to be more attractive to the prospective mates around us, so let’s take this concept alone and examine it’s validity. Somewhere in the last 30-40 years guerrilla-style marketing has become such a powerful force in the North American existence with countless magazine covers and television commercials of hard bodies selling anything and everything. It has overridden our base instincts as to what we find attractive in a mate, which first and foremost had mostly to do with the ability to procreate for the female of the species, and hunt and protect the brood for the male counterpart. Example; females with adequate levels of body fat and hips that clearly and visibly facilitate childbirth were prime candidates for selection of a mate. I wonder how the women of today especially the elite of the fitness world would measure up in that scenario? Super-low levels of body fat making hormone levels dip to the point where often the menstrual cycle ceases altogether, and tiny waists and hips would present extremely poorly in the hopes of childbearing, which would send the male counterpart searching in the other direction. The male of the species with the ultra lean muscular physique would have incredibly unstable insulin and blood sugar levels with virtually no body fat storage thus unable to protect the brood in the cold climates/seasons and hunt for days at a time without feeding himself. An extremely inefficient existence putting the perpetuation of the species at great risk if one looks at it using the anthropological basis and context. I think here is where we have to ask ourselves, “What do we really want out of being fit?”. The popular lean muscular look that seems synonymous with North Americas’ idea of fit, may not be exactly congruent with health and longevity like we think it is. I wonder how widely circulated a magazine article would be if it was titled, “Exercise is found to be leading cause of orthopedic injury and dysfunction.” Or, “ Let’s keep that body fat percentage at higher levels so we can make babies and they can still breast feed!” Like most articles published nowadays that wouldn’t be the whole story but you get the point. Being fit should be about having more physical tolerance for our activities of daily living (ADL’s), and having a greater ability to handle and perform activities while reducing the risk of injury, period! It should be about looking forward to playing with your children for as long as possible so we can enjoy our lives with them, making sure that we can take good physical care of ourselves and our loved ones so physical exercise like walks on a beautiful forest trail or a swim at the beach are still things we can do until a very ripe old age. If all we aspire to is a “look” of fitness, I think we may be missing the point completely. The biggest tragedy I see on a daily basis as a Rehab Specialist is in the quest for fitness with the goal of a “fit looking body” people have forgotten the very basic needs of the human body to have available and maintain the health of their joints. As a result, through mindless training and compulsive exercise, we as a society are getting knee replacements at 35 years old and hip replacements at 45 years old, and these are people that “look” fit! The fitness industry needs a serious paradigm shift towards health and wellness and not using these same words to disguise a short road to wearing away our bodies prematurely. Fitness and health should be one of the most important things to all of us but intelligent and mindful fitness. Getting fit is a process; it’s not a quick fix and cannot be simplified into a “one-tip” mentality either. Fitness is complex, it’s a lifestyle and a way of looking at exercise and our ability to live long and productive lives. I’ll bet a byproduct of that will most likely be healthy looking people… but that will come in good time, not because of some boot camp that we do 2 months before our wedding just to fit into a dress that (hopefully) will only be worn once. Maybe you can reminisce 15 years later while you are in the hospital recovering from knee surgery looking at the wedding album when you were in such great shape from that awesome trainer that pummeled you for two months but made you do enough squat thrusts to fit you into that little dress. Bottom line, I have been a competitive physique athlete for 24 years and my four year old loves that daddy has big arms but the funny thing is, when I am 30 pounds heavier in the off season he doesn’t notice at all. What he does notice is when daddy doesn’t hug him right away when he sees him and he always feels how snugly daddy is when he’s being carried into the house half awake. I learned when I had my son, there is no more important reason to have a strong fit body than to care for the ones you love, and to be able to do that for a lifetime without interruption is the greatest gift in the world… to them and yourself.
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 01:15:41 +0000
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