More thought on fitness from our resident philosopher, Martin. Feel free to argue and/or discuss:

“Discipline (including fitness) is living at its most focused and transformative. Fitness transforms not just the structure and capacities
of the body, but how a person belongs moving in the world. Much of daily life focuses instead upon meeting goals to satisfy needs. Fitness is
often placed in that framework (I want to be fit to look better, or live longer, or to win at a sport.) But, as a discipline, fitness is also
about belonging.

One example of fitness as a belonging discipline is the growing fitness discipline called Crossfit. Its founder, Greg Glassman, defines fitness in this way:

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts, and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body
fat. Practice and train major lifts: deadlift, clean, squat, presses, C&J, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups,dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes,flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc., hard and fast. Five or six days per week, mix these elements in as many combinations and
patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense. Regularly learn and play new sports. – World Class Fitness in 100 Words by Greg Glassman.

Glassman’s fitness philosophy uses intense but non-specific physical preparedness. It’s popular in professions which require training for
sustained or emergency exertions in unanticipated challenges and difficulties such as police, EMS, firefighters, or Special Forces.
Crossfit is also served up across communities at all age levels, such as games in Crossfit for kids or as training for dedicated athletes.
Unlike many gyms, Crossfit facilities take on the role of traditional community centers by supporting local charities, schools, and other shared endeavors. So, the fitness disciplines open physical belonging but also provides a milieu to facilitate other types of belonging. This type of fitness discipline deepens the ways in which people can belong where they
live.

Crossfit workouts combine ten basic fitness categories: strength, power, speed, endurance, stamina, balance, flexibility, agility, coordination, and accuracy. Like fitness, these categories mean more than diet and
exercise. Crossfit combines all ten to forge a general fitness which is functional and life-ready to deal with unexpected and intense demands of life. These ten dimensions are not just a collection of measurable traits
or goals. They are dynamic aspects of fitness-discipline as it transforms spaces where we move into places where we can live. Philosophically, it’s a good testing ground for the duty to belong where we live.

For example, think of speed not as a term from physics, but as a discipline. Physically, speed is the ability to minimize the time cycle
for a repeated movement, or to move oneself faster or to perform activities more quickly. Psychologically, we often conflate speed with
haste, rushing, or hurry. But speed is also exciting, exhilarating, and empowering as a cultivated discipline. Emotionally, it is a human
substitute for flight. In a hectic world, we advocate disciplines to slow down and take time which mindfulness requires, while we forget that that speed (not haste) is also a valid discipline for which we need to find a place in our lives. It has its own spiritual power and attraction. Ask any child: what is the point of not running as fast as you can?

Why assume that children have the only legitimate claim upon speed? Human beings are built to develop many different types of speed across a
lifetime. Perhaps you get the gist of a situation faster, or identify what matters more rapidly as you age. So, we shouldn’t trust an ethos, however serenely it help us to escape or recover from a hasty, harried, and hurried life, which has no place for speed to belong in our lives.