Recently in Aging Category
You're Not Getting Older, You're Getting Stronger . . .
My daughter, The Boss Mare, called me from Michigan this morning to report that she'd had a flat tire on her way to some horse-related function an hour-and-a-half away from her college apartment. It's not that she needed advice on how to change a tire (I just assume she orders the tire to change itself); she just needed some dough, as usual. The call interrupted my zazen session, from which I normally segue into my workout, and it woke My Lovely Wife, who requested information. Bottom line: no workout.
It reminded me how easy it is to avoid exercising -- especially for older persons like myself. I mean, let's face it: Spending hours hoisting serious iron or logging miles on the dreadmill isn't going to radically transform those parts of our anatomy that have succumbed to gravity over the years. And, really, when you get to a certain age you're not in the habit of taking your shirt off in front of strangers, anyway. It's not about building a beach-ready body.
In fact, it's kind of hard to know what benefits all the sweat and soreness actually deliver. Conventional wisdom tells us that when you get old it's simply inevitable that your body is going to break down, so what's the point in fighting it?
Well, new research from the University of Pittsburgh suggests that a regular fitness regimen does make a difference. Indeed, those who maintain a regular fitness regimen into their 60, 70s, and beyond can enjoy the kind of strength, energy and vitality of people 20 years their junior.
It's long been thought that aging brought an inexorable loss of muscle mass and an inevitable infiltration of fat, but this latest study found that, with a regular exercise program, participants as old as 81 could retain the same level of muscle mass as folks in their 60s. "We think these are very encouraging results, lead researcher Vonda Wright, MD, told The New York Times. "They suggest strongly that people don't have to lose muscle mass and function as they grow older. The changes that we've assumed were due to aging and therefore were unstoppable seem actually to be caused by inactivity. And that can be changed."
While the participants in the University of Pittsburgh study were competitive athletes with intense training regimens, Wright noted that there's no reason to believe that a more moderate program wouldn't have similar effects. The key is simply to get up and move your body everyday in whatever way is most satisfying and sustainable. You may find that once you overcome your inertia, exercise will get easier and more enjoyable.
And by maintaining muscle mass you'll be more mobile and, thus independent, well into your 80s. Because you never know when somebody might need help changing their tire.
Living Longer -- the Old-Fashioned Way
Everyone wants to live a long and healthy life, right? So doesn't it just make sense to develop a drug that eliminates the cells in your body that contribute to aging?
That's what researchers at the Mayo Clinic seem to be suggesting by their work on so-called "deadbeat" cells. Their findings were reported in Wednesday's edition of the journal Nature.
It's a simple concept really: When aging body cells gradually stop dividing and settle into a sort of couch-potato stage called cellular senescence, they can begin to damage adjacent cells and cause tissue inflammation. A healthy immune system can evict these senescent cells for a while, but eventually they start to pile up like empty beer bottles before recycling day and pretty soon you're sliding down that slippery slope toward an early date with the local mortician.
But what if you could drive over to your local pharmacy and get a bottle of pills that, once ingested, would send some hard-to-pronounce chemical on a search-and-destroy mission to just zap those bothersome cells into oblivion? According to Jan van Deursen, a Mayo Clinic molecular biologist and senior author of the study, eliminating these cells in genetically engineered mice delayed the onset of many age-related disorders, including muscle loss. "Therapeutic interventions to get rid of senescent cells or block their effects may represent an avenue to make us feel more vital, healthier, and allow us to stay independent for a much longer time," he said in a statement released by Mayo.
I suspect we're a ways away from such a drug hitting the market ("Ask your doctor if Cellatak is right for you."), so in the meantime, you might try a simpler -- and less expensive -- approach to maintaining your vitality as you glide into your golden years. Study after study over the past several years have shown that exercising regularly can keep you feeling fit and spry no matter how many years you've got under your belt. A 2001 study at the University of Texas, for instance, found that men in their early 50s could regain the cardiovascular capacity they had in their 20s after only six months of modest exercise -- less than five hours a week.
"People forget that exercise is medicine," says Ralph Brovard, a sports medicine specialist at St. Paul's Regions Hospital in this 2004 Experience Life story. "Daily exercise is perhaps the most powerful tool you can prescribe for yourself; a variety of regular activity helps prevent cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, arthritis and just about every other affliction that strikes us as we age."
I know that it's comforting to imagine a future where we can switch on our good cells and discard our bad ones by simply ingesting a pharmaceutical. It would make getting and staying healthy so easy and painless. No sweat required.
