Pumping Irony

Craig Cox, EL’s managing editor and resident geezer, explores the joys and challenges of aging well.

Recently in Aging Category

My 44-Day Fitness Test

By Craig Cox / September 11, 2011

It’s a sign of the times, I suppose–and of my employer’s zest for innovation–that I now have a wellness coach. We spoke on the phone Thursday, JM and I, for about 30 minutes, reviewing the results of my recent health screening. These are the kinds of situations that beg for embellishment: “Oh, yeah, I run a mile every morning and eat nothing but cruciferous vegetables and wild-caught Alaskan salmon.” But I resisted that sort of prevarication and gave it to her straight: “I have a hard time revving up my cardio on a regular basis and I enjoy a couple glasses of wine with dinner every night….”

Even so, by the time we had run through the whole health-screening thing, JM seemed to think that I was pretty much on the right track. My triglycerides (a word I first discovered in my 20s when my father had his first major heart attack) were low, my HDL/LDL cholesterol was excellent, and that off-the-charts blood pressure reading (see earlier post) was probably an anomaly. I agreed to try running a couple days a week, hike my fiber intake, and ramp up my morning workouts to 30 minutes, and we would check back in a month or so.

JM seemed particularly pleased that I had begun a weekly yoga practice, a fact I mentioned as nonchalantly as possible–along with my biweekly visit to my acupuncturist and my morning meditation practice–as a way of telling her that she probably didn’t need to worry too much about me. Still, I figured it might make sense to keep a record of my activities during the intervening days as a way of tracking my progress, or lack thereof. And you, dear reader, get to share in my journey.

All the above was on my mind, since my second yoga lesson was scheduled for later that afternoon, and I would be headed to Ms. Needle after that. The lesson went even better than expected. As I mentioned to MLW later, it helps to know what the routine is, given that my poor hearing often prevents me from understanding what our learned yogi is saying. I found that my taut hamstrings were a bit more flexible than they were last week and that I could navigate the rest of the moves pretty well (except for that one where you try to grasp your hands behind your back–one over your shoulder, the other from behind your back!!). I’m still surprised at what an intense workout even this beginning, “gentle” yoga class produces.

Later, in the comfy barcalounger at my acupuncturist, I recounted my recent areas of stress and confessed to feeling actually pretty OK. A few needles were placed in strategic places and I enjoyed a lovely nap. Not a bad way to end the day.

So, let’s call this Day 1: Friday, 9/9
I overslept, of course, so I had to cut short my morning zazen and workout, but I did get in a good long bike ride with MLW in the evening. Maybe 4 miles over to our favorite pizza joint and 4 miles back.

Day 2: Saturday, 9/10
Got in a full 30 minutes of meditation and then another 30-minute workout: A little yoga stretching followed by 30 pushups and then three rounds of the following: 10 kettlebell swings, 10 goblet squats, 10 kettlebell cleans, 10 two-hand overhead lifts and tricep extensions, and 10 bicep curls/shoulder presses with each hand. That had me lathered up pretty good, and then for good measure, 10 really slow pushups. I wasn’t wearing my heart-rate monitor, but I’m guessing I was pretty easily into the 130s throughout most of this routine.

Day 3: Sunday, 9/11
Recovery day. My hammies are barking from the squats yesterday, so no lifting today. Instead, I decide to pull on my sneakers and go for a run. Part of my agreement with JM is that I would try to ramp up my cardio, and nothing does that better than a little jogging. I stretch out my calves as best I can and head out.

The difference between jogging on the dreadmill at the gym and running outside is that you can lengthen your stride a bit when you’re off the machine, which is what I’ve been hoping to do for some time. For the first 1/8th mile I’m thinking I’m moving pretty well. The knee feels strong, the calves aren’t cramping, and I’m happy to be finally running rather than jogging in place on some revolving rubber mat. But soon I’m sucking wind like some 60-year-old and looking for some soft piece of lawn on which to collapse. By the time I hit the quarter-mile point, I need to walk. I’d say there’s some endurance issues here. I take a little breather and manage to travel another half mile at a slightly slower pace, but it’s clear that I really need a more gradual routine if I’m going to get any miles under my sneakers before the snow flies. There’s a great program here for preparing for your first 5K (which I’m not), but the whole walk-run approach might make some sense for me. I’m thinking: 1/8th mile run, 1/12th mile walk, 1/8th mile run, 1/12th mile walk. Repeat four times and you’ve done a mile. I’ll take a couple days off and try it again on Wednesday.

