My Couch is a Gravity Well! – Gaming is Killing Us

According to a recent study, if you’re in your 30s, and you get fifteen minutes of moderate exercise, six days a week, you can expect to increase your average lifespan by 2.5 to 3 years.

“Yeah, sure,” some of you are saying to yourselves, “but three years isn’t that long an amount of time.  And besides, I’d spend the entirety of those three years exercising.”  And you’d be right.  Or, to be more precise, you’d be right assuming you live to be 367 years old.

Admittedly, by that point, you won’t be much more to you than a mouth and chin.  But, trust me.  That’s going to be one heck of a healthy mouth and chin.  Photoshop by Myiagy.

In Speaking From the Gut – Gaming is Killing Us, I argued that most gamers need to change their diets, because they’re overweight, and obesity often results in death.  I spent the first half of that article arguing why gamers need to eat right, shed weight, and live longer, happier, and more influential lives.  Now, I’m back like a perfectly good left sock missing its mate, reminding you that you don’t get enough exercise.  How can I be so sure?  Because the Center for Disease Control released the results of their 2013 survey and found that 80% of United States of Americans don’t get the recommended minimum exercise per week to maintain a healthy lifestyle (2.5 hours per week of moderate aerobic activity, or 1.25 hours of vigorous activity.)  Eighty percent!  Surely, if you’re getting the proper exercise, then there must be four people close to you who don’t.

And, please, non-Americans, you have no right to feel superior.  The World Health Organization reports approximately eighty percent of the children of the world do not get the recommended amount of exercise.  Want to guess what percentage of English citizens, according to a recent University of Bristol led study, didn’t meet the recommended weekly exercise regimen?  That’s right.  Eighty percent.

The worst part is, most of us know all this, and we still elect to do nothing about it.  The long term benefits of exercise are obvious, and easy to prove.  I don’t gotta throw these numbers at you; a quick survey of the people you know, both those who exercise and those who don’t, will produce similar results.  Proper exercise pays immediate dividends in our current energy levels, while investing in our future.  And we still don’t do it.  Because it’s hard.

It’s hard, and many of us are unrealistic about what exercise really provides.  For one thing, while you may lose weight exercising, you probably won’t.  I mean, sure, you burn more calories jogging then sitting.  But jogging makes you hungry, which encourages you to eat more.  You can fight your body’s natural urge to replace lost calories, but the truth is that most people don’t, unless they’re on the Biggest Loser and $100,000 is on the line.

Exercising probably won’t get you those six-pack abs, either.  You’ll look better, that’s for sure.  But after trimming a little fat, and gaining a little muscle, there won’t be many visual rewards for a long, long time.  You’ll never get six-pack abs by meeting the minimum recommended exercise requirements.  Exercising isn’t like accumulating interest in your savings account.  Thirty minutes a day will result in a thirty-minutes-a-day-body.  Gorgeous supermodels spend two hours in the gym a day.  For Olympic athletes, working out is a full time job.  You will never get a body like that unless you’re willing to spend an equivalent amount of time.  For most of us, That goal is unrealistic.

Exercise can be fun, but most times it’s a drag.   And while the immediate results of two weeks worth of exercise are encouraging, the future months of toil, matched by a continuing sense of no progress isn’t.  No wonder we’re so happy when we start a regimen, but drop it shortly after.  It never feels worth the time put into it, even though it is.  Our five senses can be an excellent judge of the truth of our reality, but, sometimes, we need to apply some Cartesian doubt and question our personal experience in favor of logic and faith.  Exercise makes us happier and healthier.  It is worth sacrificing 1/48th of our day if it means that 47/48th of our day is noticeably better.

~

Okay, so let’s say you decide to exercise, and you’re not in great shape.  Maybe you try out a vigorous sports like touch football.  It’s fun, but it’s likely to become impractical in short order.  It’s hard to line up a pick up game three times a week.  And, besides, it wears you out fast.  You aren’t in shape right now, and all breaks on the sidelines isn’t encouraging.  Neither is the terrible feeling you get when you collapse in a heap at the end of a game.

