I Think I Failed My Physical

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

I celebrated my 36th birthday last week by taking a mandatory annual physical given by a local hospital at our fire department. There was the usual endless paperwork to be filled out, a stress test, blood work, etc.

One packet of information was exercise/lifestyle related. I’ll paraphrase it for you:

How many times a week do you perform 30 minutes or more of the following exercises?

Jogging/treadmill
Elliptical
Swimming
Biking

I checked- NONE

Later on, another section asked ‘‘what exercises would you be interested in participating in’’ (check all that apply):

Jogging/treadmill
Elliptical
Swimming
Biking

I repeated my vote for- NONE

A few EKG leads were slapped onto me and I was pedaling away on a stationary bike for my stress test. Because nothing simulates the general physical fitness needed to enter a burning building with 80 lbs + of gear carrying a hose like jamming a plastic bicycle seat up your ass for 10 minutes.

I pedal and pedal and my heart rate makes huge leaps from 68 bpm to 74 bpm. Finally they crank the thing up Armstrong mode and I reach the 160 mark, ending the longest stretch of steady-state non-GPP cardio I’ve done in over a year.

Next it’s off to blood draws, where I have no doubt I’ll learn some more circa-1980’s info like my cholesterol OMG CHOLESTEROL RUNZ AWAY might be a touch too high or some other useless crap.

My ‘‘fitness test’’ was done with a turn-cough and a vision test. Looking over my paperwork the girl had read through my lifestyle section had marked something on the cover in red pen.

It’s bold script said ‘‘lifestyle/fitness recommendations:’’

Beneath it was checked:

Treadmill/Jogging
Swimming

3 x a week

2

see…this is exactly why we need the “general fitness” forum

3

Actually I thought I was still in OT from earlier.

We don’t need a fitness forum, it would only have one post…steady cardio, 3 x a week.

That is all fitness is and ever will be.

4

thats the joke =P

5

I thought it was pretty common knowledge whether the goal was fat loss or muscle gain that cardio is important and should be done 5 times per week…

[quote]medevac wrote:
I celebrated my 36th birthday last week by taking a mandatory annual physical given by a local hospital at our fire department. There was the usual endless paperwork to be filled out, a stress test, blood work, etc.

One packet of information was exercise/lifestyle related. I’ll paraphrase it for you:

How many times a week do you perform 30 minutes or more of the following exercises?

Jogging/treadmill
Elliptical
Swimming
Biking

I checked- NONE

Later on, another section asked ‘‘what exercises would you be interested in participating in’’ (check all that apply):

Jogging/treadmill
Elliptical
Swimming
Biking

I repeated my vote for- NONE

A few EKG leads were slapped onto me and I was pedaling away on a stationary bike for my stress test. Because nothing simulates the general physical fitness needed to enter a burning building with 80 lbs + of gear carrying a hose like jamming a plastic bicycle seat up your ass for 10 minutes.

I pedal and pedal and my heart rate makes huge leaps from 68 bpm to 74 bpm. Finally they crank the thing up Armstrong mode and I reach the 160 mark, ending the longest stretch of steady-state non-GPP cardio I’ve done in over a year.

Next it’s off to blood draws, where I have no doubt I’ll learn some more circa-1980’s info like my cholesterol OMG CHOLESTEROL RUNZ AWAY might be a touch too high or some other useless crap.

My ‘‘fitness test’’ was done with a turn-cough and a vision test. Looking over my paperwork the girl had read through my lifestyle section had marked something on the cover in red pen.

It’s bold script said ‘‘lifestyle/fitness recommendations:’’

Beneath it was checked:

Treadmill/Jogging
Swimming

3 x a week
[/quote]

6

i think i understand what the op is getting at, i dont do those cardio things listed FOR cardio, i do them as recreational thing every now and again (cept treadmill obviously). for cardio i do high rep clean/jerks, squats and keg carries.
and i agree that those common cardio exercises would be useless to a fireman as his only form of gpp