Exercise Doesn’t Make You Healthy…

You heard it right. Exercise doesn’t make you healthy. 

This isn’t clickbait. Exercising doesn’t make you healthy. It can even make things worse for you if you aren’t careful.

Exercising is a stress inductor. It isn’t the exercise itself that you are looking for but the response to the stress induced by exercise in your body.

Recovery is the healthy bit… or it should be.

If you go jog for an hour and recover by drinking beer, eating pizza and smoking a pack of cigarettes I’m sorry to disappoint you, but your aren’t doing things right…. You might actually be making things worse.

If you have high levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, diabetes, and high blood pressure, do you think that making your heart and lungs work harder, pumping blood faster and stronger while clinging to life is going to help you?

Probably not.

Understand that exercise is an excellent tool for getting stronger, more flexible, getting better blood circulation, healthier blood vessels and immune systems, but they all depend on a subtle balance between impactful exercice and sufficient recovery. 

So it isn’t that exercise makes you healthier, it is simply that not exercising makes you weak and ill. 

There is a difference. A subtle one but a clear one. 

For examle extreme athletes aren’t really healthy people. They tend to OVER exercise, and overtraining is a huge issue to monitor closely.

There is a balance to respect in health. And high levels of performance does not ask for balance. 

They are paid to go that far, and have staff that make sure they recover like mad. Doctors, masseuses, electrical stimulation, cold chambers…. And they still get injured, have cancer, die early, and collapse from exhaustion.

However if you DON’T exercise, or at least move around enough to break a sweat, then that isn’t normal. 

We are like cars that go rusty if we don’t move around. Balance and health are met when we move our bodies.

Exercise, then learn to recover. If you master recovery you will potentialise you efforts. 

Exercise hard, recover even harder. Take your life into account. If you work a 9 to 5 and hope to break world records, I’m sorry to put it bluntly but it will probably never happen. Except for Blaine Sumner…. but he’s a monster…

 Take small steps, recover from them, then go a little furter.

« Slow is smooth, smooth is fast »

Recovery means eating enough in quantity and quality, and sleeping enough. If you need more info on these topics make sur to read THIS article on sleep and THIS article on nutrition.

Take it easy, you have a lifetime to get better.
Morgan

Leave a Comment