Worthless Anaerobic Exercise

Go to the gym sometime and look at the men lifting weights either to build them up or maintain them. Then think about the purpose for which they practice this routine multiple times each week. The athlete builds them up for the purpose of being better at his sport. The furniture-mover builds his muscles for the purpose of moving large furniture items – else he cannot perform his job. The vain person builds them up for how he fills out a t-shirt. Then there are those (the habituals) who work them out for the sole purpose of not losing what they've spent so many hours building. Now lets step ahead twenty years when the athlete is retired, the former furniture-mover's back is shot, and the vain is married with children.

It's twenty years later and the class of habituals has now grown larger while a new group of athletes, furniture-movers, and vains have moved in line for the bench press. Now the old and new class (aforementioned athlete, furniture-mover, and vain) of habituals are working out their muscles for the purpose of not losing what they've worked for so long to accomplish. Is this a invaluable practice? To what end, now, is the means? To work out their muscles 'til the grave so that they don't lose what they no longer (or as in the case of the original habituals, never have or will) use? Is losing your muscles such a bad thing? Does the former athlete prepare for that rare day when a sports team calls him back? So one can someday help their neighbor move from one apartment to another? In case the vain finds himself back on the market? It is shameful, is it?, to lose one's muscles? No! Why is it so hard to admit that one has no further (or past) use for them? You're committing yourself to a lifetime of maintaining something you don't need. If you had to spend four nights a week in your storage shed with crap you don't use, would you commit yourself to it or would you become so frustrated with the waste of time that you give up and sell off all your crap? Ask your wife and kids, Vain, if they'd love or respect you less had you smaller muscles.

“Use it or lose it” you say? I say “Let them (muscles) go! They served their purpose. I'm done with them.” I'd rather read or play golf or video games or go to the movies or volunteer my time than, in the dead of winter, drive to the gym to work out to a smelly sweat, take a shower, then climb into a freezing cold car while still damp from the shower, to grab the steering wheels with white knuckles during the terrifying drive home. To what end? To what end? I say! Shun the bench press for nobler causes.