Today, my 70-year old mother bragged that she took her walking from 15-minutes to 20-minutes. She improved on how long she could walk!
She was “bragging”… and then started laughing about her age and her mobility. She “added 5-minutes” to her wandering range.
I thought that was admirable! I was impressed with her humble report on her performance increase. She had gone through foot, knee, and hip surgery, all which can hinder mobility.
Also, as a Baby Boomer, she grew up in an age when women weren’t normally doing the physical tasks of the farm or competing on the sports field. Physical training and competition wasn’t a part of her past.
Regardless, mom was “bragging” that she increased her hiking time by 5-minutes tonight.
That’s a significant improvement for anyone that has had surgery.
Now, is she going to out speed distance-walk her sister, Lynn?
Perhaps.
But, before she gets too-hyped up about competition, I need to tell her about the law of diminishing returns.
*The law of dimensioning returns becomes a factor at some point in terms of improving your overall health. You can gain good ground on your health at the initial stages of this curve by achieving incremental health improvements. However, the steep upward curve towards beating the best in the world becomes a different beast.
Small investments of time and energy can lead to significant returns at the beginning of a project. However, as the training and focus-investment increases, the curve starts to flatten out vertically, indicating incremental improvement takes more time and work to be the best.
