Bound to a computer (or some other technology) most of the working day, even though the web is full of variety and stimulus, there is ample opportunity for us to get into a rut of bad habits and inefficiency. We’re not designed for it. That I’m sure is what Art de Vany, evolutionary fitness expert would say. With that in mind, not least because it has been the school holidays, I’ve made a conscious effort to do a variety of different things the past couple of weeks, on my own and with the children. And within that, I’ve tried to bring variety within variety.

The best example of this was

Sunday’s bike ride into the Cotswolds, following a route near the Somerset Coal Canal. This is no ordinary countryside, but where William Smith, the author of the world’s first true geological map, lived. Smith was surveyor of the Somerset Coal Canal among other roles.  He lived most of his life a broken man, ripped off or marginalized by his social superiors.  He constructed his career so as to pursue his lifelong interest in geology, walking most of the country in search of insight. The valleys around Bath gave a unique glimpse of rock strata, enabling him to formulate an advanced theory of the age of the earth, which would later support Darwin’s creation-overturning theory of evolution.

The point about the countryside there is that topographically it is quite challenging (lots of hills), but the relief, and variety of flora and fauna, is also visually very edifying. It was a lot less monotonous than the long run I had planned for that Sunday, which is flat and along the canal towpath (albeit in similarly spectacular countryside.)

Good training programmes, as I’m discovering more and more, don’t just vary their requirements to avoid mental boredom. Our physiology responds better to more complex stresses and strains. Nowhere is this clearer than at the gym where machine weights, while safer and easier to learn how to use, do not help build lean muscle mass and encourage core stability as much as free weights, where your balance is constantly tested.

Art de Vany, by the way, is against long distance running, and in favour of short, hard sprints.

Where I’m less likely to agree with de Vany is his view of gun control in the US.

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