Andrew Solomon, an American author wrote, “Exercise because it is good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds.” Good exercise does to the body what a good engine does to a car. It powers it and gives it health to cover miles and miles without breaking down. People exercise for a lot of reasons; to lose weight, to build muscles and to improve body health. Whatever your motivation, physical fitness is undoubtedly a master of body rejuvenation and conditioning. Three rules of physical fitness: eat healthy, do enough of body exercises and have plenty of rest.
The typical Moi University student consumes fries from Monday to Monday,
guzzles down alcohol, sleeps at 4.00 am and watches a movie in bed after waking
up at 10.00 am. It is a pathetic story but Moi University is not just a
physical community, except for a few sporting activities and a handful of
self-driven joggers and twilight dance classes. A friend of mine often says
that she’d have to be insane to leave the comfort of her sizable warm bed in
the name of jogging. There is the biting cold and it is the wee hours of the
morning!
My friend (who I would like to keep anonymous) and a larger Moi
University fraternity take physical fitness very lightly. Such ignorance could
cost us; future generations would condemn us for creating such a sluggish
culture and passing on the disease to them.
The university is partly to blame for cultivating this lazy culture
among its students. To begin with, Moi University Main Campus does not have a
standard gym to cater for the needs of all students. There is only a building
masquerading as a gym with an ambiguous inscription ‘FITNESS CENTRE’. But it is
never what you expect. It is just a dirty little room where boys (or should I
say men) go to sweat and pant as they lift weights. It would be nice if a female student could
walk into the gym and exercise with the right equipment. Or are we all just
supposed to lift weights?
According to an expert blog, swimming is rated as one of the best cardio
exercises because every muscle of the body is involved in the activity. It thus
enables the body to burn calories faster and tone the body muscles. The
university does not have a swimming pool on campus that would motivate students
to take up swimming as part of their daily exercise. If you are a swimming
enthusiast, you have to go to Sirikwa (which is in town) and pay a fee before
you are allowed into the pool. Maybe it is time Moi University left Sirikwa
alone and constructed a swimming pool for its students.
Despite the large tracts of land that Moi University sits on and a
terrain that is conducive for running, the university has never thought of
harvesting the students’ athletics skills. What is the name of that Sports
Director again? And why did we elect him if he cannot pitch such ideas to
university’s administration?
If only the university would be as enthusiastic to set up such fitness
facilities as it is with setting up a chips café on every campus corner, we
would be the healthiest and the fittest university in Kenya.
“I wish I could lose this extra fat.” Bodily fitness is not built on
wishful thinking. It starts with eating healthy and incorporating exercise in
your daily activities. You can jog in the morning, dance (you could enroll for
a salsa class and burn calories every week) or take up rope jumping among other
activities. Get up lazy people and let’s all get physical.
