Remember the Shake Weight? Remember the Abdominizer? Remember the Ab Roller, ThighMaster, Bowflex Xtreme?
Once we believed all we had to do was buy this stuff, set it up, and inevitably proceed to become ripped, buff, jacked, swole, or achieve buns of steel, possibly for only five easy payments of $19.99.
Maybe we tried these gimmicks for a while, and they were good for a while. Then they got boring, then they got wretched, then they went under the bed to gather dust. Sic transit gloria ThighMaster.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying equipment to help you get more fit. Some of it is actually really effective. But as someone who recently bought, failed to use, and then threw away a knock-off version of that ridiculous weighted hula hoop, I will tell you what I already knew in my heart: It’s not the equipment. It’s me.
External stuff I can buy and use is not what is going to change my life. What will change my life is (a) doing the thing and (b) continuing to do it. That’s one of the reasons why I return, again and again, to the simplest exercises: The ones that take advantage of my own body weight.
Broadly, this category of exercise is called “calisthenics,” and it just means you’re working against your own self, and gravity. It’s very easy to adjust the difficulty of the resistance you’re using, because it’s just . . . you. You vs. you; and you, as equipment, are automatically tailored to you, for better or for worse. No app or monitor or sensor could possibly do a better job of calibrating a suitable volume for you to work against, than you just being who you are, and deciding to go from there, and keep going.
Well, as you may have guessed, I’m talking about physical fitness, but I’m really talking about spiritual fitness, and there are a NUMBER of directions you could take this idea in.
You could think about how grace builds on nature, and the Holy Spirit prompts you to develop the gifts you already innately have, to become who you’re supposed to be. Or you could think about how, at the end of the protracted workout routine called human life, all extraneous gimmickry will be stripped away, and you will stand alone before God who will judge your fitness only and solely as you qua you.
Let’s instead take a gentler road. … Read the rest of my latest column for The Pillar (paid content).
Image from DoD (public domain) via Picryl
