Good Sport

I don’t much like the words “health” or “fitness.” I believe they are feminist-buzz words for liberation through “eating right,” gym membership and spinning classes. They are as hollow and empty as the calo­ries from Special K and as thin as yoga mats. They have noth­ing to do with being in shape, nor coincidentally, with this column.

Like most men, I prefer to call things what they are. In the case of “health” and “fit­ness,” the word that should be used is “sports” or, for situa­tions of individual betterment of one’s body, “working out.”

The term “sport” immediately suggests both the gravity and level of commitment most men bring to any health or fitness opportunity. For men, everything is a game, and though we don’t like to admit it, everything is a compe­tition. Shopping, baby-sitting, raising children, PTA meet­ings, driving (this is a big one), walking, mailing things, taking showers and even sleeping are more than routinely made into competitions by ordinary run­of- the-mill men with 2.5 kids, a cocker spaniel and a house in the suburbs. Men are so “game”-oriented, that a whole slew of recreational sports needed to be invented to spice the otherwise listless activity of drinking alcohol. Creating a situation where drunken peo­ple would arm themselves with tiny darts and throw them through a mass of equally drunken bystanders was nobody’s “best idea.” But it was essential to make the practice of drinking worth doing. This is how men think of their health: It must be fun.

Being healthy is something that men can generally get behind. Not only will it make them more attractive to women, but it also will enable them to fight more effectively in cases of darts-gone-wrong, and to be heroic at a moment’s notice, which is a perpetual fantasy of the Ameri­can male.

Actually getting in shape is a little more challenging. Not only are men not as self­conscious as women (whose inner voices I always imagine to be screaming “Oh my God! Oh my God! Get in shape!”), but men also are bombarded with a culture of mediated health, a culture that so sur­rounds men with images of athleticism they actually may think they are in shape.

Now don’t get me wrong, watching a sports game in its entirety is no mean feat. Add to this the need to shout and heck­le throughout the game between shots of Jack Daniels and pints of Sam Adams, and you get yourself into quite a sweat.

This is not a workout, though it feels, tastes and hurts like one.

Here is the solution to get­ting in shape the easy way — “intramural sports.” Overcom­ing their latent alcoholism and employing their natural com­petitiveness, men invented “Intramural Leagues” to bring like-minded middle-aged men into competition with one another, in a system that would both satisfy the male need for “gaming” fitness, and not be overly strenuous. The result was a complete revolution.

While women take yoga classes at the Y, men could in sports of their personal predilection, get a smoking workout playing against driven opposition and then usually get drunk after the game at a bar back in town. Mentally, they look forward to next week’s competition as they may have done with high school rivalries and cross-town show downs. Physically, they get the blood pumpin’ and the calories burnin’.

It could be called “health” or “fitness,” but even the name “sports” makes it sound fast­paced, physically demanding and athletically satisfying.

Which is why men invented sports in the first place.

Zachary McCune loves to work out. Mostly through writ­ing.