Weightlifting and Videogames
So in yet another attempt to make myself fit, I have begun working out with dumbbell weights three times a week. And what’s weird to me is that I have to fight my videogame habits all the way.
See, in videogames, it’s all about minimizing effort. The whole goal is to move efficiently and quickly as possible, with the least possible input. And so when you get really good, you’re shifting the joystick minimally, quickly, utilizing existing vectors.
Which is how I’ve approached weightlifting. But that’s wrong. When I lift weights, the goal is to maximize muscle workout – and yet here I am, waving the dumbbells back and forth as quickly as possible, not coming to a rest because it’s that much harder to get them moving again, positioning them so they work the fewest amount of muscles. And it’s taking all my willpower to go, “No, that’s playing the game wrong” and to teach myself that unlike every other game, my goal is to inconvenience myself as much as possible.
As a result, I’ve been using the same fifteen-pound weights for two weeks, but the workouts have been getting harder each time. Nothing’s changed but my willingness to stretch muscle.
Worst. Videogame. Ever.
This is why I don’t do “gym” type isolation exercises. Apart from the boredom factor, seriously, unless you have a physiotherapist advising you on what to do, the human body works well only as a complete balanced whole. Strengthening individual bits of it does diddly-squat to your fitness and actual physical performance.
Find some kind of low impact activity to start with, and do that. Heck, get a treadmill in the living room for watching TV, do some research on how to walk without damaging things (mainly just operate your hip, knee and ankle joints in the same angular plane and you’ll be right), set it for as slow as you can stand, and just walk.
That’ll be better for your fitness than just doing bicep curls (which will do nothing except over strengthen your biceps and cause you hand and arm problems).
Or find a friend and go walking outdoors (if that’s suitable where you are), or take up golf, or even wii-fit yoga (seriously, it’s actually not terrible).