Walmart is the New LA Fitness
If you hate exercise, there is a better way
Maybe you’re a writer, or you were just born lazy. More likely, you resemble many Americans, who loudly and proudly exclaim:
“I absolutely hate exercising!”
Yesterday, your smartwatch showed you walked a grand total of 2,478 steps.
Did you know the average Medium writer gets under 3,000 steps a day?
If your current idea of a workout is watching training montages from inspirational sports and/or female assassin films, you need help.
No one, especially you, believes you can get your fat ass off the floor, even under duress. What if you are forced to evacuate due to fire or flood?
Do not despair, you can rebuild that dad or grandma bod.
Some days it feels like it would be easier to move to Europe, where they walk everywhere because their cars are embarrassingly tiny and gas costs $12 a liter but take heart — America has free gyms.
You can get fit shopping at Walmart if you do it the right way.
1. Standing Up
Standing up about every twenty minutes is the Fountain of Youth. This has been proven through NASA research on astronauts and gravity.
Don’t believe in science? Okay, I hear you. But I double-dog dare you to float around in microgravity for a few weeks without shriveling into a ninety-eight-pound weakling!
The first step is driving to Walmart but before you wedge your pudgy self behind the steering wheel, you’ll need to stand up.
Most of us stand up like amateurs. When you tear your fingers away from the keyboard, stand with your legs. Standing with legs (also an obscure character in Dances with Wolves) requires using big leg muscles like the quads and hams.
If you can’t get out of your chair without using your hands, your situation is even worse than I thought, so I’d recommend ordering from Amazon and getting your affairs in order.
Or you could buy one of those recliners that assists you in standing, nudging you upward like the gentle hand of a mechanical yoga teacher.
Standing hands-free may seem like child’s play now, but take a trip to Denny’s around 4:30 in the afternoon and watch the geezer crowd file out after dinner. See? Every last one of ’em is standing up using their arms and hands!
2. Getting Motivated
Here in Arkansas, we have a saying:
“I’ve gotta get a trailer hitch. Y’all need anything at Walmart?”
After you’ve gotten off the couch — good job, by the way — your next goal is to leave the house.
This is where a lot of folks give up.
It’s normal to resist any exercise routine, but if you’re like me you’ve run out of butter, fresh vegetables, or dog chow.
Hunger is an excellent motivator. Some say hunger is what motivated the French peasantry to storm the Bastille, for example.
Since you are now exercising, remember you can buy freezer pops or Cocoa Puffs cereal when you get to Walmart.
3. Parking
Park a football field away from the entrance. This should be obvious, but every day I see my fellow Arkansans breaking this simple rule.
Most Walmart shoppers are circling the lot like sharks, trying to find the space that will help preserve their lumpy physique.
The laziness of humans can only be rivaled by the viciousness of honey badgers or the ugliness of hairless dogs.
Is it raining? Perhaps the temperature is over 95?
Suck it up buttercup, you are looking at a hike of under five minutes. Even in your deplorable condition, it won’t kill ya.
4. Choosing Your Basket
Now comes the weightlifting portion of your exercise routine. You must grab a plastic basket, even though a cart would make life easier. No matter how much stuff you are getting (including a ball hitch), always carry your goods in a hand basket.
No carts, you puny little wastrel!
Last week, I tossed so many cheap items in my basket I fully expected the handle was gonna pop right off like the Incredible Hulk’s trousers. The basket was straining from my eighteen items, and I was sweating like a cold beer on a summer day, yet I was proud.
After you pay for your eighteen items that cost only $6.45, lug that crap out to your car in the thirteen plastic bags they foist on you.
Or if you can remember, or live in some liberal AF city, use your tote bag.
Workout done for the day, bro.
Bonus exercises at home
After Walmart, you might feel like pushing yourself. That’s totally natural because you haven’t used your muscles in a long time and now your blood is flowing!
I recommend exercises that counteract the stress of writing/typing for hours a day.
Walking Barefoot + Eye Workout
Writers don’t get a lot of sunlight, but we aren’t naked mole rats or vampires, or that rarest of subterranean creatures: naked rat vampires.
As we are not undead, just underpaid, we need to go outside.
You can rekindle your connection to Mother Earth with a five-minute walk in the grass, soil, or even gravel (if you have masochistic tendencies or calloused soles). The key is to accomplish “grounding” to replenish your electrons, which are woefully inadequate because of shoes.
Staring at a screen for hours a day degrades vision. Did you know death row convicts in tiny little cells lose their vision over time? Before you decide they deserve it, consider that up to five percent of inmates are wrongly convicted (that goes triple for Black men).
While restocking on electrons, stare off into the distance like a kid trapped in the Olan Mills studio.
“OK, kid, now get that faraway look, you know, like you’re watching a sunset.”
If you live in the city, stare out your window. If you do not have a window, I’m out of ideas but maybe you should consider upgrading? If you are on death row, dude.
Dog, Cat or Ferret Petting
Petting your animal companion increases your levels of oxytocin and requires squatting.
If you do not own a pet, a statue of Buddha or Shiva will do, but it must be on the floor.
This is another argument for converting to Islam.
Getting on the floor and getting back up daily makes it likely you’ll live to 105, especially if you drink green tea daily and stop reading the national news.
Hanging Upside Down Like a Bat
For this, you’ll need a special yogic-style device made from the most wonderful, silky, space-age parachute material. Some people call this the “yoga trapeze.”
You hang upside down and pretend to be a nectar-loving, flying mammal once a day, for about five minutes or until you feel like you’re gonna pass out.
It’s refreshing and so much cheaper than a yoga class.
Deep Knee Bends
Fitness gurus call deep knee bends squats, considered to be the king of exercises. Anyone who hates exercise avoids them like the plague.
You can easily add deep knee bends to your established routine. I dislike normal tooth brushing, you know — standing in the bathroom, staring into the mirror, and wishing you were a crocodile who didn’t have to engage in this pointless, repetitive daily ritual.
That’s when the spark of genius hit me: why not do deep knee bends while toothbrushing?
As a glorified typist, my twenty-one or forty-two deep knee bends a day — depending on whether I remember to brush my teeth twice—are easy as falling off a log.
Final Fitness Call to Action
As writers, we have bought into the stereotype that we are supposed to be nerdy and flabby. We can outsit anyone.
This is largely true.
You are fighting an uphill battle. It is your nature to drink tea while nestled in an oversized armchair, with a cat curled up nearby, even on a sunny day.
Hemingway forced himself to stand and write and pursued a lot of manly pastimes like sport fishing and competitive drinking. But we can’t all be Hemingway.
Stephen King takes daily walks but who are you kidding — few among us have the steely willpower of King.
In short, leverage the power of Walmart for your benefit and remember, a trip to Walmart — done correctly — is more exercise than eighty-seven percent of Americans get.
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Jean Campbell recently started her first Substack newsletter to laser focus on getting her book, City of Lies: A Street Hustler’s Omaha Journey published.