Don’t Act Your Age

By Craig Cox / September 8, 2011

I turned 60 last week, which is something of a milestone. If 50 is sort of the official entrance to AARP-Land, then I suppose 60 is the cheesy hotel on the outskirts of Social Security World. I’m not sure that I buy the whole milestone argument, but I know one thing for sure: 60 sure doesn’t seem as big a number as it did, say, 15 or 20 years ago. In fact, it’s a kind of a weird thing how, as you age, your sense of yourself doesn’t really keep up with the number. Maybe it’s just me, but even as my physical form has changed (how did the skin on the back of my hands become so translucent?), I still tend to think of myself as a much younger fellow.

It’s not that I’m dreading the inexorable ramble into my twilight years. It’s just that the part of my consciousness that informs my self-identity seems to be lingering somewhere in my late 20s or early 30s. I’m fully prepared to accept that this could be some neurotic delusion caused by certain lifestyle decisions made in my ill-spent youth, but so far it doesn’t seem to have had anything but a salubrious effect on my vitality level.

You can look at this in a couple of ways, I suppose: Thinking of yourself as a younger person is a lot easier when you’re fortunate enough to be fairly fit and healthy. Or, maybe that sort of self-identity makes some contribution to your good health. Or maybe it’s a combination of the two. All I know is that it doesn’t seem like it would be much fun to embrace the whole “creaky old guy” stereotype the way a lot of folks do when they hit middle age. It’s kind of like they just assume that’s who they’re supposed to be at a certain point in their life. Like they’ve been handed a new script that’s loaded with episodes of gastric distress, aching backs and long evenings on the couch watching bad sitcoms–from which it becomes increasingly difficult to rise.

I don’t think any of us signed up for that sort of future. And avoiding it doesn’t mean you have to work out six days a week and give up drinking beer. (What kind of life would that be?!?) It just means that you don’t settle for the conventional notion that each birthday represents an inevitable slide into decrepitude. And you do whatever you can every day to recapture the vitality that powered you through life so naturally not so many years ago.

There are plenty of ways to do that, but this EL piece from a couple of years ago offers some pretty good tips, including:

Get outside. The high-vitality elders that Dan Buettner studies in Okinawa, Costa Rica and other pockets of longevity enjoy an active life surrounded by nature.
Cultivate community. A lack of close relationships has been shown to weaken our immune systems and sap our vitality. Maintaining strong social ties with others improves many aspects of both health and happiness. So does volunteering.
Be a lifelong learner. More education leads to longer, healthier lives. A 2003 study published in the journal Neurology found an inverse relationship between how many years of formal education Alzheimer’s patients have and how quickly they succumb to the disease.
Calm down. Chronic stress releases hormones that can damage cells, tissues and organ systems, all of which can shorten your life expectancy.
Honor your promises. Each time you break a promise, whether it’s to a loved one or to yourself, you lose a sense of connection with your own values. Keep your promises and you gain integrity and self-respect, two main ingredients for vitality.
Plug your “energy leaks.” Notice where you are losing energy. Reevaluate lifeless jobs, negative relationships, poor eating habits, sedentary patterns and other parts of your life that drain your energy.
Don’t skimp on sleep. Chronic sleep deprivation increases your odds of suffering from both heart disease and diabetes. And it reduces your immunity and your ability to cope productively with everyday challenges.

And I’d add this one: Celebrate each birthday by noting how small the number is.

In other news . . .
My employer has offered health screenings to all of its employees as a way of reducing health care costs, so I bicycled over to a nearby club one morning awhile back and let them take my blood pressure, draw some blood and take some measurements. I did 34 pushups during the strength test, which seemed like a pretty good number. But my blood pressure was 194/95, which seemed like a pretty bad number. The last time I had that measured, it was something like 120/80, so I was a little perplexed and explained to the technician that I had just bicycled 6 miles to the club that morning, but she didn’t seem to think that would contribute to a higher reading. So, now later today, I’ll be talking on the phone with a wellness coach, who I assume will be counseling me to do some stress management work to bring my blood pressure down. Maybe I should’ve demanded a recount.

