Spicy!

I am a big believer in variety.  It’s not just that I get bored, either.  It turns out that variety is good for us.

I write a lot about what happens when I try new things, even if I don’t like them.  I do like the sensation of being a beginner again, of having too many body parts and too much to think about in order to accomplish the task at hand, whether that’s tai chi or pickleball or whatever I decide to learn next.  That is a useful kind of variety, but it’s not the only kind.

 

We also need variety in the things we do regularly.  Cardio junkies need some weight training and gym rats need some stretching and couch surfing champions need to go outside and play from time to time.  At an even more granular level, we need to mix up the kind of cardio and the kind of weight training and the stretches we do so that it isn’t all swimming all the time or all power lifting.

 

The reason behind this is pretty simple:  bodies respond to the challenges we give them.  The more different kinds of challenge we present ourselves with, the more adaptable we become.  Adaptability is our very best insurance against injury.

 

Go play some other way today.