by Ken Hutchins
When I speak out in condemnation of aerobics philosophy, it is natural that listeners assume that I criticize those who practice activities with which I have no experience. On the contrary, I am not an armchair critic. I have the injuries—back, knees, arches, ankles—to prove it.
Early Experiences
I was an avid jogger/runner for many years. I competed in the 440-yard dash during the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades (13-15 years of age). During my 7th-grade year, I so injured my lower back running hurdles that I could not play baseball the following summer. Although I continued to run on a sporadic basis, once I began weight training at the age of 15, I seemed to rekindle my compulsion each time my friend, Ellington Darden, PhD, visited our common home town of Conroe, Texas. Whenever Ellington and I visited Conroe, after 1968, we contacted one another and got together for a workout. After a couple hours of pumping weights, we went for a jog. We would jog around the block several times, to a friend's house, or out to the high school and back (six miles round trip).
From 1970-1973, I attended Texas Tech University, where I spent an inordinate amount of my time in the gym. There I first encountered a serious debate between us (weight lifters) vs them (runners/joggers). I still embraced the progressive attitude that it was bigoted to make an argument condemning jogging as inferior. I preferred what weight training could do for me, but it seemed obvious that running had a place as exercise for the vascular system, offering something that weight training did not. Just because, momentarily, I was less interested in jogging did not seem a good justification for condemnation of other's jogging interest or my own occasional interest. I sensed another deep, but unarticulated, breach with my values—perhaps something akin to: Strength and muscles are not everything. There are other important aspects of a healthy body. I should be a well-rounded person. I should be diversified in attainment of physical fitness.
In 1973, I joined the Air Force and promptly volunteered for the Para-Rescue, an elite group that specializes in high-risk medical rescues. Typical daily routine included running 20 miles. We ran in formation everywhere we went.
After only seven days, I dropped out of the Para-Rescue due to knee problems. The gung ho sergeants assured me that the super doctors of the Air Force would take care of me. I knew better. By 1973, I was at least aware enough of their backwardness regarding exercise and physical therapy not to be suckered by their true-believer bull. I opted to become a surgery technician.
In late 1973, I was infected with hepatitis and was confined to a military hospital for 21 days. Once released from the hospital, I went home for the Christmas holidays and met up with Ellington. He and I worked out, then took a run out to the high school and around some of the neighborhoods. I afterwards complained to my father that my lower ribs felt bruised. Atypically, he became very excited and alarmed. He warned me that by intense exertional activity, I could still relapse the hepatic condition. If I did, I might die.
Once stationed in Abilene, Texas, and reasonably certain that the hepatitis was fully recovered, I resumed both my weight training and my running activities. I ran a fast mile after work almost every day. I enjoyed this for a while until my knees began to feel unstable. They did not hurt, but they felt as though my knee caps were vibrating off with each step I took. Eventually, I broke down and phoned for advice from Ellington, who, by this time was working for Arthur Jones at Nautilus Sports/Medical. I was astonished when Ellington bluntly told me to quit. He then admitted that his knees had been damaged by his jogging activities to the point that, he, too had had to stop.
Ellington had not jogged much until the early 70s, other than the obligatory running that he had done for football practices. He asserted (November 20, 1994) that it was difficult to be involved in fitness during the late 60s and 70s without jogging due to the widespread influence of aerobics. Nevertheless, he rarely jogged more than three or four miles and practiced such on a regular basis for only three to four years before he began to experience patellar chondromalacia. He believes that his overt problems began by running on a banked indoor track in Atlanta.
My Nautilus Inculcation
I first met Arthur Jones in July 1976. At the time, Arthur was having an impromptu discussion with Jim Key, MD, Nautilus Orthopaedic Consultant. The topic was Positive Addiction, then a new book by William Glasser, MD. In his book, Glasser discussed the fact that many joggers are so guilt ridden, that despite extremely painful injuries, they continue to jog—bandages and wraps applied—to their physical detriment, rather than suffer the consequences of the horrendous guilt and depression that ensues if they miss their run. Apparently, this conclusion is not exactly what Glasser intended for the reader to interpret from his book, because his notion of positive addiction held that running was extremely healthy. He defined positive addiction as an addiction that strengthens us [emotionally] and makes our lives more satisfying. Glasser devoted an entire chapter to running, extolling it as the best positive addition. With this, I was slowly beginning to appreciate Nautilus' covert attitudes against aerobics inconsistencies that were missing from overt Nautilus literature.
