It’s that time of year again. No, not just time for students to go back to school, or the musings about Halloween costumes becoming more serious.

It’s time for Dragon*Con, where your illustrious hosts will be herding geeks, participating in MMORPG discussion panels, and generally having a grand old time. While we’re not going to be giving any fitness-specific talks, it’s probably safe to say that we’ll be keeping an eye out for healthy eating destinations, at least some of the time. And, since some of us (okay, maybe it’s just me) have a penchant for being up first thing in the morning whether we want to or not, it’s likely that we’ll taking the hotel fitness center and hot tub for a spin.

Plus, of course, there are all the fabulous celebrities, vendors, and friends we don’t get to see nearly as often as we’d like. The Supplement-IT folks have told me that they’ll be around somewhere, too; I’m planning on swinging by to say howdy.

And, yes, there will be a fair number of calories burned because of us – Krystalle and Rafe will be spinning six hours’ worth of very danceable tunes at the MMO Gathering of Heroes party on Saturday night.

Oni's Gun Show

There’s a new convention on the calendar, put on by the irrepressible and alarmingly driven Onezumi Hartstein. Not only is she the driving force behind a new art and webcomic convention, she also draws a couple of webcomics of her own, as well as provides advice and guidance to aspiring web artists. Shoehorned around all this are a day job and a dedication to fitness that make us say, “Damn, woman.”

After a fair bit of wrangling, strategic tentacle deployment, and the dangled carrot of  a future arm-wrestling match, we managed to duct-tape her to a folding chair long enough to drag some answers out of her to see exactly how she fits this much energy into one human body.

Sinfest (c) Tatsuya Ishida

It’s practically a given – if you buy a pre-packaged “healthy” meal, it’s all but guaranteed to have broccoli in it. This penchant for bundling the ubiquitous green stuff is so pronounced that some metalhead friends of ShrinkGeek have likened an unwanted opening act that performs at numerous shows headlined by more desirable bands, “The broccoli of metal.”

What, however, is behind this? Why does broccoli wear the mantle of “default healthy food” in the same way that bacon and cheeseburgers are shorthand for “crap that is bad for you”?

Look at infinity. Now back to me. I'm on a spaceship.

We tend to maintain a fairly chipper tone around here, with the occasional good-natured admonishment to engage in healthier behavior. We think it’s good to have fun when you’re doing healthy stuff, because it’s a heck of a lot easier to do something because you enjoy it first, and enjoy the benefits of it second. Mike loves doing stuff in his kitchen, which is why he’s got the fun recipes and his hand-made healthy lunches, which frequently make the office smell really freaking good. I get my fun from picking up and throwing around heavy things for its own sake, and seeing the numbers go up or down on my spreadsheets of doom.

However, this is not a particularly perky post, perhaps peppered and pockmarked perilously by pernicious pedagoguery.  (I may be cranky, but I can still enjoy consonance and alliteration.)

So what is it that has my manties in a bunch?

This piece spun out of a conversation in the comments on our most recent guest column over at WoW.com, and it seems to be addressing a concern that many people of the geeky persuasion, fairly or unfairly, may have with the picking up of somewhat heavier things than they’re used to. Some folks are concerned about injury, or don’t want to bulk up, or simply have never considered themselves the weightlifting type.

Lifting heavy weights is not, in and of itself, unhealthy, as long as proper form is used. There are actually a lot of benefits to strength training – stronger bones, for instance, in addition to stronger and more balanced muscles. There are the aesthetic aspects, of course, even if you’re like me, and  have no designs on becoming a professional, or even amateur, bodybuilder. I just want to look good with my shirt off.