October 2009 Archives

A pretty OK workout last night: Did 30 minutes of intervals on the EDM rather than my normal routine, during which I watch Seinfeld or whatever sitcom happens to be playing on the flat-screens and stride glumly along for 45 minutes, moving from a resistance level of 10, to 15, then 20. I usually burn about 600 calories this way. The intervals burned about 400, as I recall. (Should I be writing this stuff down?) But, I was pretty drenched by the time I hit the weights.

I avoided The Pit to let my shoulder heal, and because I didn't feel that ambitious. Still, I managed to work my upper body to near exhaustion in about 25 minutes. I concentrated more on form with less poundage rather than pushing my limits. I've found on those occasions when I'm lacking serious lifting determination that just scaling back on the weight and slowing my tempo really does the job. It's not officially tempo lifting -- a formal strategy of timing your eccentric (lowering) and concentric (lifting) movements -- but by holding a lesser weight for a couple of counts at the top of my lift, it has the effect of really stressing the muscles.

It must work, because I'm pretty sore today (hooray!).

I think I've mentioned once or twice on these pages how I used to play basketball back in the day with a bunch of guys who were within shouting distance of my age. We got together one night a week at a local school gym (and, in the summer, at a local playground). We'd run up and down the court for a couple of hours, talk some trash, occasionally twist an ankle or dislocate a finger, and then go have a couple beers. I did this from 1985 until after my 50^th birthday in 2001. I recall attempting a poorly calculated comeback a year or two after that, but I've basically been out of the game for the better part of a decade.

So, I was a little taken aback recently when my tennis buddy, M.E., told me that the old gang was reconstituting the weekly game and was extending an invitation to him and me to return to the court. I was flattered, of course, but circumspect. I mean, on the one hand, I really don't think I can recapture whatever skills I once owned. And the chance of injury is pretty good. On the other hand, these guys haven't exactly grown younger in the past decade; I suspect the game would be played more or less in slow motion.

There was some fine print to be considered in this deal, as well: It wouldn't just be old guys on the court, actually. Apparently, there was a gaggle of twentysomethings that kind of filled out the roster, M.E. noted. Could we convince them to let us old guys slog along on our own while they pranced, gazelle-like, on a neighboring court?

Part of me -- the testosterone-fuelled idiot part -- loves the idea of playing against guys young enough to be my sons. It would be a great challenge. It would push my limits. Clear out the cobwebs in my fitness routine.

I was kind of in that zone Wednesday night, when M.E. and I arrived at the LTF Crosstown club for a 9 pm tennis match. We had about a half-hour to kill, so we tossed our tennis gear into a corner the gym, grabbed a basketball and started reliving our former glory on the hardwood. I was surprised to see that, after a few bricks clanked off the rim, I began draining 18-footers like the old days (which is to say, intermittently). Meanwhile, M.E. was starting to feel pretty good about himself, which meant he needed a little one-on-one.

That was OK. He's not as tenacious as he was in his 40s. And nobody was going to be driving the baseline for reverse lay-ups. Just a couple of middle-aged guys reliving the good old days. But, here's the pathetic part: We went at each other for maybe 10 minutes, neither of us presenting much in the way of defense, and the ball never actually managed to travel through the hoop.

Hmmm.

We grabbed our stuff and silently shuffled off to the tennis courts, where we battled through an exhilarating 14-game set before I prevailed 8-6. It was the best tennis we'd played all season: long rallies, great shot-making, much scampering from baseline to net. We worked up quite a lather.

And on the way home, I don't recall any talk about basketball.

The past few days have been pretty eventful: I wrenched my back while channeling Marty Gallagher in The Pit last Thursday - barbell squats with 120 lbs resting behind my neck (what was I thinking?). And then, on Monday, back in The Pit (I know what you're thinking, but no, I skipped the barbells), I did something to my left shoulder while doing tricep extensions with 40 lbs worth of dumbell. I don't think it's serious, but something popped right on top of the shoulder.

