Objectives in Exercise

When it comes to exercise, there is always some sort of goal, or at least I hope you do have one whenever you do exercise. For us non-athletes, exercise is quite difficult-perhaps I am speaking for myself only-due to the lack of interest I have towards it. I understand that there is a difference between mere exercise, and a sport. The latter is any planned physical activity undertaken primarily to improve or maintain overall fitness, usually without a direct competitive focus, whereas sport generally refers to organized activities with set rules and often a competitive element.

There is no doubt that just as sleep, food, sex, and learning, exercise is a fundamental human action vital for an enjoyable, fruitful, functional, happy life. Personally, I tend to despise exercise, especially exercises that are monotonous every single instance they are practiced. However, when it comes to sports, my interest increases as there is an objective to achieve using one's body capabilities, agility, movement, and perhaps even our reaction time and logic within the sport's set of rules, depending on the sport of course.

This is where human subjectivity comes into place: all sports have an objective to attain using one's body, which then raises the question, which sport do I prefer to practice? Which sport activity should I compel my body to endure for a prolonged period of time while trying to attain such an objective? I make no mistake, I believe that answer lies within your willingness to human physical contact. For example, monotonous sports such as swimming, running, archery, among others, have only one objective: swim faster than the other person, run faster than the other person, shoot more straight than the other person respectively, they lack a diversity of approaches that one might take to attain the objective of the sport in question, the ways in which one can "win" or attain the objective is by a single or only a small set of different approaches and moves. Again, this does not make the sport unathletic nor boring, all sports are innately athletic. As I mentioned, it all depends on human subjectivity what sports you prefer to pursue, it's just that I personally prefer to have a diverse set of steps to take in order to achieve my goal, rather than depending on a single or a few set of actions to attain my goal, especially in sports, which brings me to the other side of sports: physical contact combat sports.

Take for instance wrestling, judo, taekwondo, and boxing for example, in these sports, physical contact is imminent, and such physical contact is not only going to be invasive, but physically painful. However, the leverage of these sports is that the diversity in which one can attain the objective, or "win" is extensive, there isn't solely a single or a pair of moves to take in order to win, but several of them, and one cannot take an action just to take an action, the beauty of these sports is no only the diverse and extensive set of actions one can take to win, but also the logic behind each action, and preeminently, what's more fascinating, is that such logic depends on our opponent's actions. One cannot throw a kick to the head in Taekwondo without observing an open spot upon our opponent's head or analyzing our opponent's defense reaction time, in wrestling one has to calculate and precisely locate the force applied to our opponent's body depending on the position of both of our bodies, in boxing one cannot dodge a left strike without observing its arrival first, and don't get me started with contemporary Mixed Martial Arts, where all of these combat sports combine to form the most well-rounded combat sport, therefore the more diverse.

No other sport is better than the other, nor other sports takes more physicality and athleticism than the other, all of them are sports, which innately serve a greater purpose than having fun and winning: they keep our body in shape, they aid cognitive function, confidence, agility, flexibility, endurance, and reduces our chances of developing a disease further in life. They keep us well, healthy and happy. If you are driven by diversity in actions you take, if you like to have several options to choose from rather than depending on one or two when it comes of attaining your goal, physical sports will most likely apply to you, however, one has to keep in mind the leverage one is forfeiting for such diversity: the possibility of feeling physical pain is always present. It is a matter of asking yourself the question: should I stay safe and do the same action in order to win, or risk my physical well being and trust my capabilities, my body, my elasticity, reaction time, and knowledge of the sport in a physical diverse chess match with another human where my physical approach will not only depend on me, but the actions of my opponent, and I will be compel to respond accordingly?. It sounds pretty much like life itself. One has to be intellectually versatile to face any unexpected event that we might encounter in life. Such events might not only harm us physically, but psychologically, emotionally, and cognitively as well. When these events present themselves, having a diverse set of actions to overcome them seems safer than depending on solely one. Just a peripheral thought.