I took our dog, Brigit, for a run recently and found that she had trouble keeping up to me. That made me feel pretty good about my newfound interest in jogging–until I recalled what her vet said about her during her latest check-up: “She’s doing pretty well for an 86-year-old lady.”

Last week, I accompanied MLW to her weekly yoga class and found myself huffing and puffing through a 75-minute routine led by the joyful Jinger Stanton. The good news? My left knee has improved enough over the past year that I can actually bend it enough to pretend to do some of the poses. The bad news? My quads and hamstrings are so tight that I can barely reach my shins when trying to touch my toes. Stanton assures me that if I keep at it, I’ll eventually stretch those hammies out enough to reach the floor. Hard to imagine, but I’ll be optimistic.

Sitting to Get Smarter

By Craig Cox / July 17, 2011

I’ve never pretended to be the smartest guy in the room, but it’s possible that I won’t get a whole lot dumber if I just keep sitting still for a half hour every morning.

That’s the conclusion of new research out of UCLA measuring the effects of a long-term meditation practice on the brain. The study, published in a recent edition of the journal NeuroImage, suggests that these meditators have stronger connections between brain regions and less evidence of brain atrophy as they age. Those stronger connections mean that you’re more capable of relaying electrical signals from one region of your aging brain to another, allowing even slow thinkers like myself to stay sharp into our twilight years.

“Our results suggest that long-term meditators have white-matter fibers that are either more numerous, more dense or more insulated throughout the brain,” Eileen Luders, one of the lead researchers, explained in a statement released by UCLA. “We also found that the normal age-related decline of white-matter tissue is considerably reduced in active meditation practitioners.”

Plenty of other studies have shown that people who meditate regularly tend to have more gray matter in their brains, but Luders and her colleagues are now suggesting that a long-term meditation practice can, as she puts it, “induce changes on a micro-anatomical level.”

I won’t go into the details here — how researchers used diffusion tensor imaging to show that activity within the corticospinal tract, the superior longitudinal fasciculus, and the uncinate fasciculus differed markedly between the meditators participating in the study and the control group — because, well, that would just be showing off.

Actually, I don’t know my hippocampus from my amygdala, but it’s nice to know that all those mornings I’ve sat on my butt wrestling silently with my monkey mind might actually keep me lucid — if not any brighter — long into my crusty old age.

In Other News…
For those of you keeping score out there, I finally managed to extract the last four concrete-encrusted fence posts from the space in our backyard where we someday hope to create a vegetable garden. One of those posts had been confounding me for almost a year, but I grabbed my sledgehammer the other day and gave it a few good whacks and, much to my surprise and delight, all the concrete fell away. I’d like to say I enjoyed complete vindication, except that I tweaked something in my lower back pulling the dang thing out of the hole. So it goes…. The forecast this coming week calls for temps in the 90s with humidity not far behind, so I’m thinking it’s time to get back into the gym. My Handyman Workouts offer plenty of resistance training (see aching back above and sore elbow in previous post), but not much in the way of cardio. The good news is that my knee feels great, so maybe it’s time to hit the dreadmill again. I’ll report back…

Thanks for the Memory

By Craig Cox / April 10, 2011

My grandfather, the late William Winters, made his living as a sharecropper, moving from farm to farm throughout central Minnesota in the early part of the last century. He was, by all accounts, a pretty lousy farmer, a bit of a raconteur and the only person I’ve ever known who smoked cheap cigars by stuffing them into the bowl of his pipe.
By the time I met him in the 1950s, Grandpa was living in a tiny hovel next to a junkyard in Monticello, Minn. I soon learned that he liked a little whiskey after Sunday dinner, kept chickens and, briefly, a milking cow, in his back yard, and he was not above flirting with young women.
He was one of my first great role models.
That wasn’t because of his general disregard for social convention or his utter lack of ambition — though some of that may have rubbed off on me. What really made an impression on me was how calm he always seemed to be. How nothing seemed to get under his skin. Here was a guy who, by almost any measurement, had struggled and repeatedly failed at his life’s work and, yet, I never heard him express any regrets about his past or voice any concerns about his future.
And when he died, at the age of 93, he was in full possession of all his faculties.
Grandpa Winters came to mind recently, when I stumbled upon a new study from the University of Edinburgh that linked stress to memory loss. Researchers there showed how two receptors in the aging brain react to the stress hormone cortisol. They found that a certain level of cortisol activated one of the receptors, improving memory. But prolonged high levels of the hormone activated a second receptor that led to memory loss.
“While we know that stress hormones affect memory, this research explains how the receptors they engage with can switch good memory to poorly-functioning memory in old age,” said Dr. Joyce Yau of the Centre of Cardiovascular Science.

