“Shorten” said my GP Dr Vigor, “there’s no way around it. You’ll just have to do more exercise”.
“But I loathe exercise, I detest it” I said, trying to drive the point home so forcefully that he would shrink back in fear of breaking his doctoral oath to “do no harm”.
“Nevertheless” he replied “You must do more exercise. All your health tests are in the danger zone: blood pressure, resting heart rate, cholesterol, and as for your golf handicap, it’s practically off the scale”.
“OK doc” I said, bracing myself for the bad news. “Give me your prescription”.
“Good” said the good doctor. “I’m glad you are coming to your senses – at last. There’s a new program that’s come out called Incidental Exercise. It might suit you”.
“It will suit me fine if it only requires watching an exercise video while lying on the couch” I replied.
“A bit more than that, but the idea is to do exercises as you go about your daily routine” said Dr V.
“Does it involve going to the — gym?” I gulped and nearly choked in anticipation that somewhere, somehow a sweat sharing, smell sharing exercise centre would be involved.
“No” said Dr V “No gyms, no exercise equipment, no silly little lycra suits that discriminate against those with non-proportional bodies like you”.
“OK, I’m interested. Now convince me. Make the sale”.
“Well” said Dr V, “as the name implies, you do exercises incidentally, indirectly or accidentally”.
“Such as?” I asked with a suspicious glare.
“Say you’re buying some food” said Vigor.
My mind immediately went on a daydream journey through the golden arches of my local Scottish hamburger outlet.
“You’re waiting in line at the checkout, clutching your organic pumpkin, and you ask yourself “How can I use this time for incidental exercise?” You could do something aerobic like running on the spot, or something weight-bearing like throwing up and catching that heavy pumpkin”.
“I probably would throw up the pumpkin, if I ever ate any” was my witty response.
Dr Vigor ploughed on. “It doesn’t have to be too vigorous” he said, suddenly looking embarrassed that he had punned his own name.
“Alright doc” I said, hoping to get out of the surgery before he got more specific.
“I’ll try it and let you know how it works … er.. pans out” I said, having vowed never to use the word “workout” in reference to exercise.
The next day I thought I’d give it a go, if for no other reason than to get Dr V off my back, so to speak. Waking up, I swung my legs out of bed then swung them back in again three or four times, building up enough momentum to stand upright.
In the kitchen, making breakfast, I threw the milk carton up and down while I moved from the fridge to the table. Did you know that milk cartons, even with the lid screwed down tight, will leak if they’re thrown around? Neither did I.
I poured milk on the cereal using a slow, up and down movement of the carton rather like waiters who pour out cocktails to show off (so I’m told). It was a little bit of incidental weightlifting.
Putting the toast in the toaster, I thought of a clever imitation: I lowered myself down to the floor slowly as I pushed the toast down into the toaster and then popped up in a star jump at full stretch when the toast popped up. (Hint: for multiple repetitions of this exercise, put the toast setting on to 1 (light) so that you have to push it down many times before the toast is cooked),
Buttering the toast I used a super-fast rotary scraping motion to get the butter out of the container and onto the knife followed by a super-fast butter spreading action, hoping that someone else would clean up the mess. Chewing is a natural for an incidental exercise routine so I chewed each mouthful about 24 times very quickly to tone the jaw and cheek muscles.
Getting dressed offered some interesting possibilities for incidental exercise. While buttoning up my shirt I tried running on the spot, which also increased my finger skills.
As I left home to get to the railway station, I decided to try to increase my speed by skipping like a child. I did get some very strange stares from drivers who had stopped at the pedestrian crossing for me as I skipped across.
Waiting at the station platform I balanced on one leg which strengthened my ankle muscle while resting my foot on the opposite knee thus imitating a neat number 4. Some school kids started to point at me and snigger, but I remembered Dr V’s injunction, so I told them “Doctor’s orders” and they retreated, mystified.
At the office, feeling (I hate to admit it) invigorated by my pre-work incidental exertions, I realised I had a goldmine of exercise right at my fingertips.
The company had recently installed electric standing desks for all us worker drones. As a result, I could push a button to lower the desk thereby doing a squat and then slowly rise up again until I was standing on tiptoes and then repeat the whole manoeuvre.
I could continue this even while I was on zoom meetings, as the laptop and camera on the desk moved up and down at the same time as me. Unfortunately by lunchtime, constant use had burnt out the electric motor in the standing desk so I had to stop that routine. Because it had stopped with the desk at full height I needed to find a stool to stand on. However this was another opportunity and despite a few falls this developed my toe and calf muscles. However the boss banned me from ever using electric standing desks again.
At the end of the week I went back to see Dr Vigor to tell him how I got on with his program. He patched up various bumps and bruises and sprains for me and gave me his considered advice.
“These days Shorten, we are moving towards personalised medicine” he said, with more than a hint of resignation in his voice. “Personally for you I would recommend some modified exercises. Perhaps playing chess will exercise your fingers and arms and tapping your foot while watching music videos will strengthen your ankles. As for aerobic exercise I suggest you sell your home coffee machine so you have to walk to the cafe to get your cappuccino and cakes”.
“It will be tough” I said “but I think I can do it”.
Victory was mine.
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© Geoff Milton 2022