But I'm not going to wait around for those TV commercials for Cellatak. I'm going to get up in the morning tomorrow and wake up my senescent cells the old-fashioned way -- with a bunch of pushups and some quality time with my kettlebell.
Mission Accomplished
My 44-day fitness challenge ended this week with kind of a whimper. I didn't do any running or play three sets of tennis or enter a triathlon. But I still feel like I learned a few things about myself: Like, it's the things I do as a matter of course (meditation, morning kettlebells, bicycling to work, weekly yoga) that have the biggest impact on my health. And that getting to bed early gives me the best chance to make the day a success. And that all the work I'm doing on the house and yard has a serious fitness component. And that, yes, sometimes reality intervenes -- and that's OK. I didn't do as much running as I hoped I would, and I didn't give up sugar altogether, but I have to say I feel at least as good as I did 44 days ago, and that should count for something.
Day 40, Monday, 10/17
Well, my 44-day fitness challenge is winding down, so instead of ramping up my workouts to gain momentum, today I didn't exert myself at all beyond my 2-mile bicycle commute. I should, however, mention my efforts at cutting back on processed sugar. As you may recall, my glucose level was slightly elevated, and I've known for some time that I need to be more mindful about my sugar intake. But I'm not ready to dive into the kind of detox diet that various doctors and nutritionists are preaching. I can't imagine spending two or three weeks drinking nothing but green tea and eating some tasteless broth.
I have in the past week moderated my wine consumption quite nicely, enjoying a single glass with dinner rather than lingering at the table with a refill (or two). This doesn't qualify as processed sugar, really, but it is a certain habit I'd like to moderate. I've also reduced my tea drinking to three or four cups a week. I want to watch the amount of caffeine I'm consuming, and because I like a teaspoon of honey with my chai, that is reducing my sugar intake as well. I long ago gave up on donuts and other pastries -- although MLW and I will share a dessert when we're dining out. And then, of course, there's dark chocolate. But everyone knows that's medicinal. On the unprocessed sugar side, I'm still enjoying fresh fruit as often as possible (bananas and raspberries or blueberries in my breakfast yogurt, a mid-afternoon apple), and I don't think that's a bad thing. Everything in moderation, MLW says. Even moderation.
Day 41, Tuesday, 10/18
Fitness isn't just about building rippling abs and buns of steel. It also means keeping your brain in shape. So Tuesday nights this fall, MLW and I have been taking a French class through our local community education program. Sitting in a high school classroom brings back all sorts of bad memories of my teen years, and revisiting verb conjugation can be awfully humbling for a guy who's supposed to know something about grammar, but it's actually been a pretty gratifying experience so far. And, before the recent cold snap hit, we had been riding our bikes a couple of miles to and from the school, so it has involved real exercise, as well. Drove the car tonight, though. C'est que c'est.
Day 42, Wednesday, 10/19
Up late last night and, of course, that required that I sleep too late for a morning workout. (So much of my day depends on when I get to bed the night before.) A brisk bike ride up the hill, though, always gets my heart rate up.
Day 43, Thursday, 10/20
An abbreviated workout (30 pushups) this morning, then yoga in the afternoon. Five miles on the bike also counts for something, right?
Day 44, Friday, 10/21
I figured since it's the final day of this fitness challenge, it would only be fitting to actually work out this morning. So I ran through my full 3X kettlebell circuit before breakfast. You know it's a good workout when you really wish it were over, and I really wished it was over about halfway through. (Goblet squats are just brutal!) Worked up quite a lather. Always feels great when you're done, though. Later, I had a nice chat with my wellness coach, who said I was doing really well. And she didn't add, "for an old guy."
Exercising Without Exercising
I didn't do much that would count as actual gym-type exercise this week, but I'm going to say it was pretty productive anyway. An interesting age-related (I think) conundrum surfaced, and I finally made some real progress toward finishing the basement.
Day 33, Monday, 10/10
Don't let anyone tell you that yard work doesn't qualify as exercise. Yesterday's digging and hauling left me feeling like I'd been hit with a wheelbarrow full of concrete this morning. My back, my legs, my arms -- even my hands -- hurt. Had a heckuva time dragging myself out of bed. Still sore at the end of the day. Maybe some stretching tomorrow.
Day 34, Tuesday, 10/11
(Warning: The following item discusses bodily functions that some readers may feel are inappropriate to mention in polite company.) Aging delivers lots of minor annoyances, but none more interesting to me than the connection between my adrenaline levels and my urinary tract. It seems that whenever I find myself in a situation that elicits a major rush of adrenaline, my heart starts beating faster (which is expected) and my poor bladder suddenly shrinks to the size of a tea bag (which is annoying). This can be slightly inconvenient if, for example, you're sitting in the chair at your dentist, as I was this morning. I don't really mind going to the dentist, but I think it's fairly typical for patients to feel slightly on edge when even the most highly skilled technician is scraping and probing around in your mouth. Anyway, I'm reclining there making small talk with the hygienist and listening to my heart thumping in my chest and gradually experiencing that unmistakable urge to visit the men's room. Is there some dentist office etiquette reserved for these occasions, I wonder? And what exactly is it about adrenaline that would trigger such a reaction? It wasn't like I'd been quaffing coffee all morning prior to my appointment. Anyway, I was able to excuse myself during a break in the action, and my hygienist didn't seem at all fazed. Pretty annoying, though.
Day 35, Wednesday, 10/12
I was thinking about yesterday's adrenaline altercation and made a point today to slow way down and breathe and try to be completely present in everything I do. That means actually paying attention to the computer keys under my fingers and noticing the feel of the pen on paper. This is often a great way to tamp down those nasty stress hormones that can do serious harm to your body. I felt like I was pretty successful until about mid afternoon, when I found myself sliding back into multi-task mode. Interesting experiment.
Day 36, Thursday, 10/13
Did three rounds of my favorite kettlebell circuit this morning before work and made it back to yoga this afternoon after a two-week hiatus. JS, our yogi, is usually pretty easy on us, but today she had us trying to do the bridge pose. I was able to get my butt off the mat without much difficulty, but then she said I needed to lift my head off the ground with my arms arched behind my shoulders. After some rearranging of the concept in my brain, and much grunting and groaning, I was able to get my head off the mat for a couple of seconds. Have I mentioned that yoga is hard?
Day 37, Friday, 10/14
Breakfast meeting made any morning workout impractical, so I'm calling this a recovery day.
Day 38, Saturday, 10/15
Spent the better part of the day putting up insulation and drywall in the basement. Mr. Parkour stopped by to help in the afternoon. Pretty beat by 7 p.m.
Day 39, Sunday, 10/16
A little stiff from yesterday's labor, but I managed to convince myself that a half-hour kettlebell workout this morning before breakfast would be just the thing. And I was right. Felt great afterwards, and headed back downstairs around noon to finish the work I started yesterday. Finished up around 10 and soaked in a hot bath for a while, hoping that would take the edge off my sore muscles tomorrow.
A Breakthrough
You know, just when you think you're backsliding on your workout routine, sometimes a breakthrough just comes out of nowhere. That's how things went for me this week. I'm going to say that it's just a way that the universe is telling to me to hang in there.
Day 26, Monday, 10/3
Where did that momentum go? I slept fitfully and awoke this morning with a stiff left knee and a sore back and a serious disinclination toward exercise. Climbed on my bike and felt better a mile later at the office. My fitness guru, SW, stopped by my office and inquired about my jogging, suggesting that I embrace chi running, a form of jogging that's easy on the knees and pushes the heart rate in a good way. I've done a little research on this approach, but can't say I've actually tried it. And, the way I'm feeling today, I can't imagine exploring anything new. I need a good night's sleep. We'll see if I'm more adventurous tomorrow.
Day 27, Tuesday, 10/4
Dr. Mehmet Oz told my colleague LB in an interview a few years ago that he rises each morning and does ten sun salutations and then 20 pushups--10 with one leg raised and 10 with the other leg raised. Dr. Oz may be one healthy dude, but I trumped him this morning by doing his one-legged pushups, adding another 10 with both feet on the ground and then cranking out 10 minutes of girevoy. This time, I kept track of my lifts and recorded 78 clean and jerks with each arm in each five-minute span. Gotta say, Dr. Oz: You can keep your sun salutations. Give me my girevoy and get outta my way.
Day 28, Wednesday, 10/5
Everybody needs a recovery day, so I'm going to call this mine. Yoga tomorrow!
Day 29, Thursday, 10/6
For the second consecutive week, work obligations kept me from my yoga class. I did manage to make it to my bi-weekly acupuncture appointment, where Dr. Needle noticed that my heart pulse was a little stressed. "No kidding," I replied. An hour later, all was well.
