I no longer recall if I saw this on TED or if it was on some other site. The talk was about letting go of  emotional baggage – for one’s own well-being more than anything else – and I seem to remember that the point was illustrated by the speaker asking the audience to invoke the image of a small glass of water that you might hold in your hand at arms length in front of you. The weight of the glass and its contents is practically insignificant and for a good while you can keep it there at eye level without much discomfort. Sooner or later, of course, you will start to notice the strain of your posture and things will start to ache and tire in your neck, your back, your shoulders, your arm…and when you do eventually decide you cannot hold the glass in that position any longer it won’t have been because the glass of water weighed too much. It will have been because you tired of the tension; of the effort itself. The tension itself – the disproportionate amount of energy you find yourself diverting, over a period of time, to keeping that glass of water at eye level  –  will have exhausted you. Ergo: drop the glass or don’t pick it up in the first place or put it down as soon as you can… and so on and so forth. Armchair psychology if you want so make of this what you will. It did, however, remind me of something else that came up in conversation over dinner at my parent’s house in Estoril – in their company and with a handful of friends – a few months ago. I learned about isometric exercises and how they might contribute to hypertension.

I am no natural athlete and have never been one. I have loved sports more than they have loved me and the glancing success I have enjoyed in one or two disciplines in my teens was the pinnacle of my mediocre abilities in pale comparison with some of my more gifted peers who have shown natural aptitude – in some cases brilliance – for sport and games… so I do not pretend to be an authority of any kind on the matter of exercise. However I do exercise and I have done so for most of my life… and I read. I don’t remember how the subject came up but at a certain point over dinner we got talking about exercise and sport and such. Haroun was present and him being a qualified physiotherapist and a natural athlete he may well have initiated this moment in the conversation. Either way, at some point, I remember intervening with my opinion that I did not believe in isolated muscular exercises (e.g. lifting dumb-bells just to work one’s biceps) as this sort of need never happens in nature; compound exercises, involving whole muscle groups, are the healthiest way forward. Haroun followed me by saying that he thought he might agree with me; if isolated exercises should ever be considered they should only be done so as part of a careful physiotherapeutic regime due to a particular injury that requires a certain muscle or muscle group to be worked in isolation.  He then went on to comment how isometric exercises can contribute to hypertension and he illustrated why this might happen. He then asked us what we thought the Nº1 cause of heart-attacks might be amongst middle aged men – in the broadest sense of the term –  who enjoy sports. I said squash.. others around the table said other things or said they did not know. I’ll take him on his good word for what he told us; water-skiing. I think of that every time I’m lifting dead weights up and down the six flights of stairs of my flat in Barcelona.