MARK HILL - writer guy
Why exercise is completely useless
Originally published in
The Ottawa Citizen
Why exercise is completely useless
by Mark Hill
Well, summer has finally arrived and, if you're like most Canadians, you've tossed aside your heavy winter clothing, unpacked your light, skimpy summer wear, tried it on, looked in the mirror and realized that you have a really horrible body.
Months of winter sloth, Christmas gorging and general couch-potato-ish behaviour have left you with the sort of physique that sends Moby Dick rushing off to the nearest Jenny Craig.
So, chances are, you've resolved to do something about it. Chance are you're about to start an exercise program.
Well I hate to burst your bubble here, but it is a scientifically proven fact that physical exercise is absolutely and completely useless. Oh, sure it helps you live longer and stops disease and strengthens your heart and builds up your lungs and all that good stuff. But that's not why we exercise. We exercise to become gorgeous and, for that purpose, it is quite useless.
There is only one way to become it gorgeous and it isn't by working out. The way to become gorgeous is by being born gorgeous. That's why beautiful people don't exercise. They're already perfect so what's the point?
Go out and look at the exercise areas in your neighbourhood. Check out the jogging trails and bike paths and swimming pools. You won't see any beautiful people. They've got better things to occupy their time — modelling careers, for example.
What you will see are ugly people. Dozens of them. All trying to make up for what nature failed to provide. Don't become one of those people.
If you do elect to ignore my advice and try to sweat and puff your way to Brad Pitt-ness or Claudia Schiffer-dom there are a myriad of ways to do it.
If you've got plenty of money, hire yourself a personal trainer. This is a man or a woman in terrific physical condition who, for a huge hourly fee, will come to your house and say wonderful things about your body.
Personal trainers are masters at the art of accentuating the positive. They can nearly always find something good to say about you. And when they can't, there's always that old standby, flexibility. "You have great flexibility" is what a trainer says when you are in truly rotten shape. It means "your body is a disgusting mass of wayward flab, but you are at least capable of reaching behind the couch and picking up a donut."
If you can't afford your own trainer, but still believe that anything worth doing is worth doing expensively, consider an exercise machine. There are all kinds of these devices but they all do the same thing — replicate a simple body movement in a way that is both mind-numbingly boring and extremely costly.
They appeal to people with absolutely no sense of the absurd, like a friend of mine who lives in Montreal. He has an apartment on the ninth floor of a high-rise condo. There are two indoor stairwells in the building, but half his bedroom is occupied by a $650 Stairmaster. Last time I talked to him, he was hoping to get enough overtime to afford a larger place.
A less expensive option is the exercise video. Jane Fonda started the fad, but now everybody has one. Of all the workout tapes, I like Cindy Crawford's Shape Your Body Workout best. I'm watching it now and even though I'm not actually doing the exercises, my heart rate is up, I'm starting to sweat and a certain bodily firmness is coming on.
Jogging is consistently popular. I tried it a couple of times but it made me ill. I didn't get very far before I was overcome by that vile, nauseous feeling you get when you eat rotten meat, drink spoiled milk or accidentally go to see a Melanie Griffiths movie.
Of course that's just my experience and other people will tell you that jogging is the best form of exercise yet discovered. That fellow Donovan Bailey swears by it.
So if exercise won't make you beautiful, what will?
Well, there's always plastic surgery. Sure it's expensive and risky but, in small amounts, it can work wonders. But some people go too far. They spend so much time on the operating table that they end up looking like genetic experiments gone awry.
I'm talking, of course, about Cher, a woman who has had so much plastic surgery that when she dies, she won't be buried. She'll be put out in a blue box for recycling. And for what? She was quite attractive when she was young. Now she looks like a fourth-place runner-up in the Miss Klingon pageant. On the other hand, she does have, great flexibility.
At least, that's what her personal trainer tells me.
— 30 --
The Ottawa Citizen
Why exercise is completely useless
by Mark Hill
Well, summer has finally arrived and, if you're like most Canadians, you've tossed aside your heavy winter clothing, unpacked your light, skimpy summer wear, tried it on, looked in the mirror and realized that you have a really horrible body.
Months of winter sloth, Christmas gorging and general couch-potato-ish behaviour have left you with the sort of physique that sends Moby Dick rushing off to the nearest Jenny Craig.
So, chances are, you've resolved to do something about it. Chance are you're about to start an exercise program.
Well I hate to burst your bubble here, but it is a scientifically proven fact that physical exercise is absolutely and completely useless. Oh, sure it helps you live longer and stops disease and strengthens your heart and builds up your lungs and all that good stuff. But that's not why we exercise. We exercise to become gorgeous and, for that purpose, it is quite useless.
There is only one way to become it gorgeous and it isn't by working out. The way to become gorgeous is by being born gorgeous. That's why beautiful people don't exercise. They're already perfect so what's the point?
Go out and look at the exercise areas in your neighbourhood. Check out the jogging trails and bike paths and swimming pools. You won't see any beautiful people. They've got better things to occupy their time — modelling careers, for example.
What you will see are ugly people. Dozens of them. All trying to make up for what nature failed to provide. Don't become one of those people.
If you do elect to ignore my advice and try to sweat and puff your way to Brad Pitt-ness or Claudia Schiffer-dom there are a myriad of ways to do it.
If you've got plenty of money, hire yourself a personal trainer. This is a man or a woman in terrific physical condition who, for a huge hourly fee, will come to your house and say wonderful things about your body.
Personal trainers are masters at the art of accentuating the positive. They can nearly always find something good to say about you. And when they can't, there's always that old standby, flexibility. "You have great flexibility" is what a trainer says when you are in truly rotten shape. It means "your body is a disgusting mass of wayward flab, but you are at least capable of reaching behind the couch and picking up a donut."
If you can't afford your own trainer, but still believe that anything worth doing is worth doing expensively, consider an exercise machine. There are all kinds of these devices but they all do the same thing — replicate a simple body movement in a way that is both mind-numbingly boring and extremely costly.
They appeal to people with absolutely no sense of the absurd, like a friend of mine who lives in Montreal. He has an apartment on the ninth floor of a high-rise condo. There are two indoor stairwells in the building, but half his bedroom is occupied by a $650 Stairmaster. Last time I talked to him, he was hoping to get enough overtime to afford a larger place.
A less expensive option is the exercise video. Jane Fonda started the fad, but now everybody has one. Of all the workout tapes, I like Cindy Crawford's Shape Your Body Workout best. I'm watching it now and even though I'm not actually doing the exercises, my heart rate is up, I'm starting to sweat and a certain bodily firmness is coming on.
Jogging is consistently popular. I tried it a couple of times but it made me ill. I didn't get very far before I was overcome by that vile, nauseous feeling you get when you eat rotten meat, drink spoiled milk or accidentally go to see a Melanie Griffiths movie.
Of course that's just my experience and other people will tell you that jogging is the best form of exercise yet discovered. That fellow Donovan Bailey swears by it.
So if exercise won't make you beautiful, what will?
Well, there's always plastic surgery. Sure it's expensive and risky but, in small amounts, it can work wonders. But some people go too far. They spend so much time on the operating table that they end up looking like genetic experiments gone awry.
I'm talking, of course, about Cher, a woman who has had so much plastic surgery that when she dies, she won't be buried. She'll be put out in a blue box for recycling. And for what? She was quite attractive when she was young. Now she looks like a fourth-place runner-up in the Miss Klingon pageant. On the other hand, she does have, great flexibility.
At least, that's what her personal trainer tells me.
— 30 --