Maybe you should try doing this before you comment... just saying.
I can see how my comment may have gotten under your skin a bit. It was not meant too, unless it was enough to encourage someone to consider a more healthy lifestyle. Certainly, their are manual labor activities around dives, not included in the dive itself that are challenging. But are those activities really enough to keep someone in good overall shape and good health?
The other day, my calves got a pretty good workout during a three hour rescue diver course towing full grown men around in simulation, but, that is not my normal daily diving routine. Being neutrally buoyant and flying around in the water is not going to challenge the body much. Being in shape is going to lower stress, heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rates to help make diving even less of a chore. A person is much more likely going to be able to perform well in an emergency if they are trained to deal with it and are in good health. Not to mention, you'll be able to dive at a much older age if you have all your faculties in tact. Waiting and putting that off will likely interfere with your middle age and older age diving plans. Convincing yourself that SCUBA diving as a recreational sport is enough is just not realistic. Of course professionally, there are too many variables around what you do out of the water to know if that is enough. But most routine labor jobs tear people down, where exercise builds people up.
Most importantly, don't forget the diet aspect. You can never beat a poor diet.
Also consider that this thread is primarily about "mature" individuals who are on the upper side of 60. My suspicion is that you're a wee bit younger than that. Like it or not, age causes a degradation in how your body reacts to exercise. While the organ between my ears still thinks I'm 25, the rest of me definitely lets me know that I'm not.
Jim
I am middle age, but my VO2 max scores and wellness checkups are that of a 20 year old. It's not because I am lucky, but instead because I work out vigorously 3-4 a week, eat healthy, and stay active. I have many fitness friends in their 60+ years that are in as good as shape as I am.
