Greg C

I'm turning 20 in a week and I feel like I should be in better shape. I'm 6'4" and about 205-215lbs. I'm not in shape. I've got a jiggly belly, chest, and somewhat love handles. I don't want to be a body builder, but I'd like to get in better shape. I don't drink pop (or soda or coke or whatever you call it) and drink water consistently throughout the day. I eat fairly healthy. My mom cooks dinner most of the time and I eat a rounded meal with vegetables and our food is rarely deep fried. I really enjoy swimming as I was on a summer swim team for 9 years, and would be excited about swimming as a physical activity, but there is no where to access a pool where I live (except during the summer). I was wondering what you all would suggest. My schedule is fairly flexible as I am in college right now (not a campus school and I live at home). My problem seems to stem from lack of discipline. I don't feel like going to run so I put it off until I can't anymore due to time restraints.

Greg

My physics teacher put this up on the forum for fun discussion. Here's my reply

No. As long as by acceleration you mean total acceleration in the vector. (I went on to explain using gravity and a rocket, but that won't fit in here)

He replied with

Think about a v vs. t graph that is not a straight line (recall that the slope of this graph represents the acceleration). Suppose from t= 0s to t= 3s the line is roughly straight and has a slope of 4. Then, from t= 3s to t= 6s, the line is again roughly straight but has a different slope of 2. Is the speed still increasing after t= 3s?

I say, yes the speed is increasing after t=3s (a=2) but what about at t=3s? there is obviously a negative acceleration there, but at that point surely the velocity is not still increasing because for the object to slow it's total acceleration must be negative. What do you think?

Greg