Exercise is good, especially outside on a fine afternoon

[redbird]

In a quick conversation this morning, one of my fellow proofreaders said that he doesn't have time to exercise. I refrained from telling him to make time: that I've sacrificed chunks of social life to keep going to the gym doesn't mean everyone should. But he did mention that about all he can do at work is "walk and stretch." (I threw in a plug for lying on the carpet and doing crunches, as well.) With that thought in mind, instead of sitting outside with a book at lunchtime, I did about 40 minutes of brisk walk, including a chunk of up- and downhill.

It was a glorious day for it: sun just coming out, temperature in the low 70s (low 20s C), not very humid. I walked up a nice suburban street, turned left onto Middle Neck Road [sic] when Radcliff ended, and then walked a bit through a nice bit of undeveloped land. It's not labeled as a park, it's not labeled at all, and whoever is maintaining it is doing so by mowing once or twice a year, enough to keep areas at the lawn end of meadow instead of the understory-forest end. Within those meadow areas, there are visible paths--I saw nobody else walking there, but there was clear evidence that others use it.

The beauty was that it was green: suburban gardens are all very well, but it's a treat for the eyes to look at blue sky, trees, bushes, grass, clover, and not cars or fences or walls. Instead of the distinctive noise being cars, with interruptions of lawnmowers and construction equipment (which is typical of that area of a weekday afternoon in summer), the distinctive noise was crickets, ornamented by birdsong and my own footsteps.

Then I went back to work and ate ice cream: the company had a "make your own sundae" set-up.

After work, I went to the gym: just brief cardio warmup and the Xpressline, same weights as last time. The trainer I got for most of it, a man named Gil who I hadn't met before, praised my progress over time (they staple old cards to new, so there's a nice record there). 12 reps on everything but the biceps machine.

Comments

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

Things your cow-orker can do:

Take the stairs instead of the elevator - even just down makes a difference.
Do toe-presses while standing waiting for the train.
Stand on one leg while waiting for the train or elevator.
Look up some desk exercises, print or photocopy them, and post them by their desk.
Kegel exercises (yes, guys too.)
Use the restroom further away.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's just me, but I thought that "walking and stretching" was exercise.

[celestialabyss.livejournal.com]

Rehi! (Yes, I've been markedly absent of late!)

Anyhow, you are right about making time for exercise. I need to do this as well. While we can't lie on the carpet at work and do crunches (no carpet, and you really don't want to lie on the floors in research laboratories anyway), I am making myself take the stairs more often when I go from one place to another.

The weather finally has broken; I hope to make myself walk outdoors perhaps at lunch today -- since lunch today will be more open than the ten minutes of free time I had yesterday (within a 10.5 hour stint of work). The coming weekend looks promising for the outdoors!

When I visit dad on weekends (when he's around), they have a good exercise facility in his retirement community that guests can also use.