No Strain, No Gain

June 21, 2013 at 3:24 pm | Posted in Practical tips | Leave a comment
Tags: Amanda Fox, chelation therapy, Exercise, weight loss

Marine recruits do push-ups, May 18, 2005, San Diego. Photographed by PFC Charlie Chavez.

Amanda Fox recently posted a valuable message about exercise and fat-control.

Her posting debunks the many sales pitches that exploit the desire for an effortless fix.

For example, she warns against cleansing.  (I used to have a healthy coworker who suddenly became convinced (probably by a sales person) that chelation would remove all of the toxic chemicals from his body, and make him even healthier.  He was enthusiastic when he told us about his treatments.  A few months later he was dead.)

Amanda also includes an astounding YouTube video.

You already knew that “if it sounds too good to be true, it isn’t true”, and “use or lose”.  But it is good to be reminded.  Attention and knowledge are not the same thing.  That is why sermons and other refreshers serve a useful purpose.

Consider this posting to be a footnote to Amanda’s.

‘No pain, no gain’ is a standard cliche about exercise.

It is false.

Pain is your body warning you of immediate danger.  During exercise it means “Stop, to avoid damage.”

The correct statement is ‘No strain, no gain – indeed, no staying even as good as you are now’.  The essential thing is frequent effort, frequently pushing yourself slightly beyond what you can now do.

It might seem that the mild soreness after exercise confirms ‘No pain, no gain’.  But soreness is a mild ache, not a sharp pain, and it comes after exercise, not during it.  Sharp pain has no redeeming value.

The mild post-exercise ache does.  It makes you like yourself.

Dance at Bougival, painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) in 1882-1883, now at theMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston.