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The Health and Fitness Express contains
the random and organised thoughts of John Miller |
In Germany in the 1500's it was a tough
assignment staying healthy. In an austere world, it wasn't just hard work that
bumped people off before their three score years and ten, it was more likely to
be a lowered resistance to plague and pestilence.
Whilst
500 or more years later clean water and decent sewerage systems seem to have
fixed all that, it still seems to be a tough an assignment for most
people to live out the three score and ten without recourse to pharmaceuticals.
Certainly it's not hard work that's killing them off and the big germs have,
by and large been blasted off the face of the earth.
Whereas a lack of the good life made for a tough life in middle-ages
Germany, it's too much of the good life that makes living dangerous in the
2000's. If you want it in a nutshell it's sloth, coupled up with laziness,
stupidity and attachment to the cushy way of life - take your pick; and
shovel.
So what can you do about it? Well, think about taking a leaf out of Johan
Tetzel's book. In 1517, Dominican monk Tetzel instituted the scheme of
indulgences as a means by which people would protect themselves from a
dreadful future, at the same time raising money for the Catholic Church (and
himself)
In a nutshell here's how it worked. Give Tetzel money and not only you could
have peace of mind but you'd reserve a place for yourself in heaven. Backed
by the might of the Catholic Church, it was a pretty good hoax, but not
quite good enough. Tetzel's downfall was that the hoax wasn't a big enough
one, it being left to his compatriots Adolf and Joseph 400 years later to
work out that if you were going to tell a lie, it was more likely to be
believed if it was a big one!
At this time one Martin (meddlesome monk) Luther made a name for himself by
disagreeing with this practice. Not only did he disagree with doing good
works on earth in order to build up brownie points in heaven but he
particularly disagreed with the practice of paying money to build them up,
the collection and the tithe excepted.
Whilst Luther will go down in history as either one of the great spoil
sports of all time or the first great consumer advocate, his lasting legacy
is the debasement of the principle that good works underpin future success.
(Nietzsche had particular low regard for Luther, who, whilst focusing on the
small hoaxes missed what Nietzsche thought were the big ones. However we're
not going to get side-tracked by Nietzsche in this article on exercise.)
But even Luther could see the funny side of Tetzel's activities as the
following passage indicates.
'After Tetzel had received a substantial amount of money at Leipzig, a
nobleman asked him if it were possible to receive a letter of indulgence for
a future sin. Tetzel quickly answered in the affirmative, insisting,
however, that the payment had to made at once. This the nobleman did,
receiving thereupon letter and seal from Tetzel. When Tetzel left Leipzig
the nobleman attacked him along the way, gave him a thorough beating, and
sent him back empty-handed to Leipzig with the comment that this was the
future sin which he had in mind.'
Source: Luther's Schriften, herausg. von Walch. XV, 446.
I'm not sure where the practice stands now but it's probably still around in
some form or the other, and compared with the great religious schemes of
history it's probably neither here or there. Latter day variations are the
chain letter I got from a David Rhodes recently telling me that if I sent a
$10 note to S. East at P.O. Box 287 Coffs Harbour in NSW, and I also sent
off 200 letters similar to the one I'd received, then in no time at all I'd
receive $70,000 in the letter box. I won't be reporting back on this one.
LUTHER'S DAMPENER
Indulgences and good works underpin the very foundations of the success
philosophy which is underpinned by the concept of sowing now and reaping
later.
To anyone with commonsense, investing now for the future makes common sense
doesn't it? It fits in with principles of saving money for a house, car or
retirement, of enterprise, where there's a good chance that something done
today, paid for today, or foregone today reaps a benefit sometime in the
future. The gods still seem to favour those who help themselves!
Luther's dampener was his belief that you couldn't save yourself from a
dreadful life in either this world or the next by doing good works. That's
definitely a nonsense, particularly in this life.
(Leaving aside the debate about whether there is a heaven or not) persuading
people to believe that good works won't get them to heaven has the effect of
having them believe that good works in this world aren't worth doing either
- particularly good works that support their own best interests - and after
all, isn't this what good works do?.
The current epidemic of poor health in our society is based in part on the
belief that you don't have to do any good works for yourself in order to
live the fit, healthy, rich and fulfilling life; good health will be
bestowed on you out of the blue. Not only is this an absurd notion but the
public medical system supports it to the tune of $60B each year. The logic
is that if the gods won't look after you then the state will. Even Adolf and
Joseph couldn't have dreamed up a better swiftie to swell the coffers of the
medical and pharmaceutical professions.
In 1500 there probably wasn't much you could do to protect yourself from
illness, but 500 years later the world has moved on. In an affluent society,
with most of the noxious germs having been disposed of, there certainly are
things we need to do to protect ourselves from future illhealth calamity.
Most people don't do them because they haven't worked out how to enjoy doing
them. But as Nietzsche said 'Learn to enjoy the things you need to do.'
THE $60 BILLION QUESTION
Is it possible to build up for yourself health and fitness brownie points,
knowing that the traps and snares of the good life stand ready, as roaring
lions seeking to devour you at every turn?
Of course it is. One of the ways is to make exercise your indulgence.
Maintain a regular and systematic training program and when some small
indulgence tempts its way onto your path you can give in to it, justified in
the knowledge that a suitable payment has been made in advance.
To Luther's credit the extent to which an indulgence won't work is where you
pay money to someone else to do the things that only you can do for
yourself. Paying the doctor and the chemist money to keep yourself healthy
is as much a nonsense as paying someone to do your exercise for you.
10,000 STEPS
More and more people are strapping on a pedometer and walking their way to
10,000 steps a day. This is a good move toward improving aerobic fitness.
However, to get the full benefit of the steps keep in mind that you also
need to add effort into the time and steps equation. Too many people are
ambling around at half rat power and it isn't doing them a whole lot of
good. The exercise physicologists say that you need to get your heart rate
to at least 60% of its maximum for the exercise to have an aerobic training
effect. (Maximum heart rate is roughly 220-age.)
AEROBIC FITNESS DIARY
Want to know how much aerobic exercise is good for you? Go to
www.aerobicfitnessdiary.com and sniff around through the pages.
I strongly suggest you get a heart rate monitor and use the aerabyte system
to measure the amount of aerobic fitness activity you do each week.
Good, better, best and never let it rest until your good is better and your
better is best.
- 4 aerobic sessions a week is good
- 5 aerobic sessions a week is better
- 6 or more sessions a week is best
- 20 minutes a session is good
- 30 minutes is better
- 40 minutes is best
- 600 aerabytes a week is good.
- 800 aerabytes a week is better
- 1000 aerabytes a week is best.
21 MINUTE AEROBIC FITNESS TRAINING PROGRAM
Here's a painless way you can get yourself back into an aerobic fitness
training program - whether inside the gym or outside in the fresh air.
- On day 1, shuffle or jog for 1 minute and walk for 20.
- On day 2, shuffle or jog for 2 minutes and walk for 19.
- On day 3, shuffle or jog for 3 minutes and walk for 18.
- Etc etc …
At the end of 21 days you'll have an aerobic exercise habit and you'll be
doing more than amble around at half rat power.
In the meantime, stay tuned; highly tuned.
Regards
John Miller |
