The Fitness Dilemma

Like most people, I have a few extra pounds on me. From time to time I get motivated and decide that I will bite the bullet and loose some weight. Then after a couple of days I slack off and go back to my previous life of sloth and indolence. What tends to push me into these get fit kicks is realizing that an activity that used to be easy for me is no longer easy. Things like spending a few hours on a mountain bike or canoeing all day, bending over to tie my shoes or eating supper without loosing my breath. I can sometimes fool myself about this by using the old "I'm getting older" excuse, but deep down I know – I'm out of shape.

Recently I read an article about these exercise balls that have been all the rage in the last couple of years. You know the ones, they're made out of stretchy rubber and you inflate them and use them for a series of exercises designed to help 'tone and contour' your abs, bum, legs and arms (and wash the dishes, do the laundry and mow the lawn). They come with instructions and a little hand pump to inflate the ball. By the time the ball is inflated with that stupid pump you are so tired you don't feel like exercising anyway. Maybe that's the real exercise with these things. Don't do the exercises, just inflate and deflate the ball over and over again. But I digress. The article I read was about a recall on these devices because of the potential of over inflation and the danger that they might explode when using them.

I have to admit that the few times I tried the one we have here at home, the first thing that went through my mind was "I hope this thing doesn't pop". In my mind's eye I could see myself flat on the floor with the remnants of the rubber ball spread out in the aftermath of a gigantic explosion. Furniture piled up against the walls, windows blown out into the yard, strips of rubber hanging from light fixtures and plants, maybe the kids up in the branches of the tree outside the window, the huge mushroom cloud above the house. Once I got the hang of it the ball was kind of a neat apparatus. But like most exercise devices, not one that would magically turn me into my 20 year old self.

In all of the times that I used the ball though, not once did I think about it being over inflated. Never even crossed my mind that it might explode because I put too much air in it. My concern was not that the ball itself was over inflated, but that I was.