A brief digression: That's where the shoulder was slightly dislocated about 10 years ago after this woman opened her door on me and my bicycle as I was speeding to work. I went right over the handlebars and executed a nifty somersault, landing on my left shoulder and thus allowing my unhelmeted (yeah, yeah, I know . . .) head to avoid a collision with the pavement. I heard a distinctive "pop" when my shoulder made contact with the road and as I collected myself on the curb, I tested its range of motion, telling the distraught woman who precipitated the acrobatics that I was fine. No, no need to call an ambulance, I said as I got to my feet - a little too soon, it turned out, as I promptly passed out and cracked my unhelmeted head on the now-satisfied pavement. When I came to, the distraught woman was still there, more distraught now than ever, given that my head was sitting in a pretty impressive pool of blood. The ambulance arrived and the EMT guys transported me to a nearby emergency room, where some doctor cleaned me up and closed my wound with a few staples (!?!?!). My shoulder was still sore, and I told him that I thought maybe I had dislocated it. He took a look and said something about how if it really was dislocated, I'd know it. I told him I was pretty sure something was wrong, and maybe it should be x-rayed or something. He said if it really was dislocated, I'd know it. And so on. I went home and looked at it in the mirror and noticed that it was clearly sitting lower on my body than my right shoulder was. You could plainly see where the collarbone should be connected to the top of the shoulder, except that it wasn't. (Check out this illustration.)

Anyway, I never went back for a second opinion and, while the shoulder still looks a little funky, it seems to be in perfect working order. Until Monday and my 30 reps with 40 lbs. It's still a bit sore, so I'll just take it easy - and watch for car doors. My back is fine today. Thanks for asking.

All of this has nothing at all to do with my first-ever visit to an acupuncturist yesterday - though I have no doubt that the folks at Three Treasures Community Acupuncture could take care of my shoulder and back with a few well-placed needles. The whole community acupuncture deal is pretty cool; it makes acupuncture accessible to a much broader range of the population than more conventional practices. At Three Treasures, you schedule your own appointments, pay what you can afford, and sidestep the whole health insurance morass. It's all right up my old anarchist alley.

Still, I'm a little squeamish around needles - and healthcare personnel in general -- so it took some convincing by My Lovely Wife for me to even check the place out. She'd had a session many years ago with a very nice needle-wielder when she was fighting a nasty and prolonged respiratory illness, and it seemed to work out pretty well for her. So, I really had no excuse but to give it a try.

Besides, this constant ringing in my ears (tinnitus) is starting to bug me. For the past couple of years or so, I've been putting up with it, just figuring that, at some point, it would disappear as mysteriously as it arrived. But it's still in my head, like a swarm of cicadas on a sweltering August afternoon, and I'm beginning to wonder if it's going to start messing with my already faulty hearing (isn't aging great!). Western medicine doesn't seem to have many answers, but I've read that acupuncture can be effective.

So, I hopped on my bike yesterday afternoon and pedaled across the river to Three Treasures, where a nice young woman named Katherine listened to my woeful tale of the trapped cicadas in my skull. Then she stuck a bunch of needles into my hands, arms, legs and feet while I reclined in a comfy Lazy-Boy and looked at the ceiling. (Frankly, the idea of a Lazy-Boy without TV and a beer takes some getting used to.) Pleasant New-Agey music wafted through the room, which contained several other Lazy-Boys - each containing a sedate person with needles sticking out of various appendages.

The idea, Katherine explained, is to simply lay there for an hour and relax while my qi is quietly rearranged in a helpful way. It seemed like a tall order to me, and I began counting the various New Agey tunes as a way to keep track of the time, figuring maybe 20 of these would take about 60 minutes. Pretty soon, though, I noticed I was becoming one with my Lazy-Boy, and sinking happily into a nice little meditative state. A little itch arose on my cheek, which I observed until it faded away. The insides of my elbows started to feel a bit achy, but that too passed. The needle sticking somewhere near the pinky on my right hand was pulsing. A while later, I noticed it had stopped.

It went on like that for a time: small things creeping into my consciousness then fading away. I might have dozed. Then, at some point, I distinctly felt my chest opening, like something heavy had been removed. This was intriguing.

Meanwhile, the cicadas were still singing, but the noise, which tends to be centered between my ears, had moved noticeably upward - more toward the top of my head. I took this to be a good sign, and mentioned it to Katherine when she pulled the needles out of my skin. She agreed, noting that any such activity is encouraging.

She suggested I return a couple of times next week and the week after, so I made the appointments before pedaling home (into a nasty gale from the south). My ears were still ringing on the way home - though it tends to be less noticeable in a gale -- and today the cicadas are having a real party, but I have no allusions that this is going away after a single treatment. I'll get needled again next week and see what happens. It can't hurt.

