Michel Foucault on Exercise

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Exercise is the technique by which one imposes on the body tasks that are both repetitive and different, but always graduated. By bending behavior towards a terminal state, exercise makes possible a perpetual characterization of the individual either in relation to his term, in relation to other individuals, or in relation to a type of itinerary. It thus assures, in the terms of continuity and constraint, a growth, an observation, a qualification.
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Exercise, having become an element in the political technology of the body and of duration, does not culminate in a beyond, but tends toward a subjection that has never reached its limit. p. 161.