When I am King: Pain Gain

When I am King...

Exercise will be a distant, painful memory.

After long years of tedious exercise, my body and mind are well trained. Now, whenever I have muscle ache, I feel great because it means that I've worked out and have done my body some good. That awful feeling of muscle ache and overall exhaustion must mean that my body is healthier.

Why not cut out the middleman here? Why go to all of the hassle of actually exercising when there are other ways to feel terrible?

Now, I start each day by having my wife sock me in the biceps, with a couple of jabs to the chest, and I feel awfully great the rest of the day. Of course, she gets carried away and sometimes clocks me in the jaw, but I know it's just to make me feel even better. And I've asked her a few times now to quit kicking me in the shins; I guess her aim is off. And stomping on my toes hasn't helped and the pokes in my eyes are getting pretty tiresome after my cornea surgery.

But overall, I'm feeling better now than I've felt in years. No more gym for me, just a few rounds with my wife and I feel great.

When I am King, I will provide a more general solution to the problem. My personal solution obviously can't work for everyone, since my wife can't hit everyone. But there are simple things that we all could do to make ourselves feel better.

For example, there will be devices to wear around your arms and legs that constrict the muscles to make them feel exactly like they had been overworked in the gym. And spray bottles with salty, slight rancid water that you can douse yourself anytime with to give you that feel and taste of having just gotten off the cardio machine. And belts with special pressure-point devices that make you feel like you've pulled your back out with some hard sets on the bench.

We will have a neck support that ensures constrained motion for your head, to simulate having done something awful during weight-lifting. And shoes with special soles that make your feet feel like they have been beaten up by intense running. And my personal favorite, a device inserted into the lungs that ensures that you must take deep breaths to get the oxygen your body needs; this really helps you feel like you've just had a major workout. All day long.

Of couse, for the truly dedicated, there will be certified Personal Painers that specialize in hurting particular spots in your body according to the kind of workout you want to feel like you had.

Working out is so difficult; why bother? With this new approach, our bodies can feel as awful as they would after an intense session at the gym – every single day. And with the extra time that this will free up in our schedules from not having to hit the gym, we can do something more productive and enjoyable with our time. Like eat. After all, we've got to replenish those calories that our bodies feel like they've burned up.