Hi-tech locals, innovative equipment, technologically advanced machines, all can get us there and/or inspire us to be more physically fit. Or can they? Sometimes the missing piece to the puzzle of physical fitness is mind fitness as well.
In a recent article, Smart Move: The Workout for Thinking People by Anthony Stoechert (U.S. 1, 12/7/11 issue) it intrigued me that getting back to the basics was the fastest, simplest, and a more secure way for a thinking person to become fit. When on a treadmill, an elliptical, stairmaster, or cross trainer, it becomes a monotonous bevy of repetition without thought, movement without concept, and push and pull without the ying and yang of your mind also being in motion. What if we had to use our minds as well as our bodies to truly get fit?
Via the Crossfit mantra, “…I will give everything I have. And then I will find more within myself” lies the essence of mind power as always present. The concept of utilizing a gym with no machines or exercise bikes of any kind is the strategem of New Jersey married couple Tracey and Andy Mahaney to encourage everyone to utilize their inner strengths to succeed and not rely on machines but their own bodies as the vessels to success, http://www.transformcrossfit.com/.
Not only are you exercising your body but you are exercising your mind utilizing, “constantly varied, functional movements performed at high intensity”. Machines don’t do the counts and repetitions while you look on at your progress. You, the exerciser, the performer of these acts, count out the push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and timed rhythms to a blaring red timer on the wall as the class tries to maintain its unison. Owner, Tracy Mahaney simply stated it best, “…more than a workout regimen, it’s a way of life that results in people doing things they didn’t think they could do.”
Can technology assist our bodies in becoming physically fit, perhaps, but the mind is a terrible thing to waste and if the possibility is available to exercise both in poetic harmony…why not seize the opportunity and see where it can take us.