It’s just another reminder to pay attention to your stress levels as you move into middle age — or any other age, for that matter. (We already know how elevated levels of cortisol can cause inflammation and a whole host of serious health problems.) There are all sorts of stress management techniques out there; I’ve found meditation and exercise to be particularly effective.
I’m not entirely sure how Grandpa Winters stayed so centered. Maybe it was a lifetime of hard work or a generally positive outlook on the world. I’m really hoping it wasn’t the cigars.

Sudden Death

By Craig Cox / April 4, 2011

An old buddy of mine died recently. We’d grown up together, played Little League baseball (he was our first baseman; I played second) and backyard football. And though we’d lost touch after our college years, it was still a bit of a shocker. At the funeral, his sister described his two months in the hospital after what appeared to be a stroke morphed into a fatal brain aneurysm. He was 59 and left behind a wife, three grown children, a couple of grandkids.
With all the alarming data we see these days about how unhealthy Americans are, it’s tempting on these occasions to shake your head sadly and think about all the ways this guy could’ve extended his life — better diet, more exercise, etc. — but I don’t know what kind of shape Phil was in. If the photos at the funeral were any indication, he didn’t have a weight problem. He looked like what you’d expect a guy pushing 60 would look like: gray hair, a little jowly, but hanging in there. Not the kind of guy you’d expect to kick off anytime soon.
But he did. Stroke, aneurysm, gone. Just like that.
It gives one pause, of course. There really are no guarantees. I might be in the best shape of my life, but it won’t matter much if I get hit by a truck on my way home from the gym. Or if some wayward batch of blood cells decides to gum up the works somewhere in my pea-sized brain.
Anything can happen, so I don’t see much good coming from dwelling on this stuff. We’re all going to die. So, seize the day, stay in the moment, and all that. And as much as I’d prefer to play things out here on this mortal plane for a few more years, I understand that I only have so much influence. But that doesn’t mean I won’t continue to hit the gym, work on my jump shot, and pretend I’m a lot younger than I am.
After all, if you gotta go, why not go out at the top of your game?

Age-Old Advice

By Craig Cox / March 1, 2011

I like to tell my young
tennis buddy, M.E., that growing old is a time-bending experience: You wake up
Monday morning, head off to work, come home, have dinner, go to bed, wake up
and it’s Thursday. Time flies. Whether you’re having fun or not.

I have evidence. I
distinctly remember turning 50 about three months ago (we had a lovely party)
and yet, come August, I’ll be 60. It’s all happened so suddenly that I now find
myself on the cusp of a new milestone without having learned how to navigate
the old one.

So, I was happy to recently
discover a timely (in a weird way) anthology called 50 Things to Do When You Turn 50. I cracked it open, hoping that
maybe I could learn how to behave properly in the brief window opened to me
before I tumbled into my next decade.

The collection of sage
wisdom, edited by Ronnie Sellers, includes contributions from such literary
stalwarts as Garrison Keillor, Marianne Williamson, Harold Kushner, Erica Jong,
and Robert Thurman. All of these folks are older than me, so I figured they’d
have something relevant to say. But, to be perfectly frank, I wasn’t so much driven to collect their
wisdom as to compare their list with the one that’s governed my own journey
over the past nine-plus years. (I’m a Baby Boomer, after all; it’s all about me.)

We agree on the following:

1.
“Stop complaining.” (Keillor) Doesn’t do any good. Nobody cares that you’re
getting old.

2.
“Stop obsessing about your flaws.” (Bobbi Brown) You look as good as you’re going to look. Plenty of
people look worse. Get over it.

3.
“Wear comfortable clothes.” (Diane von Furstenberg) Nobody’s looking at you anyway.

4.
“Take a hike.” (Kristina Hurrell) There’s nothing like a long walk to get your mind
off of stuff that doesn’t matter.

5.
“Power up your tennis game.” (Angela Buxton) Golf is an illness. Tennis is the cure.

6.
“Sit still: meditation is medicinal.” (Robert
Schneider) Best habit I ever took
up.