By 1977, I was working at Nautilus, assisting Ellington by ghostwriting a book authored by Jim Key. Key was a fanatic runner, as well as a personal friend of Kenneth Cooper. I spent many afternoons riding a bicycle around Lake Helen. As I pedaled the bike, I interviewed Key for the book. I periodically stopped, wrote notes, then pedaled to catch up with Key. I remember a few humorous moments when Key ran down the main drive through Lake Helen with me following on bicycle, while Arthur Jones drove beside us in a Lincoln Town Car, talking out the window at 5 m.p.h., ribbing Key about his stupidity as a jogger. Key was always a good sport about the teasing. (He had ruptured a vertebral disc while running the 1976 Boston Marathon. I then wondered if he was capable of learning from his mistakes.)
Occasionally, during 1978, I was in the gym when Ellington trained. He typically did several sets of limited-arc leg curls and leg extensions to lubricate his knees prior to his actual workout. Even then, you could hear the crepitus popping in his knees from across the room as he performed leg extensions.
In the 1970-80s, Susan Cunningham was an undercover cop and a gold medal winner in the 440, 880, and arm wrestling events of the annual Florida Police Olympics. She did well in the nationals. She also enjoyed tennis and kayaking. At some time during 1978, I entered the Nautilus gym/showroom and observed Ellington training Susan on a leg extension machine. Obviously, Susan was in a great deal of pain. She was crying, yelling, screaming, wincing. I became curious and asked Ellington what all the fuss was about. “What's the matter with Susan? Is she injured?“ As he characteristically rolled his eyes with patient frustration, Ellington said, “Oh, she's a jogger.“ Susan had severe chondromalacia of the patella.
Rubin Setliffe
In approximately 1981, I met Rubin Setliffe, MD, an ENT specialist. Ed Farnham, then general manager at Nautilus, insisted that I meet Rubin during one of the first Nautilus Seminars. The first few were held at a local hotel in De Land, Florida, instead of at the Lake Helen studios. During the bustle of the seminar, I could not engage Rubin, though I suspected who he was. Only after the seminar had adjourned was I to meet him in the parking lot of the hotel. There, I was answering some final questions to several attendees as Rubin approached in jogging garb. It was beginning to get dark, and Rubin asked for directions where he could go jogging. I pointed him down the highway and directed him to turn onto a private road around a lake. I indicated that I had never been down that particular road, but that I knew where it came back out onto the highway.
Six months later, Rubin was the Nautilus distributor for Wyoming. On a flyby from San Diego, I stopped in Sheridan to assist Rubin with exercise protocol and concepts. We had a good talk late into the night. During this discussion, our first meeting came up. Rubin said, “Ken, stop right there and I will tell you what you were thinking when you first met me outside the hotel that night in De Land. You were thinking, ‘You dumb jogger.’” I admitted that he was correct. Then he admitted that he had gotten lost in the dark on that private road that must have gone on for miles before it returned to the highway. He then related his final experiences as a jogger.
“About two weeks after returning to Sheridan from the Nautilus Seminar, I went to my bank to make a deposit. A teller that had known me for years said, ‘Rubin, you look so old.’ That got me to reflect about how I had been climbing all over these Wyoming mountains for years without joint problems and through the advent of jogging, my joints hurt all the time. I quit instantly.”
Arthur Jones with Stephen Langer
In the early 1980s, Stephen Langer, MD, recorded his Medicine Man video series at the Nautilus Television Studios. In this series, he interviewed Arthur Jones twice. The second interview focused on exercise for women:
Langer: The term, bodybuilding. What part of the body is being built when a woman is training?
Arthur: Women can do, women should do, and any woman will improve—markedly improve—her appearance by doing proper exercise and that includes lifting of weights. In fact, that just about is limited to the lifting of weights in one form or another, because no other form of exercise is of any real value, particularly for the purpose of shaping and toning the body, improving your endurance, your cardiovascular ability, your flexibility, and all the other possible benefits that women need.
Langer: You mentioned lifting of weights and improving your cardiovascular ability. Can you, in fact, improve your cardiovascular ability by lifting weights?
