Chances are, you’ve heard someone say use it or lose it—a timeless phrase that broadly applies to many things in life: The milk in your refrigerator. Money in a flexible spending account. Your brain. Your physical fitness.
Speaking of physical fitness: Because these four words are so often associated with staying in shape, you also likely know how much fitness matters—and that it doesn’t just happen on its own. In order to keep your heart, lungs, muscles, and bones functioning well, you need to yourself off the couch and signing up for a fitness class.”
In other words, mind over matter doesn’t work when your knees hurt, your hips ache, or your back is stiff.
Still, Stiles cautioned, you shouldn’t use pain as a free pass to avoid exercising altogether.
