It's never too early to play a little RL Dig Dug (image by abbybatchelder on Flickr)
“Strong people are harder to kill, and more useful in general.” – Mark Rippetoe
Having grown up in Buffalo, I’m no stranger to encountering large amounts of the white stuff vigorously and repeatedly burying the upper-right quadrant of the United States. However, living in Florida, we’re missing out on the fun.
I’m not actually being facetious or snarky, for a change. Mowing the lawn on New Years’ Day is nice, but kind of lame when it comes to instilling that whole “winter” motif. We can’t make a decent backyard ice rink, have a snowball fight, or get a “snow day” away from the office.
Put down the shovels, torches, and pitchforks, people. Well, not the shovels. Record snowfall is obviously a huge inconvenience, and we want to make sure everyone stays safe, warm, and all that good stuff. However, you can still turn it to your advantage, even if you’re not a frost-spec Mage.
While the weather may suck too much to go to the gym or do your regular routine, digging out is one of the best whole-body workouts you can do. Most of us have boring, sedentary desk jobs, which is why we’re squishier than our pre-Industrial Revolution predecessors, not to mention the hunters and gatherers way further up our family tree. When you had to bust your butt to make a living, you were in pretty decent shape as a matter of course.
Now? Not so much. Enchiladas and salads aren’t exactly hard to stalk and kill, and no matter how many words per minute you type, it’s hard to work up a sweat beating on a keyboard, reading, or messing around with a white board all day.
Whole-body exercises, like shoveling, really stoke the metabolic fires, because they get a whole lot of muscles involved. One funky workout routine that plays into this uses nothing more than a sledgehammer and your imagination. (Yes, I bought a sledgehammer specifically to do that stuff. And also, eventually, to demolish my garage.)
Doing things that require effort and exertion as part of the daily routine is a great way to make exercise not feel like another tedious faction grind. In the realm of animal husbandry, doing something unusual is called “enrichment.” It isn’t always getting a treat – sometimes it’s having an unexpected challenge or shakeup to the routine. I think we can all agree that needing to tunnel across the front yard and excavate the car qualifies.
Being able to make use of the improved strength, mobility, and general healthfulness we’re developing from our exercise routine is, in a word, awesome. Sure, lowering our cholesterol, or blood pressure, or risk of illness is all well and good, but that’s like buying car insurance. It’s a lot more fun to get out on the road and drive, and having a nicer car (body) is both more capable and more enjoyable.
But first, you need to dig out your car. Afterwards, you’ll totally have earned that cup of hot cocoa, though.
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so true! Strength is a practical (and awesome) side effect of working out. It’s not all for vanity