Saturday 17 September 2011

weaklings

Modern society is generating a mass population of weaklings. I feel that its gone so far now that we've tipped past where its actually even healthy. Now I don't expect anyone to be like Arnold Schwarzenegger and carry a log on their shoulders (as in this clip) but seriously we bought a small gazebo in a box which was marked "two person lift" the other day and it made me laugh. Have people really become such lame assed weaklings that they can't lift something as small and light as this without "warning" printed on it?
The box was not big and didn't weigh more than 6Kg.
My wife is not anything like Arnold (weighing about 60Kg or about 130Lbs) and as you can see here carries it without the need of a "team lift"
Add to this the mania of "workplace health and safety" mandating in many of our workplaces you can't pick up anything more than 10kg and its only further tipping the scales of us being less likely to do ANY activity in our daily lives which may lead to developing or maintaining your fitness.
Sometimes I find myself hearing my grandfathers words come out of my mouth.
Poppa was a grazier and worked on properties all his life. He was a tough wiry sort of fella who loved to play tennis and work on his garden. I don't recall him saying this particular thing, but I'm sure he had his ideas about what was making us too soft back when he was telling me to stop being so lazy. He was a man who wasn't afraid to walk 2Km into town to get groceries, or haul something around by hand.
Meanwhile today everyone starts up their car to drive 2Km into the shops and then spends another 5min trying to get a park and fuming at all the other cars. People pay money to go to the gym where they ride stationary bicycles and think I'm crazy for riding a bicycle to work.
The entire occupational "work place health and safety" nutjob we've foisted upon ourselves sees a consolidation of this thinking with the local wine shop having more and more cartons of wine being boxed in 6 rather than 12 ... because 12 would be too heavy to lift. The machine of government is doing a good job in subjugating us and making us weaker.
While the intention is to protect us, I'm sure this can only have a negative impact on our health and fitness as people.

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