Everything hurts!  And my head… it’s so swollen…

You’re probably going to figure out, very fast, why so many people get their exercise by walking.  You can do it alone or with friends, it’s simple to do, costs nothing and requires no special equipment (although, you can still go to a gym and jump on a treadmill on rainy days.)  The problem with walking is that it takes a long time to get any real value out of it.  Don’t get me wrong:  If you’re not in shape and need to exercise, you should walk.  It’s the first step to getting in shape.  But it shouldn’t take you long to hit a plateau where just walking takes far too long to provide solid results.  Granted, any amount of exercise is good, and if all you can do is fifteen minutes of walking a day, then that’s what you do.  If, however, you’re looking to get more value from your workout, then you have two options: walk for increasingly long periods of time, or move on to something more vigorous.

I know how hard it is to move beyond a leisurely pace.  I’m a big guy at 265 pounds, and most of it is not muscle.  I hold it well, since I’m built like a coat closet, but the only time I run is when someone mentions there’s leftover pizza in the kitchen.  For me, running isn’t only exhausting and painful, but uncomfortable.  My body mass bounces around, shooting my shoulders into my neck, forcing me to shrug at every person I pass.  Even when I was a teenager and working out six hours a day, running was anathema to me.  I’m built for many things, but not that.

Besides, a body that walks thirty minutes a day is a body that can only really run for five minutes before getting winded.  What we need is a transition exercise.  Something that can help us move past ‘doesn’t scare small children when it runs’.

For me, that activity is racquetball.

…and one-handed pushups.  Image by Pixabay.

I love, love racquetball.  It’s easy to play, and doesn’t require another person.  You can pound the ball against the wall by yourself and get the same work out as if playing against someone of your skill level.  The racquet, balls and safety glasses don’t cost a lot, either (about $35 for all that and a carry case.)  Though, I admit, finding a court in your neighborhood will probably cost a gym membership.  Heck, you might not even have a court in your neighborhood.  Racquetball took a real hit since its heyday in the 1980s.  It used to be a mainstay of most (North American) gyms, but gave ground to the treadmill/nautilus revolution.  Two people playing racquetball take up a 40 x 20 x 20 foot room.  You could stick, like, forty treadmills in that space.

Still, racquetball courts are out there.  You need to spend some time looking, but, unless you live in the woods, you can probably find one near you for a reasonable cost.  For example, this humble little number isn’t turning any heads, but it works, and it’s only a couple miles from my house, hiding next to my local community college’s water pump station.

Admittedly, it’s easier to play at this court in the Summertime…

Technically, I think this is a One-Wall Paddleball court… but the point is that it’s a court, and I can come here and knock the ball around if I’m in a rush.  And, if racquetball courts aren’t really an option, there’s always tennis.  I mean, you know, if you’re a sissy.

The great thing about racquetball is that it tricks players into getting a heavy work out through a continuous loop of ‘one more shot’.  Unlike basketball, there’s no time to question whether it’s worth the jog cross court when the ball changes control.  In racquetball, when your opponent smacks the ball against the front wall, you get a fraction of second to jump to the ball and return it.  Then your opponent gets a fraction of a second to knock it back.  The game is built out of micro sprints, tricking players into running a couple miles by the end of the match.  You don’t think of the distance traveled.  All you’re ever thinking about is hitting that damn ball right now, right now, right now, until you toss off your fogged up eyeguards, check the clock by the water fountain and find forty minutes passed.

~

Listen, you don’t need to play racquetball.  That’s just what I do.  And, like I said, there’s nothing wrong with walking.  But if you’re not debilitated, your goal should be to get more value out of your workout.  Playing basketball solo isn’t as much fun, but it works.  Swimming and spinning does, too.  So doesn’t raking and shoveling.  If it takes thirty minutes to shovel your driveway, then you can save yourself a trip to the gym that day.  Keep the leaf/snow blower for emergencies only.  No leaves in your yard and want to feel productive?  Grab an axe, eyeguard and gloves and chop some wood for thirty minutes a day.  Don’t own a fireplace?  Who cares?  Donate the wood.  The point is to exercise.  The fact that you’re making the world a nicer place to live in is only a bonus.  Chopping wood doesn’t appeal to you?  You’re an inventive individual.  Create a game that does.

Yes, exercising takes time, and yes it’s boring.  I talked about some of this in my article Want to be Successfull?  Get Bored!, but the short and quick answer is ‘learn to deal with it.’  Yours is the only body you got.  You need to treat it right, because no one else will.