Geeks and Exercise

What a happy looking piece of equipment. All yellow and sun shiny. Even the first couple swings are fun. And then, BLAMMO!

You are killing yourself. Every day you sit in your fancy Aeron chair in front of your big fancy Apple Cinema Display and you are killing yourself. It starts as an ache in your shoulders. Maybe another one in your lower back. Add another one in your neck (oh, but you just slept on it wrong). And your knees, your knees hurt (but you are getting older after all and you were a dancer for years). And you sit there, and you bang out your projects and you die a crippling death as your bones fuze together and your muscles alternately knot up or became slack and useless. I know because I was there.

And then a guy called us and wanted us to rebuild his website for him. He’s a personal trainer for older adults. We land the job, and I keep trying to understand his methods—because he owns this business with his wife and I want to make sure that a business with a similar structure gets the best of our time and attention. So the rubber hits the road, I pull my photographer along with me and we go do a workout. And we almost die. And my tooth is whistling.

Fast forward, the project is wrapping up and Steve says he wants to try working out at Age Performance. He likes that it’s a private gym (no sweaty grunters, no mirrors, no TVs). And he likes Paul—the owner who would become our trainer.

Fast forward again. It’s been six months and we’ve trained twice a week during that time. Steve looks so different we need new headshots on the web. A woman stopped me in the gym just this morning and told me how great I look. We put on some old clothes for Halloween—they were so loose I had to stuff padding in part of them. These same clothes were too tight a couple years ago.

Why We Exercise

Finding time and engery to exercise is incredibly difficult. As Paul says: as humans we innately want to 1) avoid pain, 2) seek pleasure and 3) conserve energy.

Today I want to pass along part of a blog post from Age Performance. He recently published an article Too Good to Be True listing 60 benefits to exercise. Skate over and read it in his own words, but here are the benefits Steve and I have reaped.

• Increased energy: The right combination of exercise and nutrition creates an hormonal environment conducive to fat loss, increased muscle strength and increased energy. When your body is working at peak efficiency, your energy levels soar! Everyday things become much easier to do.
• Increased Self-Esteem: Gaining control of your body size and weight through fitness is an amazing way to increase self-esteem. You look better and are more confident which empowers you in everything you do. You will find that the self-discipline required and learned through regular exercise spills over into other areas of your life and you will be better able to make other necessary and desirable changes.
• Decreased Risk of a Heart Attack: By exercising regularly and making positive changes in your diet, you lower your cholesterol and blood pressure and greatly diminish the chances of having a heart attack.
• Decreased Risk of Osteoporosis: Regular exercise, especially weight-bearing exercise, reduces the risk of osteoporosis, and can even reverse it buy building bone tissue!
• Increased Strength and Stamina: Every physical thing you do becomes easier which is immensely useful in everyday life.
• Reduced Depression: The production of Endorphins (Feel good hormones) is increased through exercise. Nothing improves mood and suppresses depression better than those endorphins.
• Decreased Stress Levels: The worries and stresses of everyday living (commuting, work demands, conflicts etc.) can stick with you long after the work day is done. Exercise right after work is the perfect natural therapy that can change your mood. You’ll sleep better too!
• And…
• Enhances quality of sleep.
• Improves body shape.
• Tones and firms muscles.
• Provides more muscular definition.
• Enables weight loss and keeps it off.
• Makes you limber.
• Improves endurance.
• Burns extra calories.
• Improves circulation and helps reduce blood pressure.
• Increases lean muscle tissue in the body.
• Improves appetite for healthy foods.
• Enhances coordination and balance.
• Improves posture.
• Eases and possibly eliminates back problems and pain.
• Makes the body use calories more efficiently.
• Lowers resting heart rate.
• Makes body more agile.
• Reduces joint discomfort.
• May add a few years to life.
• Increases your range of motion.
• Enhances immune system.
• Enables the body to utilize energy more efficiently.
• Improves liver functioning.
• Strengthens the heart.
• Improves blood flow.
• Increases maximum cardiac output.

I want to take a minute to thank Paul for becoming a great client, personal trainer and friend. This has been one of the most unique client/consultant relationships we’ve ever had and we’re grateful for it every day (even if it doesn’t seem like it at 7:30 in the morning when we get up to work out).