Lesson 32. Section 1. How to keep fit?

Could you tell me how we should keep fit? Well, really what we should do is try to, erm, keep fit all round. Now what do I mean by that? I mean, er, such things as keeping up our strength and our suppleness and our stamina.

Now er, you may say why do we need all three of those things? Well, erm, strength is useful really just so that we, erm, don't strain muscles or pull ligaments and tendons when we suddenly have to do something, er, a bit energetic like lift a heavy suitcase or er, perhaps er, shift a wardrobe or even get out of a chair or a bath.

Erm, suppleness is important, er, obviously so that you can bend and more freely and reach things again without injuring yourself.

And stamina is particular important so that you can sort of keep going without, without losing breath so you have, you have endurance. One other great plus about developing stamina is that if you, er, maintain your stamina over a period of years, it actually has an effect of protecting the heart against heart disease.

So out of those three, which is the most important? Well, it depends who you are and what you want to do. I mean, the reason for keeping fit is to keep fit for your way of life, the life you choose.

And you may say, well, if I choose to sort of flop about in an armchair all day watching telly, I don't need to keep very fit, do I? Well, that's unfortunately not true, because there are always times when you have to make a little bit of extra demand on your body.

Erm, by force of circumstance. You may have to suddenly lift something heavy or move something or may have to run for a bus or whatever. In which case you could do yourself an injury and you may even actually erm harm something important like your heart.

So it is important to actually to try to keep your fitness a little bit ahead of the sort of, erm, way of life that you have. Just to give you, to push yourself just that little bit harder and get yourself just that little bit fitter.