Steal This Exercise Manual

by Dave Klecha

To say that the fitness industry is a very lucrative one for those involved on the selling end would be stating the obvious, so I’ll just leave it there for now.

To say that you don’t need to spend money to get fit is, perhaps, a little less obvious.  You’ve been trying, right?  You’ve heard about eating no carbs, or some diet that comes from a beach in California, or Chuck Norris has told you try his home gym, and some impossibly-muscled dude has stood there on your TV looking oily while a voiceover tells you that his body can be yours, for twenty easy payments of $99.95.  And some of it works, and some of it doesn’t.

But the truth is, you don’t have to spend that kind of money.  The truth is, you have to be prepared to deal with dull.

“What you say?”

It’s cool, I hear you.   But here’s the thing about commercials, and celebrities, and looking at people who are already all cut and oiled up:  they make it look exciting.  And they make it look quick.  And what they never tell you, because it will not help sell their product, is that exercise is dull.  Boring.  Time-consuming.  Devoid of mental stimulation which, in this short attention span society, is a recipe for disaster for most of us.
Now, the truth is, unless you want to look like Schwarzenegger in his prime, or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, you don’t need to spend more than 30 minutes a day on fitness.  And it doesn’t have to be a soul-crushing, solitary experience, so long as you have someone to work out with.

But:  fitness is a trade-off, which I think most of us accept.  You don’t need to trade-off money, though you will need to give up time and you will need to accept a certain amount of boredom.  You’ll have to accept that results are not available in four-to-six weeks and any dramatic results obtained in that kind of time should be suspect.  But, if you can accept those things, chances are you can have fitness, you can have a fitter, healthier body, and it won’t be for twenty easy payments of $99.95.

Next time:  Core fitness.