I’ve been off the gym with a heavy cold for the last week or so. I’d been planning to drop another workout or two into my routine, but after reading this article on the BBC, I’m not so sure.
So it looks like a lot of folks are addicted to exercise, with too much of it being very bad for you. Even from my earliest days, 15 years ago in back street gyms, I was always taught to take rest days. I know that a part of the early body building lore was training every day, but even back then there was dissent.
They’re right, too much exercise will pound you into the ground, you need to give your muscles time to recover and your energy reserves time to replenish. I feel I should add that this is an important consideration in any activity, not just exercise, if you check the dates on my blog entries, you’ll see that I occasionally take breaks from posting, for exactly this reason.
Coming back to philosophy, both Taoism and Buddhism consider moderation to be of top importance. I think this quote from the Tao Te Ching is relevant here, it’s usually held to go a lot further than just speech:
Sparse speech is natural
Thus strong wind does not last all morning
Sudden rain does not last all day
What makes this so? Heaven and Earth
Even Heaven and Earth cannot make it last
How can humans?Chapter 23, translation by Derek Lin, provided courtesy of Truetao.org.
Lewis says:
Timely words, Richard.. In a way, I need to take a break from my own obsession - the whole self-improvement, healing, enlightenment thing. Not that it ever truly stops, all things are part of the path - but what good is healing if at the end you find you haven’t got a life?
15 April 2007, 10:55 amLet that be a lesson to you all, moderation is key. Quite right Rich.