I spent most of my life being athletic to some degree but when I was in my 20's I started to focus almost entirely on weight-lifting and bodybuilding. I looked the part, but as far as any of this being practical strength and having any sort of endurance was concerned, I was rubbish at that.
When I first started turning the corner and wanting to focus more on overall health rather than just looking the part, I was terrible at it. I could barely do a 1km jog and this was really taxing on me and I would ache for a long time afterwards. This is from a guy that could leg-press over double his bodyweight with not much issue.
In the past year though, I have been focusing on cardio and namely running for long distances. It is not child's play for me to do a 5k and the only reason why I don't go further than 10k is mostly because I've run out of water and am sweating like mad, not because I am beat down tired.
Recently a friend of mine over the weekend asked me if I wanted to go and play basketball with a bunch of mostly out of shape people and while I would have turned this down in the past because I knew I had no cardio, I accepted this time...
And I was quite happy with the results.
Now I'm not going to lie: My shots were not great and I haven't tried to dribble a ball in years but the thing that really made me happy was the fact that with all this activity, I was one of the people on the court that was getting the least tired from all of this. A couple of the other guys that were there also had sport watches of some sort and during every break I asked what everyone's heart rate BPM was and was just absolutely delighted to find out that mine was the lowest in most situations.
This is the opposite of what this event would have looked like just 2 years ago.
I often talk about how when I go jogging lately it is my objective to remain in the zone 3 or aerobic state of heart rate and lo' and behold, even without trying, this is that a game of pick-up basketball with some buddies does for me. And we kept it going for a full two hours as well!
Moving into the future I think that I am cardiovascular ready for sports of this sort and this is awesome because I specifically avoided things like this in the past because I knew I would gas out quicker than other people and perhaps embarrass myself by needing to tell people that I have to stop...all the while being one of the guys that looks like he would be good at anything physical.
I'm not saying that weight-lifting isn't important, it definitely is and I still do it but I think that getting involved in overall health has been a wonderful transition for me and I am happy to see that the work I have put in over the past year is paying off not in just how I feel, but in how I am able to move around and enjoy things.
It might seem strange to say, but strictly lifting weights, at least in my life, has been rather counterproductive as far as my overall health is concerned and I am very glad that about 18 months ago I decided to take a different approach.
I never really even worked that hard either and this is why I think anyone can do it. Zone 3 exercise isn't very intensive and many of the experts say that even that is pushing it if you are looking for overall cardiovascular health. They actually recommend trying to stay in Zone 2.