Day 30, Friday, 10/7
I think one can make a good argument that a round of golf does constitute exercise--even if you're moving from tee to tee in a golf cart. There is still a fair amount of walking, not to mention much bending and torso twisting. I played 18 holes this afternoon with my older brothers and JE, a family friend. They're all retired, which means they get a lot more time on the links than I do, but I think I held my own.
Day 31, Saturday, 10/8
It's funny how one's day takes shape, exercise-wise. There I was innocently sitting zazen and letting all the random thoughts and plans drift in one side of my consciousness and out the other when it became clear to me that I was going to pull on my sneakers and do a little jogging. My back had stiffened up after yesterday's golf outing, so I did only a mild kettlebell routine (no squats) and several minutes of stretching before I put on my running shoes and headed out the door. Last time I did this, I was careful to pace myself and I started out toward the river in the same manner as before--small steps, calves tightening slightly as I headed down the hill. I crossed the parkway and headed north on the jogging path for about a block, waiting for the endorphins to kick in and drown out the boredom. At about 44th Street, I noticed a woman loping up a path that led to a clearing overlooking the river, and I veered off in that direction, thinking maybe there would be some pleasant distraction. As I reached the clearing, I noticed a sign designating the Winchell Trail, and it suddenly seemed completely logical to head into the woods.
I've read about trail running and, in fact, had half-heartedly invited my son (Mr. Parkour) to try it earlier this summer. This despite some trepidation over the condition of my tweaky left knee. I'd seen videos of real athletes skipping over tree roots and rocks and sprinting up picturesque hills, and fantasized that perhaps this sort of challenge would cure me of my running blues. But here I was now, carefully navigating a couple flights of steps down into the forest and moving gingerly along the trail. And, much to my surprise, I found myself opening up my stride and actually running. Yes, my lungs were burning, but my legs were holding up quite nicely as I zigged and zagged through the trees. I sprinted up a small incline and looked to my left to get my bearings and found I'd traveled all the way to 42nd Street. I paused for a moment to catch my breath and headed back along the trail, passing a couple of hikers who (it might have just been my imagination) seemed to be impressed by my exertion. I powered back up the hill to 44th Street and headed south toward the sign marking the entrance to the lock and dam. I can do this, I told myself and, indeed, I made it all the way without any cardiac-oriented event.
It all brought back memories of junior high cross country, where a guy like me would just run as fast as he could for as far as he could--no race strategy, just chase whoever was in front of me. The overworked lungs and rubbery legs felt surprisingly familiar as I walked across the parkway boulevard toward home. But it felt good. So good, in fact, that when I hit the hill leading back to 46th Street, I broke into a sprint like the good old days: a hop and a skip and then a surprisingly pleasant dash up the incline.
You may recall that it was less than a year ago that I despaired about ever being able to run again after my battles with knee trouble last summer. So, I'm going to chalk up today's workout as one big breakthrough--at least until I try to drag myself out of bed tomorrow.
Day 32, Sunday, 10/9
I felt surprisingly OK this morning. My back is still a little sore, but my legs feel great. Still, I decided to leave the kettlebell on the floor and take it easy. I did get out in the garden this afternoon and worked up quite a sweat with some landscaping work, but I don't think I really pushed myself too much. I'm still basking in the glow of yesterday's trail run and looking forward to reprising that in the week to come.
No Shortcuts
I get a lot of emails each week extolling the virtues of various anti-aging products, but this one was more entertaining than most:
"It is official. You can now get your chocolate fix without having the slightest feeling of guilt. A new type of nutritional chocolate bar has been created that combines the indulgence of chocolate with the health benefits of red wine to create a delicious snack that is anti-aging and can improve heart health. The WineTime bar contains more Resveratrol than 50 glasses of red wine along with 7 extra "super fruits" including cranberry, noni, pomegranate, goji berry, acai, mangosteen and blueberry. The WineTime bar is high in fiber, vegan, contains no trans fat, hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, cholesterol, dairy, gluten or artificial colors, sweeteners, flavors or preservatives."
I want this WineTime bar. I want to have one for breakfast with green tea, one for lunch with, maybe, a mango/spinach smoothie, and one for dinner with a bottle of Malbec--just to heighten its health-enhancing effects before bed. But, I'm not gonna go there, because I know there are no shortcuts to longevity, no silver bullets to deliver us to a grand old age with six-pack abs and a full head of hair. It's what you do every day that makes a difference, and this week I can say I held up my end of the bargain three out of the seven days. Next week I hope to do better.
