Motivation Versus Moderation And What Is Safe Exercise For Better Health?

Tweet from Larry Creswell (@athletesheart) and FitOldDog’s (@FitOldDog) reply. Click on figure for link to article referred to by Larry.

Hi! Thanks for stopping by!

Deb in her ‘limo’ after a 12-hour night shift in the Emergency Department. Deb loves her limo (city bus) because it is free and Deb hates waste and burning gas unnecessarily. Deb is motivated to take the bus.

I must admit that I really like Twitter. It has turned into my most valuable media networking and information delivery tool. I hasten to add that the information I am talking about is the stuff that comes my way. For instance, I follow Larry Creswell (@athletesheart), and today an interesting tweet came into my Twitter stream from Larry (see above). The issue was the relationship between endurance sports and health, including a series of comments and debate. The article starts with an interesting quote from a famous runner:

“If you do it for a love of sport, that’s one thing. We understand that. But that’s not the same as doing something for your health.”

Amby Burfoot, Published, June 14, 2012

I find this puzzling, as surely the two should always be combined. How can we separate sport and health? To undertake a sport responsibly it is essential to understand its impact upon your health. If you want to exercise, via a sport, to improve your health the same applies. It is really all about respecting my favorite mantra, safe exercise for better health.

Click for Podcast describing my approach to safe exercise.

This is where the potentially dangerous conflict comes in between motivation and moderation. When I started as an amateur triathlete 15 years ago, I was highly motivated to succeed, but after two knee surgeries, some bike wrecks, and serious bonking in a race or two, I got my act together. I learned from my mistakes (eventually) and started to approach the sport more wisely and, interestingly, with increased enjoyment.

It is critical that one does not risk one’s health in order to win races or matches, or ultimately you actually lose. In my opinion, winning is all about enjoying the sport for as long as you wish or can, not a cup or medal or whatever. This is even more important in professional sports, where the athletes are role models for others – just look at the cycling drug debacle, and the negative impacts that has spawned. Which brings me to moderation and another tweet:

Tweets between Actwell (@ActwellIntl, really nice, helpful people, as it turned out) and FitOldDog (@FitOldDog), where it was indicated that Ironman training might not be considered to be moderate – in response to some comment I made about people getting off their butts and exercising (OK! Maybe I wasn’t very tactful), but this tweet spawned this blog post – fascinating topic – what is moderate exercise?