On an oil rig in the middle of the North Sea there is never much incentive to keep fit and it is very easy to fall into a cycle of sloth.
Sleep, work, eat, sleep, and on energetic days perhaps a few laps of the TV remote control before sleep.
This is the trap that many offshore workers realised was not very good for the long-term maintenance of their bodies.
Most Oil Rig operators realised the same thing and with a commendable sense of responsibility sponsored ideas to break the cycle and encourage people to take better care of themselves during their time offshore.
On one oil rig the crews responded to their operators' initiative by starting a wellness competition.
Teams of three entered the competition and were given full medicals to ascertain percentage body fat, respiration efficiency, cardiovascular function, weight etc.
Once registered the teams commenced their various regimes of diet and exercise and were given points towards a final total to measure changes in lifestyle and reflect the value of the exercise taken.
There was one point for every mile on the stationary cycle, two points for every mile on the running machine and three for every mile rowed.
The team with the highest total each month were awarded a prize.
The gym was busy all day with people recording points towards their personal wellness goals.
They smiled through gritted teeth as they forced their unaccustomed bodies to sweat and strain at a point in their lives when their bodies were thinking, thank goodness we have got rid of that youth stuff; running around, bad skin, hormones etc.
The body was happily slinking towards its personal event horizon, content in the knowledge that the further it sank into the couch the less likely it would be that anyone would notice what a state it was in.
These "dormant" bodies were now being thrashed to within an inch of sanity by their owners who, in addition to putting extra strain on them, also reduced the amount of food which their bodies received.
The result was that the body was even less capable of performing these Herculean exertions than before and equally, it was also less capable of repairing the damage which these exercises caused.
The health sentiment is noble and to be encouraged for all the right reasons but there is another side to the fitness infection which seemed to have gripped so many.
Not everyone had been able to get into a team.
There were people who worked alone and didn't have two colleagues to join in a team.
There were those who realised quite sensibly that there could be real danger in asking their heart to do any more than the resting pulse rate that has served so well for the last twenty years, and there were those whose list of possible team members was so small (for a variety of reasons, body odour, halitosis, flatulence) that they did not have two friends to rub together to make a team.
But lets not spend too much time worrying about these misfits, these social outcasts.
For many of them this was the first time that there had been enough cheesecake at lunch.
When they left the table there were still meringues on the server.
If the pudding was apple crumble or sticky toffee it was no longer important to get in early because now there was always enough, and the custard never ran out.
We take our hats off to these energetic gentlemen who miss lunch to go to the gym.
They leave more elbow room for the rest of us at the table, and there is always more cheesecake in the cold cabinet.