Well, the weekend came and went and I was somehow able to circle my way around whatever it was that was bothering me last Wednesday. This H1N1 flu scare has everyone I know walking on eggshells, and while I don't tend to panic about these sorts of things, you never know. . . . It seems as though two days of working at home and a decent night's sleep did the trick.

I even managed to do a little work on the house on Saturday (got the storm windows on in plenty of time for our current warming trend . . . geez!) And, then on Sunday, I dragged my tennis buddy, M.E., away from his household duties and we managed to get in a set of tennis before the Vikings game.

The tennis was forgettable. I played putridly, he played slightly less putridly, and the result was 6-4 in his favor. I noted afterward that he had called it an "exhibition match" prior to us warming up (he was concerned about his stiff shoulder), but he'd conveniently forgotten that point after he hit one of the few good shots of the day -- cross-court winner at set point. Whatever.

Besides, it was a beautiful day. I wasn't sneezing and blowing my nose. My fever was long gone. What's to complain about?

We retired to his living room for three hours of watching large men collide with one another before I headed home. There, My Lovely Wife reminded me that we still needed to get to the co-op if we wanted to eat, so I climbed on my Schwinn and pedaled the 6 miles along the river to the store. The bike path was packed with happy Minnesotans enjoying the balmy weather after a week of brutal early-winter temperatures, so I settled into a nice rhythm and marveled at the fall colors on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi.

Home again with the goods, we put together a meal that miraculously coincided with my son's emergence from his room and my daughter's return from work. And while it wasn't exactly a Norman Rockwell moment (he wolfed down his meal while describing some horror movie he'd been watching; she grabbed a plate and escaped to her basement bedroom), MLW and I enjoyed a fine repast among the cacophony.

And why not? For the moment, at least, everyone was healthy. What's not to like about that?

I'm sitting at my desk on my front porch this morning watching the October rain threaten to become snow, the kind of weather that correlates nicely with my current mood: Is the bug that hit me yesterday going to morph into something more serious today?

About mid-morning, while preparing for a major budget meeting, my face grew hot and I began sniffling and sneezing. I soldiered on, of course, and stayed upright through the meeting and its aftermath, but felt pretty drained afterward. Plus, with H1N1 dominating the news these days, you never know. . . . So, I called My Lovely Wife to see if she could fetch me from the office, but our son had absconded with the Crapmobile, which had delivered me to work that morning. Left with no other alternative, I shouldered my computer bag and started walking home.

Years ago, when the kids were small, MLW took some classes in homeopathy and essentially became our family doctor (we were without health insurance). In fact, she became quite adept at diagnosing our various minor maladies and prescribing the proper homeopathic remedy. I was reminded of this as I strode across the bridge toward home yesterday, because I began to feel a little better out in the autumn air. Indeed, by the end of my 40-minute walk, my fever had almost completely vanished.

When I mentioned this to MLW, she simply noted, "You're pulsatilla." Meaning, that's the homeopathic remedy I should employ if my fever returns. And then she went back to the drawing she'd been working on. I made some tea, settled into my comfy chair and marveled silently at my good fortune. Who else has a doctor who makes house calls? (Even if you have to walk to the house to get your treatment.)

My fever hasn't yet returned, but I'm watching for any symptoms to appear. The doctor is making oatmeal.

A gorgeous autumn morning for a bike ride. The trees along the Mississippi are beginning to turn and the squirrels in Minnehaha Park are frantically building their winter food cache.

The chill in the air gives me permission to pump a little harder on my way over the bridge and up the big hill to the office, but I was still surprised to note that I made the trip this morning in less than 12 minutes. Now that may not seem like much to you guys who tool around the parkway at 20 mph, but I always have to balance the desire for a little cardio before work and my unwillingness to walk into the office drenched in sweat.

Summer is tough in this regard. I tend to downshift into my lowest gear going up the big hill and try to keep my heart rate down as much as possible, while staying in the shade along the sidewalk. Still, I can end up being a bit moist on the muggiest days. So, fall temperatures are great for the morning commute - even though I have to drag out my mittens.

