“You’re a Mach Macho Man” The smell of sweat and iron fills your nostrils as you walk into the chapel of strength. It wakes you up and is a challenge to push and work even harder. Today is the day you meet your goals; today is the day to decide who you want to be. With mighty heaves, grunts and yells you overcome many different kinds of obstacles, fighting to meet your own aspirations and conquer self weakness. Your first step has led you to the gym, possibly the best place to work out, but it is only one of many stops on the road to self improvement.
Working out is not easy in the slightest – if it was, nobody would improve. Challenging ourselves is the only way we can get better, so we must constantly look for more difficult methods to do things we’ve already done. After all, body builders don’t get where they are by doing the same thing day after day. Some people have trouble pushing them self though, which is often why working out with a partner or trainer is the best way to go. Not everybody has the willpower or self motivation to exceed their limits every day, but a supporting bystander will keep us going no matter how tired we get.
There is also the chance that we run out of ideas and cannot think of any new ways to push ourselves; this is a problem easily remedied by the fresh ideas of a partner. A person consistently pushing them self as hard as they can is no easy feat, but is absolutely necessary for improvement. Exercise has been around since the beginning of mankind, even though it was not labeled as such until long after. Humans likely didn’t think about it, but they exercised every time they ran from a wooly mammoth, or chased a deer (White).
Around 400 BC a philosopher named Hippocrates said, “If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health”(White). Philosophers and doctors of this pre – AD era linked physical activity to better health; they even suspected that exercise prevented certain diseases and injuries.
Ancient civilizations like China and India started forming exercise based activities from these new insights;the Chinese with their creation of Cong Fu gymnastics, which involved various stances and animal based fighting styles, as well as other activities, like badminton, fencing, and wrestling(Dalleck). Personal exercise was first looked down upon in India, because Buddhists wanted people to focus on spiritual growth, not physical growth. From this conflict was one of the world’s most popular forms of exercise created, yoga. Yoga was created by Hindu priests who wanted be mimic the balance and peace they observed in nature; so to this day yoga is performed as a meditative activity as well as exercise (Dalleck).
Another civilization that really pushed physical fitness into a nationwide setting was Greece. Physical fitness was more important to the Greeks than perhaps any other civilization. In fact, they appreciated mental and physical well being equally; to house a strong mind, they first needed a strong body (Dalleck). Over time, the level of fitness in humanity fluctuates between who is ruling and who is not, who is civilized and who is not, but overall exercise has evolved, and will continue to do so throughout humanities life span. As society develops, so does its methods of exercise.
No matter what people to do workout though, one thing will always remain true, technique and form are all important. Good technique does not only bring better results, but prevents serious injury as well. Form has been changed and improved constantly throughout history, we have noticed what causes what to move faster, jump higher, or throw farther. If an athlete could control his movements precisely enough, physicists could tell them exactly what things to change to be most efficient. For example, a weaker shot putter could far out throw a stronger shot putter if their form and bodily control is precise enough.
Other examples include pole vaulting and high jumping, sports that require flawless form to reach maximum height. More importantly, good form is what keeps us from hurting ourselves during, or after, a workout. Our bodies were made to move in defined patterns, and moving outside of those patterns could be very harmful; our legs aren’t supposed to bend in more than one way after all. There are many different factors to keep in mind for any one workout, but there is one area that has a specific positioning in almost any workout, the back.
The back contains some of the most important muscles in the body, considering it houses the spinal column and helps keep you entire upper body held up. There are three basic options for back position: straight up, bent over and straight, or curved. Almost everything requires a straight back, whether it’s bent or erect, but some activities call for a curved form, such as pole vaulting, high jumping, or gymnastics. Back position is something to keep in mind, no matter what exercise somebody is doing, There are two basic types of exercise, aerobic and anaerobic.
Many people have argued that one of these is more important than the other, that lifting weights is more important than going for a run. The truth is, people need both types of exercise to reach their full potential, and should not limit them self to only one type. Aerobic exercise is exercise that lasts for a very long period of time, is low intensity, and requires a large amount of oxygen to help keep the body going. Aerobic exercise includes, but is not limited to, walking, running, swimming and bicycling.
Anaerobic exercise is the opposite of aerobic; it is based on the use of fast twitch muscles and short periods of energy usage. Many people view this as primarily weight lifting, but that is not the case. Anaerobic exercise can be any of the previously mentioned exercises; it just requires that a person do the activity with much greater intensity and for a much shorter length of time. For example, if somebody runs at a moderate pace, then it might take them a few miles to start feeling the effects on their muscles, but running only a quarter mile at full speed makes it difficult to walk for several minutes.
Both types of exercise have their benefits, but they should both receive attention in anybody’s workout plan. Working out is mostly done for the sake of being healthy, fit, and looking good, but there are some who exercise for a more specific purpose. Many cultures have added extra dimensions and rules into a workout to change it into something else entirely, sports. Many different cultures have created and played limitless amounts of sports, and a few have even stuck around until now. Popular sports today include things like baseball, volleyball, basketball, badminton, and of course, soccer.
However, sports do not require the general workouts that most people would do to get into shape. They require a more specific set of skills, like dribbling, kicking, throwing, and hitting all sorts of different objects – balls mostly – with high precision. Sports and other similar activities are so popular that many countries around the world actually come together every two years for either the winter or summer Olympic Games, which consists of almost every popular sport around the world.
Working out can be difficult, but the thing that truly keeps people going through their training is the thought reaching a goal. Many people desire better health and fitness for the sake of being healthy and fit.
Works Cited Dalleck, Lance C. , and Len Kravitz. “The History of Fitness. ” The University of New Mexico. Ed. Len Kravitz. UNM, 2002. Web. 6 Feb. 2013. <http://www. unm. edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/history. html>. White, Scott. Private Training Studio. Ed. Scott White. N. p. , 2001. Web. 6 Feb. 2013. <http://www. personalpowertraining. net/contact_us. htm>.