When I do the math, though, it
appears that I’ve ignored 44 other pearls of wisdom, including such gems as
paying off my mortgage (Suze Orman), reading the Torah (Richard Siegel),
playing golf in Scotland (Bill Daniels), getting a colonoscopy (Patricia
Raymond), learning to belly dance (TaRessa Stovall), and finding my “inner
elegy” (Billy Collins).

But, then again, I could add
a few to their batch — stuff that’s kept me going over the past nine-plus
years. Here’s a sample:

1.
Stop pretending that you’re smarter than your spouse.
It’s the best stress management
program around.

2.
Eat a good breakfast. You’ve got the whole rest of the day to eat poorly.

3.
Make sleep a priority. Toss your alarm clock and give yourself enough sack
time to ensure that you’re waking up fully rested.

4.
Take control of your health care. You know more about your body than any doctor ever
will.

5.
Don’t take yourself too seriously. Nobody else does.

6.
Acknowledge your own good fortune. Plenty of people would love to be in your shoes.

7.
Stop worrying. You have way less control over what happens tomorrow than you think you
do, and way more control over what you decide to do right now.

Oh, yeah. There’s one more: Respect
your elders, even if you ignore their advice.

Plenty in Reserve

By Craig Cox / December 1, 2010

Winter has arrived in the form of wet snow and icy
sidewalks, so I’ve retired my bicycle for the duration and have been making the
1-mile trek across the river to my office on foot. I do this each morning with
some trepidation, but my knee seems to be improving. For the most part, it’s
holding up pretty well. No limping, no real stiffness, and my commute has been mostly
pain-free. I’m not quite ready to grab my tennis racket and get back out on the
court, but I’m relieved to know that my aging body has retained its self-healing
powers.

So, here’s my prescription for knee rehab: Forget the knee replacement. Dial back your
more physical athletic pursuits, but keep moving as much as you can and tap into
your physiologic reserve for as long as possible.

OK, that last part was not part of my original rehab plan. I borrowed it
from a recent Jane Brody column in the NYT.
Brody interviews Mark Lachs, MD, director of geriatrics at the
NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System and author of Treat Me, Not My Age (Viking, 2010), who describes how each of us
is born with more capacity than our organs and general biological systems need
to operate. We have, for instance, billions of brain cells we’ll never use and
way more kidney and liver and heart capabilities than we typically need to
function properly.

But we begin dipping into those reserves in our 20s –
when muscle strength peaks for most people — and it can begin to run pretty low
once your hit your 80s and 90s, Lachs says. This was not a big issue in the
good old days when folks routinely kicked off in their 50s and 60s, but Western
medicine now has ways to keep most of us vertical well into our 80s (indeed,
some experts are predicting that centenarians will become rather common among
my children’s generation) and, as Lachs puts it, “Millions of people have
survived long enough to keep a date with immobility.”

The good news is that you can tweak your routine at
almost any age and slow the depletion of your physiologic reserves. Lachs cites
a 2004 study in which a group of elderly patients recovering from a hip
fracture increased their walking speed, balance and muscle strength simply by
performing a few basic strengthening exercises. Something as simple a daily
walk can make a difference between mobility into your 90s or disability at 60,
he says. “Even the smallest interventions can produce substantial benefits.”

I like this approach, because it gives all of us hope
that we can improve our quality of life as we age rather than cave in to the
conventional thinking that says, “Hey! You’re old and creaky. Get used to it!”

I may be old and creaky, but next spring I’ll be back
out on the tennis court — older, yes; creakier, not so much.

Good Vibrations

By Craig Cox / October 26, 2010

When you get to be my age, it’s natural to want to
gain a little edge here and there against the inevitable forces of physical and
mental decline. That’s not to say that I’m a fan of Big Pharma ads for the
latest miracle drug, but I do find myself intrigued by bits and pieces of
research showing that some random bit of behavior may improve my chances to
arrive someday at a happy old age.

So, I was intrigued today when I stumbled upon news
of a study out of the Medical College of Georgia that suggests that a person of
my vintage might maintain his bone density by simply employing a regular dose
of vibration alongside his tibia,
femur and other vital skeletal features.

This, of course, immediately makes me start humming
an old Beach Boys tune, but that shouldn’t negate the impact of this particular
study, published in the current issue of the journal Bone. Weak bones, you’ve probably heard, break when you fall on
them or whack them against something. It’s a real issue for older folks –
especially those who apparently aren’t getting their recommended daily amount
of ngngngngngngngngngn.

