Fitness applied

I'll continue with my previous post about using your fitness. Ultimately we need to start by asking the question, "Why are you working out?" That question will very likely have a different response for each person responding. Maybe you've lost some of your capacity to simply do the activities that you enjoy doing and you would like to regain that. Maybe you are a weekend warrior and would like to be a little faster, stronger, or less injury-prone for your softball, basketball, soccer, etc. games. Possibly you've got a few (or a lot of) pounds to lose.

All of these are valid reasons to work out. If any of you know me, I'm of the school of thought that says that your fitness should increase your quality of life, that is, allow you to continue to do what you need/enjoy doing or improve your ability to do those things. If your workouts don't help you accomplish this, why are you doing it? What if you just want to lose a few pounds now that swimsuit season is here? There is nothing wrong with having some aesthetically driven motivations (if we're honest with ourselves, we all do to a certain extent), but the problem I see if that is your sole goal, is that once you get there, what do you do next? Fitness and health should be a life-long pursuit, not something with a starting and ending date.

I would also make this contention: if you workout to significantly improve your body's function and increase your capacity to do work (as in physical activity, not work like a job, though they might be related), you will favorably change how you body looks. But I have seen people change how they look (usually speaking in terms of losing weight) that don't necessarily improve their work capacity and really aren't much healthier or fitter.

Don't get me wrong, some people will increase their work capacity simply by losing weight. I get that and maybe that's where you need to start. Then do that. Lose your 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 pounds or whatever it is. But you will eventually get to a point where continuing to turn that elliptical ceases to really do anything for your fitness. Don't burn calories just for the sake of burning calories. Make sure you know how to move as well.

I could go on with this, but I'll end it here. Let me know if you've got questions or disagreements.