Who You Callin' Fit?

Just as I contemplated a donut-sized roll of fat over the horse's loins, I listened to his rider tell me how "fit" he was. Never mind that the horse had worked up a sweat walking 100 meters from the barn to the arena and his nostrils expanded for more oxygen at the effort of putting one foot in front of the other. No matter, she told me, this guy was plenty fit.


Mmm-hm.


Well, what about the fat roll over his loins? And around his withers? Or the lack of muscling anywhere on his body? I inquired.


That was no big deal, she replied. Rest assured that under all that chub existed a well-toned animal. Having just published a book about equine fitness, I wanted to educate her about the fallacy in her thinking but I knew from previous experience that there's no talking someone out of her fitness opinions even if I'm an expert on the topic. And where fitness is concerned, there's no shortage of strange beliefs. Such as equating chub with tone. In these conversations, I've uncovered two truths about Americans. First, we keep low standards for what constitutes fitness. Thus, being just one step ahead of total fatness gets counted as fit. Second, we hold our animals to completely different standards.





Let's take a look at these, starting with the first of what I call the American Fitness Truths. I blame the exercise gadgets and workout video craze of the 1980s and 90s, but somewhere along the way, folks started believing that a few minutes of respiration elevation in their week would get them fit. Just move yourself around for a four or five minutes every day and, voila, you had successfully combated being unfit. I've even seen magazine articles promising results from "The Four Minute Workout," which leads us Americans to form beliefs that fitness just aint that hard to come by. This has created a highly diluted definition of the term, to say the least. By this line of thinking, it seems that a vigorous shampooing in your morning shower counts at the day's workout. And for some people, I'm afraid it does.





How a four-minute session of jiggling around can be seen as a legitimate form of fitness is beyond me. But we Americans do like things to happen quickly, so the notion of truncated workouts delight us to no end. Why sweat and hyperventilate for an hour if you only need to walk briskly to and from your mailbox to get fit? The problem, as with many things, is that these opinions never get tested. Many of my students will tell me that they are quite fit, yet if I ask how they know this to be true, they lack substantiation. Have they recently trained for and competed in a an event like a 5k run?, I'll ask. Or how about a multi-day bicycle trip? Or a yoga retreat? Nope. Nada. None of the above. They just assume that since they are not completely blubbery then they must be fit, right? They never test the assumption. It would be like me thinking I'm a total brainiac but never succumbing to an intelligence test or producing any work that demonstrates mental capability.


I'm a fan of standards and validation, but I find myself frequently without company on this point. When people tell me they are fit, I'm curious how they know this. What's the standard for validating the claim? If a mechanic tells me the brakes on my car work, I want to be sure he knows it, not just has an opinion about it. The same applies to fitness. If we Americans want to call ourselves fit just because we get up and walk around during commercial breaks on television, this is perfectly fine so long as we can provide proof for our so-called claims. So, be forewarned. Should you find yourself taking a lesson from me in the near future, be ready to provide supporting evidence for any fitness claims. The fact that you are one step ahead of your neighborhood Fat Guy doesn't count.





Now let's move on to the second American Fitness Truth. This goes something along these lines: we ourselves will consistently balk at an afternoon filled with heart-pounding exercise (such as climbing a mountain) because it's just plain unpleasant, but we will not hesitate a second to impose the same task on our animal friends. We hold them to a different expectation, as if their four-leggedness makes them machine-like. We ignore that they have muscles and hearts that get just as weak and flimsy as our own. In this blindsided state, we allow them to stand around idly in a pasture for months and then one day (when they are very unfit), saddle them up and ride them into a sweaty lather while assuming it's no big deal.



I asked a gal yesterday who was mounted atop a huffing-puffing four-legged creature if she herself had ever run a half marathon. She looked at me like I'd suggested she tattoo a rainbow across her nose. And then she spurred her overworked mount for more giddyup. But how fair could that be?, I pointed out to her. How could she expect her jiggly equine friend to work his butt off for an hour or more when she was so unwilling to impose the same suffering on herself? The answer that folks always give me is that "horses are just different than us, that's how it's fair. " Call me a simpleton, but I'm confused about how differently ANY creature could respond to aerobic activity. Are these folks indicating that if I had four legs and a tail, I could just go out and run a marathon tomorrow without any training? Does a horse's heart pump differently? In the absence of muscles, does he have the ability to flex his fat ripples? Does he remain in good shape while leading a sedentary life just because he's a horse?

No, dear reader, of course not. Let me be the needle in the proverbial balloon: horses are no different than us. Their capacity for aerobic fitness is no greater or less than ours. The primary difference between man and beast is not the size of our hearts but our brains. We humans possess the larger grey matter and therefore the ability to subject pudgy steeds to our whims.

Let's stop kidding ourselves. While they may not be seated on the couch with a can of beer, our horses are NOT standing around at the ready for a mega dose of respiratory suffering. Most of us have a horse that's only one step ahead of the Neighborhood Fat Horse, a situation that might be different if we had more time. But since making a commitment to our own fitness and carving out our daily four minute workouts, our schedules have gotten tight.