Arthur: Steve, the lifting of weights is so much superior for the purpose of improving the cardiovascular condition of a human being that whatever is in second place is not even in the running, no pun intended. That is to say, running is a very poor, a very dangerous, a very slow, a very inefficient, a very nonproductive method for eventually producing a very limited, low order of cardiovascular benefit. Any, ANY, result that can be produced by any amount of running can be duplicated and surpassed by the proper use of weight lifting for cardiovascular benefits. Now I realize that there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people in this country who don't understand that, who don't believe that, who will not admit that. Now these people are simply uninformed. Certainly, it's possible to run with no benefit, it's possible to lift weights with no benefit. I'm talking about the proper use of weight lifting; and properly applied, weight lifting will improve your cardiovascular benefit to a degree that is impossible to attain with any amount of running.
x
A few months later, David Liskin, a Nautilus Video producer, transcribed this Medicine Man interview. David wanted to publish the transcription in lieu of coercing Arthur to write an article for Nautilus Magazine. David believed that in so doing, all that he needed was Arthur's signature of approval. He would save Arthur the trouble of writing an article and simultaneously get Arthur back into print. When Arthur read the transcription, he roared at Dave that “This is too strong, too strong. Who wrote this?” Dave then said, “Arthur, you did.” (Or, at least, Arthur said it.)
Haunted by My Past Mistakes
One day in early 1982, I awoke at 3 a.m. with extreme pain in my feet. At first, I concluded, in my stupor, that the pain was muscular, but once I was certain that the muscles had indeed relaxed, the pain remained. It was so severe and unrelenting that I phoned Keith Johnson, MD. He was sleeping in the Nautilus Orthopaedic Clinic. At 3:30 a.m., he X-rayed my feet to discover extensive osteoarthritic spurring throughout my arches. This spurring was aggravated by my daily rounds (much walking) throughout the Nautilus compound, but, most certainly, it had its origins from earlier overuse. I had not run or jogged since 1975 (seven years earlier).
Kenneth Cooper
I had several occasions to meet with Kenneth Cooper during 1981 and 1982. The first was a sports medicine clinic sponsored by Baptist Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida. I spoke first to a gathering of approximately 800. Cooper was not present to hear me relate the Arthur Jones story of the businessman who, as he chases a bus while carrying a briefcase, presumably dies due to a lack of cardiovascular fitness, but who actually succumbs to stroke because of gripping the briefcase. Cooper came on immediately after me and told the exact same story, but with the opposite conclusion. I managed to later contest him somewhat during our panel discussion. What most impressed me about Cooper was his charisma. It really did not matter what he said or how he said it. He could have presented almost any rubbish, and he would have been successful solely because of the charisma.
A few months later, I was on the return trip home from a Nautilus Seminar with Ellington Darden. We, like many thousands of people, were marooned in the Atlanta airport as a vast storm impeded the flights for several hours. Ellington spotted Kenneth Cooper several gates down from us and suggested that I might strike up a conversation. So I walked down to Cooper and introduced myself. I found him to be polite and cordial. I asked his advice on a project to devise a definition of exercise. He answered with a litany to the effect that:
. . . God has been so good to us and our projects. You know, He has given us that wonderful second home in Colorado that has two incredibly beautiful whirlpools. Oh, He has really rewarded our people. He has graciously given us that wonderful clinic there in Dallas . . .
This dribble went on for 20-30 minutes. I admit that I was not sure whether I was talking to a religious zealot or a medical doctor. Was it that Cooper did not want to engage in a conversation about exercise? If so, why did he babble on instead of bluntly saying his mind? Ellington later joined us, and we sat around on suitcases to talk about God for a few minutes more.
Later, on another trip home and close to midnight, I spotted Cooper at the Daytona Beach Airport. I offered him a ride to the Inn at Indigo, where he was committed to speak the following day. While he was collecting his luggage, I phoned Arthur Jones to set up a meeting between the two. Arthur consented, but Cooper would not. I carried him to his hotel, where he politely thanked me for the ride. It was obvious that he was not prepared for a serious discussion about exercise with Arthur.
