Radical Fitness Proposal

Yesterday I did my long run on the treadmill at the Y. When I was about 8 miles in, a woman who looked to be at least 30 pounds overweight got on the treadmill to my left. I'd never seen her before, but that's not surprising as I don't keep track of everyone who enters and exits while I'm there.

She turned to me and I saw her lips moving, but couldn't hear her over my music. I took my headphones off and said, "I'm sorry--what did you say?" She said, "I'm going to look like you in 6 months."

My immediate reaction was just to smile, and why not? I was feeling pretty good considering on the way to the Y I was seriously considering bagging the run altogether, as I was feeling the effects of 6 consecutive 16+ hour training weeks. It wouldn't have hurt at all to skip the run, but I really wanted to swim a little, so I had to at least show up, and once I got going, I felt great. I forced myself to start out slowly and decided I would "reward" myself with some Coke after 30 minutes.

After I collected my thoughts, I replied to the woman, "This took about 20 years," which I'm pretty sure took her by surprise. I know many people focus just on how it looks, not the infrastructure behind it such as the cardiovascular fitness, strength training, attention to diet, etc. Still, whenever someone asks me how long it took to achieve my current condition, I typically say it's a work in progress, but that so far it's been about 54 years...

I realized that what I said to the woman might have sounded a little stand-offish, so I then said, "But it's never too late to start, and I thank you for the compliment and good luck with your goals." She then proceeded to start up the treadmill at a pretty slow pace to just walk, and I gave her a few minutes to get going and try and do it right, but she was holding on!

I figured since she struck up conversation with me that I now had the green light to offer some advice. I took off my headphones and started gently with my usual joking around of, "Is that how you walk outside? Do you have a walker?" She said no, and then I did my usual spiel. I did something new this time, though, and said, "Let me show you how to walk with good form." I now realize that many people don't know how to walk! I slowed down my machine to 3.8mph and demonstrated--head up, chest open, arms relaxed--basically good posture moving forward. I told her that many people get this idea in their head that if they make the machine go so fast or on such an incline that they have to hold on that they aren't getting the workout they imagine and that they need to first learn how to walk at a pace where they don't need to hang on and can do it well.

That woman let go of the machine until I was finished, and then I went to the track to finish up my own run. As I was running around the track, I saw many people walking. Some of them clearly were not there to exercise, and some of them had absolutely horrendous posture. I'd say that maybe 15% of them were actually walking with good form.

And so I've figured out my next career--teaching people how to walk. Think about it--the number of kids who still walk to grade school is way down, many kids drive to high school, and then the amount of walking people do just goes down from there. When you walk a lot for transportation, you learn to walk fast, you learn to walk with good posture--because if you don't, it really doesn't work so well.

And then people get older and fatter because they are eating the same amount and not even walking anywhere. And then I see them on a treadmill giving it the old college try only they don't know how to do it properly. Or they sign up to train for a marathon where they are hoping to run but they don't even know how to walk properly.

Isn't there an old saying that goes WALK THEN RUN? Maybe I'm onto something...

After I finished up my running on the track, I went back into the cardio area and saw my new best friend on one of the weight machines. I didn't have time to walk over and show her the proper way to use it, so I just made a thumbs up sign and said, "Keep it up!" I'll just wait and see if she shows up again next Sunday. Wait until I let her in on the huge secret that the way I look is more a function of how I eat than how I exercise!