FEW WOMEN ARE JOCKS

As long as I can remember, I have been active but not for exercise. Repetitive tasks like stepping on a treadmill don't appeal to me though they might to hamsters. I've never had the body to be skilled in any competitive sports so I chose the part of me that i exercised the most, my brain and mouth, and chose to develop those instead of biceps, triceps and all of the other muscles that keep one lean and mean.

A couple of years ago, I decided to heed the dire warnings of others that if i didn't hie my rear to the gym it would soon be scraping the floor behind me. I would not be able to open childproof medicine caps, my weakness would leave me at the mercy of my children! Finally an argument that got me to the gym. I used only the Nautilus machines and worked up to moving 12,000 pounds or more a week. Lifting and pushing responsibly, I never even worked up a sweat.

One day, I thought I'd try a Pilates exercise (having found some stuff in a discount store) and felt something in my arm and shoulder pop! A sports doctor looked at an x-ray and told me I had a rotocuff tear and would only benefit from surgery though he suggested my holding off by taking PT to see if it will prolong the need for surgery. Having fallen on my left knee about three years ago, he also told me (from x-ray only) that I had no cartilage in it...bone on bone, he said, and the PT would include treatment for that to strengthen my muscles around my knee as well.

Like others who do PT, as soon as I stopped going to be forced to hurt myself for an hour each time, I was finally through and gave the masochism up. In a year or so, I had full, painless movement back in my left arm. My only exercise was what I considered 'adequate' just to traverse all three stories of my house water my plants,occasional light snow shoveling, watering my near fifty house plants, and not frequently carrying in groceries and sundries.

Sports games and exercise shows tire me out just watching them. That is when I got the word. Research shows that men are far more physically active than men. So where do those beer bellies stem? How did the term couch potato derive? If women live longer than men, and don't exercise as much, my life style is proving itself. It is too much physical activity that shortens your life. I reached this conclusion with a couple ergo, ergos in there but it seems that is how research is being done today anyway.