MCG researchers treated 18-month-old male mice
(equivalent to 55- to 65-year-old guys) to 30-minute vibratory sessions for 12
weeks and found that the regimen “improved density around the hip joint with a
shift toward higher density in the femur, the long bone of the leg, as well.”
The study also noted an increase in bone formation among the lucky rodents.

It turns out that this vibrational approach has been
around since the 19th century and has resurfaced now in gyms and rehab clinics
as a viable treatment option — particularly for people with limited mobility. Here’s
how it works:

“The scientists theorize that the rhythmic movement,
which produces a sensation similar to that of a vibrating cell phone but on a
larger scale, exercises cells so they work better. Vibration prompts movement
of the cell nucleus, which is suspended by numerous threadlike fibers called
filaments. . . . All the movement releases transcription factors that spur new
osteoblasts, the cells that make bone. With age, the balance of bone production
and destruction – by osteoclasts – tips to the loss side.”

This is great news for bone-density-craving seniors
with really large cell phones they can set to the vibrate mode — especially
those who have friends who will call them repeatedly throughout the day while
they’re watching game shows.

For the rest of us, there’s always exercise.

Immune to Logic

By Craig Cox / October 18, 2010

I’ve been battling a bit of a cold for the past few
weeks, somehow managing to keep it at bay with a regular regimen of sleep,
vitamins, and the occasional intervention of Echinacea and homeopathic aconite.
All in the service of buttressing my 59-year-old immune system. As the Zen monk
said as he fell from the 20-story building: “So far, so good.”

I’ve always been of the opinion that a hale and
hearty immune system is the key to a graceful aging process, but suddenly I’m
not so sure. A recent piece in The New
York Times suggests that a powerhouse immune system might just backfire on
you — especially if you’re trying to beat back the common cold.

The writer, Jennifer Ackerman, is an expert in this
area — or so her resume would suggest. She’s the author of Ah-Choo! The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold, and she argues that
it’s a too-aggressive immune system — not that pesky cold bug — that causes
those sniffles and sneezes. She points to a 1984 study at the University of
Copenhagen that compared the nasal tissues of people suffering from severe
colds with samples from those same people after they had recovered. “To the
scientists’ surprise, none of the samples showed any damage to the nasal
tissue,” she writes.

“Here was a new insight in cold science: the symptoms
are caused not by the virus but by its host — by the body’s inflammatory
response. Chemical agents manufactured by our immune system inflame our cells
and tissues, causing our nose to run and our throat to swell. The enemy is us.

“Indeed, it’s possible to create the full storm of
cold symptoms with no cold virus at all, but only a potent cocktail of the
so-called inflammatory mediators that the body makes itself — among them,
cytokines, kinins, prostaglandins and interleukins, powerful little chemical
messengers that cause the blood vessels in the nose to dilate and leak,
stimulate the secretion of mucus, activate sneeze and cough reflexes and set
off pain in our nerve fibers.”

So, it appears that my highly functioning immune
system isn’t really fighting off the cold bug that’s been hanging around our
house. It’s actually creating the symptoms I don’t quite have.

Oh, wait. Here’s the kicker:

“There’s another intriguing paradox here. Studies
suggest that about one in four people who get infected with a cold virus don’t
get sick. The virus gets into their bodies, and eventually they produce
antibodies to it, but they don’t experience symptoms. It may be that people
like this are not making the normal amounts of inflammatory agents.”

I think I get it now. Maybe I’m one of those people
who get a cold that’s not created by our own highly functioning immune systems
because my immune system isn’t really functioning at a high level, but at a
level that doesn’t quite create cold symptoms, making it possible for the cold
virus to enter my body and also not create cold symptoms.

Glad I cleared that up. I’m feeling better already.

A Pretender at Parkour

By Craig Cox / April 29, 2010

Mr. Parkour and
I paid a visit last night to Gleason’s Gym, a sprawling gymnastics center
artfully hidden in a suburban industrial park just south of the city. This was
not my idea, but I tagged along with my housemate/former child out of curiosity
and a faint notion that I should be supporting his newly won interest in
fitness. You’d understand if you saw him swinging on the clothesline pole –
these days he’s inhabiting a body that seems to be electrically charged. He’s
just got to have a place to expend all this energy.

