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I sometimes wish we could delete the entire fitness industry from the world and replace it with a few lines of text, something like this: eat right, exercise, g
by mkramlich 16y ago
I sometimes wish we could delete the entire fitness industry from the world and replace it with a few lines of text, something like this: eat right, exercise, get adequate sleep, reduce stress, get variety, use natural motions, breathe deep, get yourself winded intentionally from time to time, when in doubt walk, etc. The vast majority of people probably never need to go near a fancy weight machine or even lift artificial weights of any kind. Just carrying out normal actions in the Earth's gravitational field, putting your body through all the natural ranges of motion it's capable of doing, is actually pretty darn adequate, and can build muscle and improve figure and physical capabilities. I believe most of the industry is not much more honest than a shyster trying to sell snake oil.
- someperson 16y agoForgive my ignorance but how exactly does being winded help somebody become fit. By getting yourself winded do you mean being punched in the stomach hard enough to lose your breath for a moment, or something else?
- mkramlich 16y agoie. go running. do jumping jacks. get your heart and lung going. push yourself beyond what your cardio system needs to do under normal/static conditions.
- yogipatel 16y agoSomething else — the feeling you get after some kind of strenuous activity that raises your heart/breathing rate. Running, for example. What you're referring to is getting the wind knocked out of you.
- dagw 16y agoFor what it's worth I've never heard what you describe called "winded". To me winded means getting the wind knocked out of you. I wonder if it is a regional thing.
- zizee 16y agoIn .au "getting winded" means getting the wind knocked out of you.
- omnigoat 16y agoIt also means running out of breath from doing too much. Curiously, in my karate dojo, we are taught to learn to fight whilst being winded - as in, having the wind knocked out of you.
- zizee 16y agoInteresting. I always think Australia's as being pretty culturally homogeneous, but obviously that isn't really true when you look really closely. I am curious to know what part of .au did you grow up in / live in? I grew up in Tasmania, lived for 10 years in Melbourne, and the last 5 in south east Queensland.
- cabalamat 16y ago> I wonder if it is a regional thing. It is.
- bpyne 16y agoIn the northeast of the US, getting winded is breathing heavily from exertion. It implies reaching your max exertion point. I would think the rest of the US uses it the same way, just based on talking with friends throughout the country. I'm not sure if our brethren to the north use it the same way.
- enjo 16y agoSame in the south and midwest... I've never heard the other interpretation at all:)
- jpr 16y agoI think he means more along the lines of "exhausted from exercise".
- IDisposableHero 16y agoThey almost certainly don't mean "punched in the stomach hard enough to lose your breath for a moment", but rather "exercise (e.g. run) hard enough to lose your breath for a moment"
- brown9-2 16y agoWhy are people downvoting legit questions?
- dansingerman 16y agoAgreed on the shyster / snake oil point. The fundamental business model of most gyms is to sign up as many members as possible, irrespective of whether those members then attend (that is why you have membership 'contracts', direct debits, etc...) Hence, gyms are optimised for increasing sign-ups - not for getting you fit. So things look shiny, modern, relaxing, appealing to some imagined lifestyle. Then in reality you end up sitting on your couch eating crisps ('chips' Americans) and feeling guilty.
- TimeForThis 16y agoThe only good thing to have come from the fitness industry, though, is to make gyms much more accessible for those of us who are either not male or not fitness-educated or not hanging around with the right crowd. Before nice shiny gyms came along, there was no way I (a woman) was walking into the garage type place that looks a bit like a minimum security prison yard. However, the problem now is that although gyms are accessible to everyone really, they are shit and the proper weights are still in the darkest mostly-large-males corner where it's still a bit intimidating to go to and bend over or lie down in the middle as the only female. So there's a silver lining but there's still a cloud.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoJust go to that dark corner. I'm a skinny guy (less skinny now), I was intimidated by that corner as well. My observation: the vast majority of those "mostly-large-males" are extremely nice, even if they do sometimes make scary faces while lifting and look like Danny Trejo. If you pick the right gym (typically in lower class neighborhoods), they might even critique your form, which is incredibly valuable.
- ebiester 16y agoIt's a lot different being a woman. Pick the wrong gym, and there's a lot of harassment that can happen, unfortunately.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoI'd strongly suggest not letting the fear of possible harassment deter you. Wait until it actually happens. Worst case, you complain to the front desk and homeboy gets out of his yearly contract 11 months early. (They usually have cameras everywhere, so it wouldn't even be a "he said, she said" issue.) Most of the very large men have no need to harass random women - all they usually need to do is walk into a bar and say "hello". And I've never met a guy at the gym who would even be tolerant of such harassment, let alone participate. tl;dr Fitness is too important to let a one-in-a-million bad event deter you. Statistically speaking, your biggest worries are poor fitness > harming yourself due to poor form/bad luck > getting harassed at the gym.