I had a dream last night which was founded in reality. I dreamt the professionals at the gym were trying to put an IV in me at the gym. The dirty, disgusting gym. And this actually happened to a man on Monday.

The other day I was at a gym and a man on the elliptical went into cardiac arrhythmia. He was on a heart rate monitor and a cardiac event recording device and a nurse station that was "supervising" his exercise ran over and began to take his blood pressure and put an IV bag in him. He was 80 over 68, which is very bad in case you aren't familiar. The rate was fluctuating. It took the team about 15 minutes to get him an aspirin as I was holding him making sure he didn't pass out. Then it took them another 5 to plug in the defibrillator. Then finally after I asked repeatedly to call 911, they conceded and did. Because they had a doctor on staff, they didn't call 911 right away. That man probably had a minor episode which potentially could have been major. And the people who were supposed to be supervising his exercise didn't know the basic steps of CPR. (You always, always call 911 first!).

This made me think about what quality of care we have come to expect from people who are supervising us during these moments of exertion. Are we trusting the right people to lead us in the right direction? When Nike says "just do it" are we taking it so literally that we push ourselves beyond our extremes. The body and our minds are capable of exertion. But healthy limitations and small steps toward big goals is much healthier than a "all in or nothing" mentality. Every "body" needs rest to recuperate to accomplish physical goals. That's the most underutilized piece of advice in the medical and fitness community today. Set your steps before you take a leap of faith. You can achieve your goals if you pick the right professionals when and if you have a real limitation.