Richard Mitchell, the Underground Grammarian was right. (At least I think it was Mitchell who said it.)
And it came to me in a flash one day that most people are of the belief that any exercise they do is as good as the other.
There truly is a widespread misconception that as long as an activity is, well, active, it’s doing the job.
Exercise has many meanings. You can do an exercise in mathematics, an exercise in piano class or go out and hit the treadmill. There are also exercises in futility which hitting the treadmill pretty much is.
"A word that means everything mean nothing."
What most people don’t realize is the actual problem that exercise is supposed to fix. I mean, if you had to hammer a nail into the wall to hang up a picture of Nanna, would you use a wrench? (Well, some people might I suppose.)
No. You’d reach for a hammer. And the right hammer at that.
You wouldn’t grab a roofers hammer 
or a mason’s hammer, 
you’d pick a regular old hammer 
to do it right.
When it comes to exercise, people in their innocent ignorance pick the wrong tool for the job. I am completely convinced this is because they don’t know what the job is!
Well I’ll tell you – stopping the loss of and rebuilding muscle tissue.
Yoga can’t do this. Neither can Pilates (the way it’s usually performed) or golf or jogging or tennis or swimming or hiking or biking or…
You get the idea.
No. I wish it were so. I wish a lovely stroll in the park or a pleasant bike ride ’round the park did the trick.
Fun, pleasant and enjoyable activities are the wrong tools for this particular job. A job that desperately needs to be done – by everyone.
The tool that we all need is strength training. And when that right tool is used for the right job, you can enjoy the resulting outcomes.
If you really love Yoga, if you adore a stroll with your loved one, if you live for tennis or golf, do yourself a favor and spend a mere 30 minutes a week adding strength training into your lives.
