I was watching the local news this morning for the regular “fitness” segment they run. Generally, the segments are amusing depending on what silly mechanism the reporter is telling us about, how we should try it, yada yada yada…Typically she interviews some “expert” who proceeds to give out erroneous information and generally bad advice. (Except for the time over the summer when they interviewed some guy and his client about swinging kettlebells – THAT was cool:)
Anyway, today’s segment was about flag football. They showed a bunch of twenty somethings playing that were clearly still harboring anger from being cut from the real football team 10 years ago. One of the guys proclaimed he uses flag football to “Get my workout in…” and the reporter claimed “It’s a great way to exercise…”. She then jogged about 7 feet and caught a football to demonstrate.
Me: “Whew! That looks tiring! Better sit down and stretch after THAT!”
As usual my cynicism and caustic nature forced me to poke fun at the situation, but it did remind me of a very important lesson I learned a while ago. It’s a lesson that many people still haven’t learned and unfortunately it’s keeping them from reaching their exercise goals. I call this my 2nd most important lesson I learned in the exercise world. If you missed my most important lesson, check the blogroll to the right when you’re done reading this.
My 2nd most important lesson learned is:
The terms “exercise”, “sports” and “activities” are NOT synonymous.
Unfortunately, many (most?) people use the terms interchangeably, which is a big mistake if you’re seeking the benefits of one but performing the others.
A sport is something done for competition.
An activity is done for personal enjoyment.
Exercise is performed to improve physical function.
Biking, yoga, jogging, karate, tennis, etc. are NOT exercise. They are sports where there is a competition aspect between or among the participants, or they are activities with some other goal in mind such as fun, emotional improvement aspects, etc. Their goal and purpose is NOT improvement of physical function.
This confuses people sometimes because there are residual side effects with the above activities that lead people to assume what they are doing is in line with their goals. For example, you will develop power if you train in karate – but what if power development isn’t your exercise goal? Or even if it were, there are probably more efficient ways to develop it.
If you jogged, you may improve your aerobic capacity – but what if that’s not the goal? And even if it were, there are countless more efficient, safer ways to go about it.
Taking yoga to relax? Great choice. Taking yoga to improve strength or flexibility? Bad move.
Why is this a big deal? It may not be. But if your exercise related goals are one thing, performing an activity that may not be addressing your needs and areas of weakness although possibly fun, may also be taking you away from doing what you should be doing to improve. Your sport or ativity may also be directly keeping you from getting the benefits you want when you’re exercising.
More importantly than that, these activities are also increasing the chance of injury as well. Injuries can always occur, but in a reasonably controlled setting where competiton is not an issue and improvement is the only goal, injuries are far less likely. If the goal is winning, considerations about posture, form, speed of movement etc take a back seat and injury whether it be acute or chronic becomes more likely. And as I’ve asked 10 million times: How good is your exercise program going to be because you’re skipping workouts due to injury?
Actually in the TV piece I mentioned above, they showed one of the guys wearing a splint on his thumb. If this guys’ goal was to improve upper body strength, he just decreased his chances of getting there because he thought football was his “cardio” day and “exercise”.
Of course, I’m not saying any of the above are bad choices if your goals are different – they’re just not exercise. If your goal is improved physical function, then you need to be exercising with that in mind. You should be training with the intention of improving your bio-mechanics, your metabolism, etc which typically lead to improvements in other aspects of your life if the exercise is done correctly.
Exercise is movement with the intention of improving health. The specifics of that may vary from person to person, but that's what dictates the programming.
Sports and activities are exactly what their names imply: movement with some other goal in mind. Again, going this route isn’t a bad thing – there’s nothing wrong with the aforementioned activities. It’s just not exercise and therefore won’t get you closer to your exercise related goals. Just be clear about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
And don’t listen to the twenty-something with hidden resentment when he tells you it’s a good way to “…get your workout in…”. Dangling prepositions aside, it’s also poor advice.