And it’s hard to
imagine a better place for him than Gleason’s. At our local gym, we have plenty
of cardio and resistance machinery to work various muscle groups, but this
place is more like a giant parkour playground, with climbing ropes,
trampolines, springboards, and all manner of large padded obstacles to test the
aspiring free-runner.

MP pointed out
his parkour guru standing at the end of a long runway where two young men were
joyfully launching themselves into back flips and landing in a pit filled with
foam cubes. One of MP’s lifelong dreams, he has confided to me, is to complete
a back flip on solid ground. For someone who does not aspire to much, this is a
serious endeavor.

But first
there’s this climbing rope dangling from the ceiling in a way that’s not what I
would call inviting, exactly. It’s
more like that kid in seventh grade – the one your mom never liked much – who
enjoyed jumping off the roof of his garage and loved to cajole you into joining him. Before I could really ponder the challenge
(and briefly relive some of the horrors of junior high gym class), MP was
happily ascending, hand-over-hand. No big deal.

I’m not nearly
as competitive as I once was, but there’s something about seeing your own
progeny – someone who not that long
ago held your hand when climbing the back steps – do something you can’t
imagine doing yourself that makes it imperative that you go ahead and do it. So,
I grabbed the rope and started up – hand over hand, no wrapping my legs around
it for extra oomph. Three or four feet later, I descended, doing my best to
appear nonchalant. Just a little warm-up.

MP was charitable,
of course, offering some tips and encouragement (interesting how the father-son
dynamic can shift) before escorting me over to the trampolines. I quickly
noticed that these did not feature a large bouncing surface; the well-worn “X”
upon which I focused my attention was centered on a mesh
fabric that measured perhaps 4 by 8 feet. So, while MP was soaring skyward, I bobbed up and down in a more
exploratory manner, carefully eyeing the “X” and noting the nearby sign that
cautioned bouncers about flying over the safety net.

It’s possible
that at some point in my distant past I frolicked on one of these, but I found it
hard at that moment to imagine the allure. There was a certain exhilaration when airborne, a kind of weightlessness.
What made it tough to enjoy, though, was the knowledge that I was just as
likely to hit my “X” the next time down as to veer wildly off course and find
myself bouncing on a less merciful surface somewhere below.

“It’s really a
type of meditation,” MP assured me, as I searched in vain for some equilibrium.
In fitness circles they’d call my futile bouncing an exercise in proprioception
- perfecting a sense of balance and knowing where your body is in space. It
seemed to me more like an exercise in fear management.

Years ago, when
MP was a toddler, I read an article about a parent who spent the day mimicking
the movements of her 2-year-old. She came away from the experience amazed at
the exertion it required. I was reminded of that as MP led me from one station to
another around the gym: swinging on the high bar, leaping from balance beam to
balance beam, vaulting over and through various padded obstacles. He
demonstrating the proper technique, me attempting to avoid injury.

At one point, he
exploded off the mat to the top of a padded three-step stair. I crouched and jumped to the second step with little difficulty. Feeling my oats, I announced I
would go for the top. Unfortunately, the stairs were not anchored to anything,
so when I landed just short of the top step, the whole thing tilted over and I
fell backward and conked my noggin on the (thankfully) padded floor. Note to
self: Do not try this at home.

Eventually, we
made our way into an adjacent room, where MP located a couple of mats upon
which he would attempt his back flips. I offered to spot him, and he showed me
how to position my arms at his back and knees. Then, he crouched low, swung his
arms, and sprung up and back, landing on his feet – though not completely
upright. The next one was better, as was the next and the next. Each attempt
seemed to generate more energy than the last: crouch, swing, spring, flip,
land, smile.

The flips were
not perfect, but his smiles were. And, as we meandered back through the main
room, I tried unsuccessfully to recall a workout that gave me that much joy. Of
course, I’m not 19; there’s probably some major endorphin disparity at work
here. Or maybe it’s more about taking risks, trying something new.

So, when I spied
that climbing rope on our way to the door, I jumped up, grabbed hold and
started pulling myself upward with a real sense of purpose. I made it about
two-thirds of the way to the top (full disclosure: I was using my legs, too)
before I ran out of gas and inched my way back down to terra firma.

Mission
accomplished? Sort of — except my hands still hurt.

Page 3 of 4«1 234 »

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