5. Dumbbell Fumble
(3 minutes of lifting your spirits)
My exercise regimen consists of 10 reps of bicep curls with 20 pound dumbbells and then immediately picking up my 5 ounce phone.
The phone is weightless and floats in my hand.
I feel like Arnold for 15 seconds and call it a day.
End of workout. Mr. Olympia is in the bag.
It's a new year which means new fitness goals but we can't go to gyms; not that I actually went to the gym regularly before. I fare poorly at gyms and get bored, but now I miss them because I can't go.
At some point, I searched for alternative fun workouts if you hate the gym and aerial hoop was the first suggestion.
Of course.
I can't do 5 sit ups but I definitely have the core muscles to swing and spin from a steel ring suspended from the ceiling.
Next.
I installed MapMyRun on my phone and took up running instead.
The app had ads. Ominous ads.
Before the run, I would get ads for accident injury insurance. After the run, I would get ads for cosmetic knee surgery. Their targeting algorithm was rooting for me to fall.
What a way to kill the mood.
Next.
My wife recommended attending her online group exercise class. It was fast-paced with good music but they lost me once they started yelling inspirational poster material:
"YOU are the power."
"UNLEASH the beast within."
"MAKE yourself proud today."
Chill guys. I am just doing squats in my garage, not preparing to invade Normandy. It was legs day, not D-Day.
The eternally happy instructor - with biceps larger than my thighs - always repeated: "don't think about it!" (in an effort to distract us from the pain).
We are always advised to think about everything in life: our careers, relationships, retirement, how much to tip Uber drivers.
Except in sports.
Don't think because if you do, you won't do it. That's how Nike built a $100B business: Just do it!
Take soccer for example. Tens of thousands of spectators gather in a colosseum to watch 22 adults running in a rectangle for 90 minutes with the sole purpose of kicking a rubber sphere in a wide net.
I thought that was crazy until I watched a game of American football. Grown men pile on each other to take a leather watermelon from a guy.
That's not how you treat a friend.
Can't they just order a ball from Amazon for each player and save themselves the brain damage?
When General AI takes over, it will do everything better than us except sports. But I will worry about AI once I can open 20 browser tabs without my computer crashing. I wonder what it would take to teach a MacBook to aerial hoop. Apple could release that as a feature in their new laptops and call them MacBook Air.
But that's already taken.