Friday Book Report: Out of Their League

I haven’t watched any football this season.  It’s not just because my team—how do I say this delicately—sucks.  I’ve been having qualms about watching for years as a result of books like Jeff Benedict and Don Yaeger’s Pros and Cons and Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru’s League of Denial.  The whole circus around Colin Kaepernick and his peaceful protest strengthened my conviction that really this was all about hypocrisy.  Then I read (and wrote about) Harry Edwards’s Sociology of Sport, which led me to today’s book, Dave Meggyesy’s Out of Their League.

Essentially, Meggyesy’s account points out that none of the stuff that is hitting the news recently is new (the book was published in 1970).  The issues with player health, drugs, concussions, violence against women, racism, and pseudo-patriotism have been there all along.

In the Foreward, he writes about why he quit football:

“It’s hard for me to count the reasons why. But I can begin by telling you about an image that is etched deep into my memory.  The Cardinals were playing the Pittsburgh Steelers in St. Louis one rainy, cold Sunday afternoon.  We were beating them easily and then, with a minute or so to go, they scored.  I was playing end on the kickoff return team and my assignment was to swing more than halfway across field and block the third man from the kicker on the Pittsburgh team.  I watched the flight of the ball as it went straight down the middle.  Then I dropped back a few steps and began the sprint across field.  My man must have thought someone had blown their blocking assignment or maybe it was because he was a rookie, but whatever the reason, he was making a bad mistake:  running full speed and not looking to either side.  I knew he didn’t see me and I decided to take him low.  I gathered all my force and hit him.  As I did, I heard his knee explode in my ear, a jagged, tearing sound of muscles and ligaments separating.  The next thing I knew, time was called and he was writhing in pain on the field.  They carried him off on a stretcher and I felt sorry—but at the same time, I knew it was a tremendous block and that was what I got paid for.

“During the rest of my years in the pros, this image would occasionally surface in my mind.  This sort of thing happened all the time; it was part of a typical Sunday afternoon in big-time football.  But the conditions that made me feel a confused joy at breaking up another man’s body gradually became just one of many reasons why I decided to quit the game.

“After playing the sport most of my life, I’ve come to see that football is one of the most dehumanizing experiences a person can face…” (p.  3-4)

I quoted at length, I know, but I wanted to give the full force of his writing, of the conflict between the amazing athletic enterprise and the inherent violence, of getting paid to do a job well, except that job is to wreck people.

The book is engaging throughout and often funny, intentionally or through the passage of time and its effect on colloquial speech.  The whole experience is thought-provoking and produced change in my behavior.

How about now?

I am not good at patience.  Now seems like an excellent time for things to work, take effect, start, finish, whatever.  I relate to Homer Simpson, staring at the microwave, wondering if there is any faster way to get a meal.

Sadly, the world is not on my (micro)wavelength.  Habits require repetition.  Changes occur over time, in increments.  The best we can do is work as efficiently and as conscientiously as possible.

Let’s go get our reps in.  One of these days, it’s all going to pay off.

Sick fitness

When we get sick, we have to pause and rearrange our priorities.  In case that is too much trouble, here is the priority list for while we are sick.

Sleep.

Hydrate.

Eat healthy food if possible.

Move around and/or stretch enough to avoid stiffness.

When we are back to being well, we can return to our usual priorities.

(Guess how I felt yesterday…)

Monday Workout: Exercise Pair Circuit

This week’s workout is a longer circuit.  Do two or three rounds.

cardio	1 min
around the world	10 each way
overhead press	10
chest press	10
fly	10
bicep curl	10
hammer curl	10
tricep kickbacks	10
skullcrushers	10
lateral raise	10
reverse fly	10
squat	10
lunge	10

Friday Book Report: The New Better Off

(Warning:  there is a swear word in this post.  Skip the first sentence of the second paragraph if swear words offend you.)

Books tend to lead to more books.  (I am tempted to quote Bilbo Baggins’s song about the dangers of stepping outside one’s front door because roads do the same thing…)  One of the books I read recently led me to Courtney E. Martin’s new book The New Better Off:  Reinventing the American Dream.  No, there are no exercises in it, no recipes or tips for lowering our cholesterol and increasing our cardiovascular fitness, and yet it is a book deeply speaking to the larger questions of fitness.  What are we fit for?  How do we fit?  How do we make our world a fit place to live?

Martin examines the traditional ideas we hold about being “better off” and concludes that those ideas, “left uninterrogated, can be fucking dangerous.”  She posits that there is something, or many somethings, better than making more money, having more stuff, working more hours.  She examines many possible threads that can be woven into a more humane, truly better life.

Short version:  invest in community.  We are fit because we fit together.  Alone, we are toast.

This one is about sex... You are warned.

Better sex.  That’s a good reason to get fit, right?  Are we willing to work out for that?

(And I don’t mean we have to get fit so we can become some random societal ideal of hot to get dates in the first place.  That is the patriarchy speaking, and smashing the patriarchy is an excellent fitness activity as long as we manage to maintain proper posture and core control while we do it.)

Fitness means better sex for real reasons.  Like, for example, that aforementioned core control.  Core control has a direct relationship with the ability to move our pelvises like Elvis.  It keeps our lower backs from giving out on us.  More body positions become available the more core control we have.

Which brings me to flexibility and strength.  Flexibility of body allows for whatever our flexible minds suggest might be fun without that buzz-killing cramping.  The stronger we are, the more possibilities we can realize.

Cardiovascular fitness?  The more you have, the longer you can play.  Also, that playing can raise our heart rates and count toward our daily activity totals.

Always practice safe sex with consent.  That’s just appropriate behavior.

FAQ about SAQ?

This week’s workout, posted Monday, includes work with the speed ladder.  Speed/agility/quickness (SAQ) work often gets neglected, but has plenty of benefits for both athletes and non-athletes.

Bursts of speed raise our heart rates and make excellent high intensity intervals, proven to improve our cardiovascular fitness and pump up our metabolisms.  Shockingly, training for speed also makes us… faster!  Life is not a race, but really, who doesn’t want to be fast?

Agility, in this context, means that we can start, stop, and change direction quickly without compromising our excellent posture.  We need agility to escape from linebackers and to dodge wayward shopping carts.  It helps our brains, because agility, by nature, breaks us out of our always-forward mindset and reminds us that we sometimes have to go backward, sideways, or around.

Quickness is all about response time.  If we want to stop suddenly because the car in front of us has inexplicably burst into flames, we need quickness.  Mentally, we need to be alert and ready for action.  Quickness allows us to elude cheetahs and muggers, adapt to suddenly encroaching curbs, and avoid stepping on the cat.

Also:  fun.