I needed them last night too after my workout, even though I worked up a good lather at the gym. I skipped my normal 45 minutes on the Elliptical Death Machine in favor of 15 minutes on a new version of the EDM - which emphasized the glutes a bit more -- followed by 15 excruciating minutes on the stair-climber thingy. There's something about climbing stairs that just turns on the sweat faucet for me. I mean, it's OK to sweat in the gym, but the torrent that machine seems to release from my body every time I step on it is a little bit embarrassing. Forget the little paper towel and spritzer thing to clean up; just hand me a mop. Weird.

I glanced into The Pit once I wrung out my Stewart-Colbert For President T-shirt ("The Smart Choice"), but it was packed with other sweaty guys, so I hit the machines and decided to test one side of the "training to failure debate": If your muscles aren't completely worn out by the time your done with your routine, you're not making progress. So, I pushed and pulled a bunch of tonnage with my shoulders and upper arms until, by the end of the night, I could barely bench press 50 lbs. My heart was racing, the sweat was pouring, and my poor arms and shoulders were screaming for mercy. How great is that, huh?

I married into a family cabin almost 30 years ago, which is a marvelous happenstance, except for the October Saturday every year when My Lovely Wife and I are called upon to drive 200 miles north to Cass County, Minn., for the annual bringing in of the dock.

Cabins have docks because people like to walk out over the water and climb into speedboats and sailboats and even rowboats, I suppose, without getting their ankles wet. Others like to jump into the water from the end of the dock, swim around for a while and then lay on the dock in the sun in order to bring a well-earned sunburn back to the office after their vacation. Still others enjoy standing on the dock while casting a line far out into the water in hopes of snagging a walleye or some other form of aquatic life. I do not actually belong to any of these groups of dock-lovers, but I understand I'm in the minority on this.

Anyway, MLW's grandfather, who purchased the property on Woman Lake in the 1920s, was a civil engineer who invented the BridgeCo dock, which, according to the marketing materials, was "built like a bridge". That means it has beams and stanchions and bridge decking -- a whole lot of very heavy redwood and steel, all designed for durability and convenience. And, in fact, this particular dock has been in use at the Parker cabin since before my first visit there in 1977, when MLW was simply My Lovely Girlfriend.

So, I have nothing but admiration for the creativity and engineering skill that went into designing this particular piece of north woods infrastructure. And, over the years, I've marveled at the technique developed to bring the dock in without having to set foot in the 40-degree water. This is the primary advantage, it seems to me, of owning a dock built like a bridge. And I have watched in wonder as, first, MLW's father and, eventually, her most mechanically minded brother, guided us through the process.

Very briefly, here's how it works: You loosen the bolts holding the two beams to the far stanchion, loop a burly rope around the stanchion, then remove the decking until you've reached the point where the beams are held in place on the next stanchion. You remove the bolts holding the beams there, drag them onto shore while the far stanchion quietly falls into the icy water -- still attached to the sturdy rope. Then you simply grab the rope and pull the stanchion (which weighs, I'm guessing, maybe 50,000 lbs.) along the lake bottom until it's close enough for you to yank it out of the water and stack it on the shore next to the boathouse. Then, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat and repeat. Piece of cake.

Until very recently, MLW's mechanically minded brother would handle most of this. He'd unscrew the bolts without dropping the socket wrench into the lake, wrap the rope around the stanchions, etc., while the rest of us carried in the decking (not a particularly easy task, but you get my drift). He eventually tired of this particular arrangement, and for the past couple of Octobers, it's been me and MLW's less mechanically inclined brother wielding the socket wrenches and hauling the steel out of the water.

So, last Saturday we were out there in a persistent drizzle, wrenching and yanking and schlepping along with our two LWs (all of us, I hasten to add, in our 50s) and getting the kind of workout that creates a Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness that's not really delayed at all. It's a good thing I've been working out, I was thinking as I struggled to pull the first stanchion out of the water. But this was lifting of a different sort: deep squats with a clean and jerk thrown in for good measure; a tug-of-war with a big old wet rope and a two-legged hunk of steel; dead lifts with soggy redwood. It all kind of reminded me of the stuff John Hinds does at his Madison, Wisc., Monkey Bar Gym -- only not so much fun.

Anyway, the dock's all packed away for the winter now, and most of the soreness has left my body -- just in time for me to hit the gym tonight. Maybe I'll work on those deep squats and deadlifts. Or . . . I could start working out an argument for the aesthetic pleasures of an unadorned shoreline.