Is Exercise Really That Complicated? (Blog Post)
Short answer, no. It's not. But we should dive in and explain why it's not, and what makes it seem so complicated to hopefully free up your mental space and perspective on it, so you can start getting after it without the worry of, "am I doing this wrong?" It's pretty wild to think that at your fingertips you have the knowledge of the entire world with the tap of a sensory enabled screen. I won't go down this path right now, but with a bite taken out of an apple on the back of my phone, and access to endless knowledge (actually, there is an end because all of this definitely isn't from God), it seems far too similar to a story in the Bible that we all know, but I will save that for another post. I know that, if you've connected with me, surely you are following other fitness-type accounts, therefore you have a plethora of information coming at you daily in context to exercise. Health and Wellness is a 4.9 TRILLION Dollar industry (can we just take half of that to reduce our national debt, please?..anything would help the 35 Trillion) and it's growing, so we know knowledge isn't the issue when it comes to getting people to set their beer down and get up off the couch. Having coached hundreds of clients over the years, the most common answer I get to the question, "why don't you exercise consistently?" is, "I just don't know what to do." The keyword in that question is consistently. I know that almost every has tried to workout in some form or fashion at least once in their life. We've all taken gym class, or P.E. Surely you've jumped rope, ran, been inside a weight room, or stepped foot on an athletic field/court, yeah? You know what exercise is, but maybe you don't understand how to string it all together. Let's start with, what I believe, is the ultimate goal should be for every Dad out there: General Physical Preparedness (GPP). GPP is very much what is sounds like: a readiness for any situation that life may throw at you. That encompasses running, lifting, throwing, pushing, pulling, jumping, and having the range of motion necessary to complete these tasks without injury. If we were to break all of that down into a workout program, we'd get something that looks similar to CrossFit, which is the methodology they stand on: Constantly varied, functional movements, done at high intensity.