Cover_Jan 05 (Page 2) - The Parklander Magazine

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Exercise Can Be Hazardous
To Your Health
By Steve Rice
The New Year is a great time to begin
a rigorous health regimen to create the
“New You,” who you know from many
commercials featuring the “Old” someone
or other, is “just under the surface”
waiting to emerge and jump right into
Spandex athletic gear reminiscent of that
worn by Van Halen in a 1986 video.
Another great time to begin a health regimen is during your
city’s hard junk collection day. That’s when thousands of people
place their health-producing mechanical equipment street-side
in a generous gesture that allows the healthless to also benefit
from technology.
I know this from driving through my own neighborhood,
where there is a StairFlexer, RoboAerobo or BicepBlasterXtreem
placed roughly every four centimeters along the road. Often,
these quality devices are stacked one on top of the other,
obviously placed there by very fit people who also happen
to be disposing of other health-related products such as onewheeled
lawnmowers, faux brass ceiling fans and tree stumps.
By the looks of it, my neighborhood is overflowing with
healthy people who are only too eager to share their secrets of
success. They have become as healthy as any human could
expect after 72 Easy Payments of $24.99.
While I consider myself healthy, I didn’t get this way
through exercise fads or diets. My personal health regimen is
one that involves eating on a regular basis and walking when the
TV remote is broken. And I have never gotten injured doing this.
Getting injuries is unhealthy, which the “old” me, which still
resides comfortably just under the surface, does not like.
My friend Manny is a police sergeant who leads what I like
to refer to as an “active” lifestyle. Which means he leaves his home
and occasionally enters the outdoors. And he gets hurt. Bad.
The first time I became aware of Manny being hurt was
when he was in a cast from his ankle to his hip. When I asked
him if he hurt himself doing what we journalists refer to as
“taking down a perp,” he said no, that he had done it playing
basketball.
For those unfamiliar with the game, basketball — when not
being watched on television — frequently involves exercise, which
can be healthy in the rare instances when it is not causing severe
injuries that require surgery and extensive physical therapy.
The second time I became aware of Manny being hurt was
when my other friend Chappy told me that he had crushed
Manny’s wrist while launching his boat for a day of fishing.
Ironically, I was watching a TV show about fishing at the time
and luckily was uninjured. There were no perps involved.
So as the New Year takes shape, I encourage you to devise
your own health regimen, which may or may not involve
exercise, but which should certainly involve avoiding injury. And
if you plan on being in my neighborhood anytime soon, let me
know. I’m done using the AbMaster and you’re welcome to it. P ●
Steve Rice, a South Florida native, is a former radio morning show
personality who made a transition to a career in public relations. He is also
a freelance writer. E-mail him at rice@theparklander.com
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