The Nautilus Osteoporosis Project
In early 1982, I made a two-year commitment to Arthur Jones to go to the Nautilus Osteoporosis Project, conducted at the University of Florida Medical School in Gainesville, Florida. Arthur assured me it would be performed properly and that it would be the “. . . most important thing you ever do in your life.” Keith Johnson left Lake Helen before me to scout out the Gainesville situation and to assist with the setup. I was greatly dismayed when he informed me that the principle investigator, Morris Notelovitz, MD, had enlisted the advice and participation of the University exercise physiologists to set up a $200,000 cardiovascular lab with the best BeckmanTM Cart and Quinton® Analyzer. In addition, the subjects were to be split into groups performing aerobics dance or walking programs or treadmills or Nautilus strength exercise. I attempted to confront Arthur about this, but he managed to dodge me for several weeks. When I did eventually put the question to him, he effectively stated, "Don't worry about it, Ken. These researchers know what they are doing, and it is going to be done properly." He slipped away, permitting no further cross examination. Over a year later and after several reports to him regarding the horrendous mismanagement of the Osteoporosis Research Project by Notelovitz, Arthur pulled me into the rear Nautilus studio and said “Ken, why are you so surprised? I know nothing about the competence of Morris Notelovitz as a researcher. I don't know if he is a good researcher or a bad researcher. But if he is even average, he's pretty God damned bad. Ken, if you will only keep your mouth shut and do what I tell you, we can own that medical school.”
At the Osteoporosis Project in 1983, one woman was screened as being markedly osteopenic (loss of bone density). She was advised, among other things, to increase her exercise. Of course, Notelovitz's staff had never defined what they meant by exercise, resented my attempts to define the term, and, therefore, could not convey practical advice to this patient. I do not know if dance aerobics was suggested to her, but I know that it was publicized as a component of our study and a topic Notelovitz openly discussed as possibly efficacious. She left the clinic and immediately joined a dance aerobics class. She crushed both her heels during her first session. I suspect that this bad influence came indirectly from Everett Smith. Smith was admired by the Gainesville osteoporosis research people for his published studies regarding dance aerobics and osteoporosis. I also suppose this to be about the time that the emphasis on weight-bearing exercise emerged from its loosely defined usage in bone setting. (For more about this subject, please read Walking Programs and Physicians: A Natural Courtship by Ken Hutchins in the January 1994 issue of The Exercise Standard.)
Eventually, Notelovitz mandated that Brenda Hutchins and I were to assist with data reporting, particularly VO2MAX. Although he had committed me to several conflicts of interest without my knowledge—one being a commercial health club operation with Southeast Health Care, INC.—he did not understand that Nautilus people, particularly Arthur Jones henchmen like Brenda and me, could not be permitted to collect data—never mind that officially and technically, we were employees of the University of Florida. Of course, Notelovitz could never appreciate my shame and embarrassment with having anything to do with something so empty as aerobics data. I knew also that he would publish that data with my name on it. He was already publishing an international journal with his Climacteric Outreach (CLOUT) organization. He listed my name in its front title pages without my permission. I was being loosely associated with all kinds of fringe, as well as, perhaps, legitimate ideas concerning exercise and women's health—without having any say in the matter. I resented this, particularly after requesting, on numerous occasions, that my name be omitted. He refused to comply.
The Deterioration of Nautilus Philosophy
At the invitation of Ellington Darden, Wayne Westcott, PhD, began to speak at the Nautilus Seminars during the middle 1980s. Wayne had written an article on the importance of slow exercise movement. At his first presentation, Wayne admitted that he was a jogger, and that due largely to jogging, he was considering his ninth foot operation. Shortly thereafter, the seminar broke for lunch. Ellington, Brenda, and I rushed back from lunch early to register some slide projectors. Arriving at the Nautilus compound, we encountered Wayne in jogging apparel running wind sprints on the asphalt. Ellington exclaimed, "Wayne, what are you doing?!"
Although Wayne was reticent with regard to aerobics during his first few presentations, more and more of his aerobics compulsion crept into his presentations for Nautilus. This disturbed me greatly. Eventually, I heard him speak in 1990 at a Nautilus Seminar where he stated something to the effect that “. . . really, you should do the right thing and perform your aerobics activities before your strength training.”
This acquiescence to aerobics philosophy on the part of subsequent Nautilus owners is due to several factors. Later owners and managers did not understand that aerobics is contrary to Nautilus philosophy. Also, they were convinced that in order to stay in business, they had to grow—and the only large markets to acquire were situated with aerobics. As a result, Nautilus became immersed with aerobics products—recumbent bicycles, stair climbers, treadmills. I am told that they now market a steady-state, stationary, in-line skating machine. I am also told that after compromising its scientific base of strength training and confusing the purest, staunch marketing approach that gave Nautilus its success, Nautilus is now slowly returning to its philosophical base. After consistent losses on highly-competitive aerobics equipment, Nautilus marketing people are being more cautious with involvement in what they first believed to be an easy buck.
