The Challenges of Staying in Shape
I see them, people not so much older than I, struggling to get in and out of their cars, or to walk from their car to the front door of a Kohl’s or Target. I see motorized wheelchairs, oxygen masks, and walkers. I see labored breathing after a flight of stairs. And I know that not only do none of us get out of here alive, but most of us are going to have significant physical limitations before our bodies finally call it a day.
Still, I’d like to take steps to at least give my body a chance to avoid the worst of it, to recover after an accident or an illness or a surgery. When my wife had an accident last winter and broke six (or was it seven?) ribs, it was a wake-up call to both of us. Neither of us was in as good of shape as we should have been, and it was painfully clear that events are inevitably going to happen to our bodies that require recovery. The better shape we’re in now, the better chance we’ll have to recover quickly and successfully. Something as simple as getting out of a chair can be a terrible burden after an accident, but even more if your muscles aren’t in good working order. Physical fitness matters. For years, I’ve watched guys in workout facilities pump iron like their lives depended on it, and I’ve finally started to realize…they’re lives might depend on it!
And so my wife and I started seeing a personal trainer twice a week. My plan was to see him for three or four months, get a good routine established, and continue the workouts at home. I worked diligently last winter and spring, expanding my repertoire, purchasing mat flooring, a workout bench, some bands and dumbbells, and after a few months, I felt stronger: my movements had become more fluid, I had increased my confidence in exercises like hinges and squats and lunges, and my left knee – for decades the source of on-again, off-again piercing pain – finally got over its persnicketiness. All it took was one additional step up onto a 20-inch plyo box – one that had me groan audibly in pain – and as if my magic, all the knee pain that had plagued me since I was in my 20s disappeared. I can now step up onto 20-inch box without a thought.
Yay for the human body!
I was going along just fine, feeling rather smug about how much by body was improving, continuing my workouts at home plus an occasional check-in with my trainer, when suddenly my neck – also a source of on-again, off-again piercing pain for the past several decades – cried uncle, immobilizing my head to the point where it could barely turn.
Back to the drawing board. I began a three-month period of virtually no working out; that is, not unless you include the dozens of physical therapy sessions I attended at a well-run local clinic. I worked as diligently on my assigned “necksercises” as I had on my normal workout routine, and after months of pain and frustration, my neck began to relax, allowing me to increase my head movement significantly. It’ll probably never be “normal,” but it is much better. It’s at a point where if I can maintain my level of mobility for the rest of my life, I’ll be a happy man.
Yay for the human body!
But then I returned to the gym. It was as if I’d never started working out to begin with. After my first session, I could barely walk for the next two days.
So the journey begins again, trying to establish a functioning human body that has a fighting chance to recover after a fall or a car accident or a surgery. I’m trying. But now I’m proceeding with more caution than last winter. I’m lifting, but not as much. I’m allowed to do overhead pulls, but no longer overhead presses. I have to recognize that as much as I want to get stronger and achieve more fluidity, I also want to be able to move my head. It’s a balancing act, a variation of which I suspect all of us will be navigating for the remainder of our lives.
“Just keep moving,” is my motto these days. And try to avoid the types of events that will test how fit (or unfit) you really are.