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To think that there was a time not too long ago within contemporary society when exercise was actually discouraged within the medical community! It was thought by medical professionals to cause too much stress upon the heart. But doctors require patients and a possible ulterior motive may have been at work, here.
Nowadays, it’s pretty much common knowledge that, just as quality of sleep is important in the maintaining of a hale and hearty individual, so is regular exercise. Physicians note that it is good for the cardiovascular, can aid in warding off some types of illness, and may if not does help in the prolonging of one’s life.
What almost everyone realizes is that anyone with the physical means of doing so has the ability to be an exerciser. It needn’t come with any financial cost. One needn’t belong to a health club or gym. It’s absolutely free.
During the yuppie era, and soon after the dawn of the fitness revolution, exercise was viewed by members of the middle class as a status symbol, as if there was some unwritten social rule restricting it from blue-collarites and the indigent. If you worked in a profession, lived in the suburbs, and were living a well-off, easeful existence, that probably meant that in your spare time you jogged or were enrolled in an aerobics class, too.
Why, even the non-health-conscious and vainglorious have gotten into the act. Is there anything more oxymoronic than a twenty-something, self-perceived stud who works out and yet smokes? That’s about as logical as a dieter who continues to stuff herself with sweets and sinkers. The former are narcissists who want to project an image of being cool, with a cig between their lips to go with their brawny pecs and abs. Go figure.
Not everyone exercises for show, though. The armchair athlete, as she is called, is one who exercises while seated, and oftentimes without those around her even aware of it. She may desire a firm gluteus, or want to shed her steatopygia or muffin-top bulge. And so she takes up what has been termed chair-obics. As her officemates sit working away, fully engrossed in their assignments and tasks, here her mind is half-focused on her backside, and although she sits for eight hours or so a day will at least come away from it with a toned bottom thanks to those daily, inconspicuous buttock-clenches.
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