I was talking with an older gentleman the other day, and he has terrible back problems (probably normal degeneration, just 85+ years of it). He’s doing therapy, and that’s working wonders. But he also finds that if he goes for a walk AFTER a 30 minute ‘warm-up’ on a recumbent bike, he does fine. If he skips the bike ride, he can’t make it more than a block before he’s hunched over in pain.
Use it or lose it… reminds me of the animated film, Wall-E, where the humans all had hovercrafts to ride… and were 300+lbs and unable to walk. :)
I agree, there’s a difference between resting and healing, and rebuilding and maintaining… metabolism, health, muscle, etc. I think that can apply to just about everything.