Ellington's Insight
During the early 1980s, Ellington Darden hit the nail on the head, so to speak. At one time, Ellington was rather well-versed in religious writings and philosophy. Based on this, he analyzed our inability to combat the evangelistic fervor associated with aerobics. He noted that Cooper and many of his associates and followers were devout and pious Christians. (I am told that he is close friends with Pat Robertson.) Also, Cooper has consistently fared well by publishing his books through publishers who focus primarily on Christian literature. Not that anything should be made of this alone, and not that there is a law preventing religious publishers to use their presses for scientific books. There is a religious zeal that permeates everything that Cooper does. In help columns like Dear Abby and those by Dr. Joyce Brothers and others, you see the early Judeo-Christian tenet that vanity is regarded as a sin. When a grossly overweight woman writes to the columnist and complains of discrimination because of her looks, we all admit that we should judge people for their inner beauty, not for their outward appearance. Most of us would agree that hasty conclusions about people based solely on their appearance is wrong; however, most of the time, such unjust discrimination is a probable reality.
Apparently, the emphasis on the inner beauty is the aerobics credo. Dedicated runners typically look emaciated and outwardly unhealthy, as well as burdened with endless injuries. Meanwhile they are addressing the intangible, romantic, inner beauty — their heart.
Aerobics is an Insidious Syndrome — the title for an article I once wrote regarding anorexia and the aerobics compulsion. Note that in the case of anorexia, the vanity tenet is not only ignored, it is much of the problem. Old Judeo-Christian values and guilt are confused and mixed with modern society's expectations of outward beauty. An early newsletter publication (late 1970s) of an anorexia support group asserted that Jane Fonda was the perfect poster child for anorexia. She was fanatical in her politics, her dance aerobics, and her diet. Such a profile is typical for this malady.
Understanding Precluded
Several key people around Nautilus in 1986 discussed the notion that Micheal Pollock, PhD in exercise physiology, was perhaps incapable of ever understanding exercise. I do not know if this was merely egocentrism on the part of Arthur's followers, but the argument advanced did sound reasonable. The Pollock deficiency was due to the fact that Pollock was so crippled from jogging and his arthritic condition that he would be incapable of truly appreciating strength training for himself. He would be in such pain that he would never experience the benefits. If a person, even a researcher, does not experience the benefits of proper strength training, it is unlikely that he can completely appreciate its potential second-hand through the experiences of others.
I now understand that Pollock has reverted back to his old haunts, so to speak. Remember that Arthur Jones sold Nautilus in 1986 as he made a bridge of sorts at the University of Florida Gainesville. He had originally (1981) donated $3.5 Million to the University through the OB/GYN department of the Medical School to fund the osteoporosis program wherein I developed SuperSlow. That, as you may know by now, came to naught as an osteoporosis quest and fell apart as I left and Arthur’s relationship with that department became rocky. Simultaneously, others in the University smelled money as Arthur knew they would and this, in part, set the stage for him to endow a chair, as I believe it is known, and setup a new department that would cater to his dreams to develop the Nautilus testing equipment renamed MedX®. Recently (~November 1996) MedX Corporation was sold and restructured. The honeymoon between Arthur/MedX and Pollock being mostly over and the money dwindling, Pollock has since rejoined his old comrades doing the same old boring aerobics research. This comes after Pollock, I am told, documented many of Arthur’s contentions regarding strength training. Although Pollock did this with the organization and meticulousness that he is known for, the material is replete with sophomoric remarks as well. (Note that when I describe Pollock’s work as meticulous, I do not mean that all of it is properly performed. Apparently he is a great organizer, data collector, data compiler, and writer/publisher—perhaps the best in the world in his field. Reports to me indicate that his control of exercise supervision, however, is severely lacking.)
I am sometimes amazed at how the marketers of steady-state equipment have managed to stretch the already-questionable usefulness of their products to areas of physical rehabilitation beyond that of cardiac rehabilitation. For instance, I once heard a ClimbmaxTM salesman assert that his products had been researched to show positive results for use in lumbar, as well as knee, rehabilitation. The owner of one health club was so naive, that he bought into this nonsense to rehab his back on this stair climber. He then recommended this to several of my clients who possessed knee conditions. Of course, I forbade them to try it. The owner continued with his act, insisting that the stair climber absorbed the usual jolt of normal stairs. I did notice the shock absorber system in the machine and was curious as to its absorbing capacity. Eventually, I tested it when no one was present and was surprised at how bad it made my knees feel with each step. Also, with such a device, we are right back to a split movement for the lower body—a major defect for safe muscular loading involving the spine. [Recently (1996 or 1997) I was told that independent reports are showing marked knee and back problems with stair climbers, just as I predicted. I admit that I cannot readily cite these sources but they will be edited into this newsletter as they are located.]
Just several weeks later, I was sitting in the reception area of a large health club on a Saturday morning. I was positioned just right to sight down a line of 15 Lifecycles®. A lone, middle-aged woman was pedaling on one of these bikes as she read the morning newspaper. For the first time, I witnessed the constant side-to-side rocking of her pelvis in the seat of bike as she pedaled. It occurred to me how this represented a substantial overuse potential to her lower back and pelvis articulations. This is likewise with stair climbers.
Aerobics have become so ingrained with what insurance carriers and other medical service authorities believe and accept about rehabilitative exercise that steady-state activities are incorporated for non-cardiac rehabilitation. One MedX® technician stated that the insurance carrier would smile on you (award your demands for money) if you merely have your back patients walk on a treadmill for 5-10 minutes before administering the real address to their back condition—the MedX lumbar machine. Although many patients may loosen the tightness in their back by walking, others may experience the opposite. What is more, a treadmill is a dangerous moving platform tantamount to pulling the rug out from under the patient. I realize that people usually encounter no difficulty mastering a treadmill, but I ask, "Should they have to master such an unnecessary risk?" I consider it a breach of ethics and principles of safety to ask a debilitated person to walk on a treadmill.
Two of our nurses at the Nautilus Osteoporosis Project were violently thrown into the wall behind a treadmill. Each nurse was thrown as she took the pulse of her subject who was walking on the treadmill. One nurse experienced this twice. One subject came very close to being injured, because she attempted to turn to see what happened to the nurse. Idle conversation and eye contact could have produced the same result.
I worked in a commercial health club setting from June 1988 until August 1994. During that time, I witnessed a progressive decline in the proper training environment that became so bad as to force me and many of my clients to leave. The eroded environment included inappropriate exercise protocols, noise, music, distractive lighting, idle conversation, and a lack of professional decorum. What was most interesting, however, was a prediction-come-true once stated by Ellington Darden:
I once acquiesced to an argument that if you put an aerobics class next to a Nautilus gym, the Nautilus proponents could use the aerobics as an attraction (marketing) for women, who could then be educated to progress to the Nautilus strength training. Ellington scoffed at this notion and emphasized that the opposite would probably happen. Many of the Nautilus devotees would see all the fun being had in the aerobic class and quit the Nautilus machines to join in.
Exactly what Ellington predicted came to pass at Lincoln Fitness. Once the owner installed stair climbers, many clients who had trained successfully on the Nautilus machines for months and years became less fit. They ceased training as seriously, because they devoted more and more of their limited time, energy, and will to the stair climbers and treadmills. I asked several clients why they had begun to spend their resources on the aerobics equipment, and they replied that they had assumed that they were supposed to. Once I explained the recovery principles involved, several clients expressed relief that the aerobics activity was unnecessary. A few admitted that they performed the activities as a stress relief. However, there are many other more enjoyable ways to relieve stress.
I often ask myself, “If I acquiesce to aerobics, will anyone be left to make a stand against this foolishness?”
I often hear business owners assert that aerobics is necessary to the survival of their businesses, that it is what the customers want. On the contrary, customers will want SuperSlow strength training if it is competently presented to them. Even if proper strength training is an unsuccessful service (unprofitable), the business owner is not justified in offering an empty ruse such as aerobics to sustain the business. The owner should find something else to do. The business, should rightly fail. It has no legitimate reasons to exist.
Summary
Although I once enjoyed running, I now see that many of my chronic physical limitations are the result of the aerobics emphasis in my life. I also now appreciate that aerobics is merely an exercise in delusion—not only for me, but for everyone.