Day 19, Monday, 9/26
Several of my co-workers this afternoon followed our venerable fitness editor, Jen Sinkler, downstairs to the gym for 45 minutes of kettlebell training. This is salutary behavior in a lot of ways, but I declined to join them, instead burrowing deeper into the paperwork on my desk. Besides, I told them, I had already had my kettlebell workout today--a brisk 10-minute circuit before breakfast. I had also figured that My Lovely Wife and I would head out after dinner to load up some wood chips from one of the nearby piles in the park into the back of the car and spread them on some of the bare ground in the backyard where someday we hope to grow something. That's always a good workout. But, alas, I worked late and before we had finished dining, night had fallen (we are entering the dark time). Maybe tomorrow....
Day 20, Tuesday, 9/27
You might call this a breakthrough: I ignored my kettlebell this morning and, after my zazen and five full sun salutations (or something bearing some resemblance to same), I pulled on my sneakers, walked outside and jogged around the block--twice!! According to my rough calculations, that's about .83 miles. My calves tightened up almost immediately, as they always do, but because I was jogging rather than trying to run, endurance was not an issue. By the end of the second lap, I wasn't really even that winded. The knee held up just fine. Better yet, the few neighbors I encountered played the part of good Minnesotans and pretended not to notice.
Then, as if the universe was conspiring to ramp up my cardio, it started to rain, which forced me to leave my bike parked in the garage. I grabbed an umbrella, tucked my work stuff and my lunch into my backpack and hoofed it across the bridge and up the big hill to work. Another couple of miles of pavement under my feet. We'll see how I feel about this tomorrow.
Day 21, Wednesday, 9/28
This is what momentum must feel like. Dove into a kettlebell circuit (three times through) before breakfast. No ill effects on the knee from yesterday's jog. And then, after dinner, MLW and I drove over to the big wood-chip pile on 36th Street and loaded up the car. Much bending and lifting. Functional fitness.
Day 22, Thursday, 9/29
Well, I'm halfway through my current fitness challenge, and so it's fitting that reality intervened to prevent me from getting to yoga today. Too many work obligations. I did do a brief kettlebell circuit before breakfast, so it wasn't a complete loss, but I think I'll do a little yoga tomorrow to make up for it.
Day 23, Friday, 9/30
Didn't do a little yoga today. In fact, I didn't do anything except bicycle to and from work. Let's call it a recovery day, OK?
Day 24, Saturday, 10/1
In our household, mornings typically go like this: I get out of bed and MLW--who is something of a night owl-- rolls over and gets some good deep morning sleep. This is the way it's been for many, many years, and it affords me the opportunity to execute my basic one-hour morning meditation-workout routine. Occasionally, however, she'll surprise me by getting out of bed before me, which completely throws me off my game. I'm sure she could care less if I go into the other room and ignore her for a while, but I always feel as though that would be kind of rude. So, when she arose earlier than usual this morning, I found myself a little bit at sea. I opted to be sociable rather than disciplined (though you can argue that there's a certain discipline involved in exercising basic courtesy), and skipped my workout. I did, however, get in a good 8-mile lung-clearing bicycle ride to and from the co-op in the afternoon.
Day 25, Sunday, 10/2
Two of the waitresses at our local wine bar are running in the Twin Cities Marathon today, so I thought maybe I would join them--in spirit, at least--by jogging around the block a couple of times this morning. I announced my intentions to MLW before breakfast, but then discovered that we were out of half-and-half just when she was about to brew some coffee in the espresso pot I bought her for her birthday last month. So I jumped into the automobile and set out for our neighborhood grocery store, only to discover that the marathon had attracted a huge number of fans (most of whom, it appeared, were driving on 46th Street near Minnehaha Park) and police cars were blocking all my customary routes to the store. Forced to take an alternative route, I ran into further traffic jams (should've taken my bike) and returned home some time later with the aforementioned half-and-half, swilled down my latte, and was immediately recruited for some backyard landscaping work. We did make a trip to the wood-chip pile and loaded a carful of the regurgitated tree waste, which we then transferred, one wheel barrow load at a time, onto our garden, so I think it's fair to say that I was not a complete slug today. And I'll bet I'll feel a lot better than those waitresses will tomorrow.
My 44-Day Fitness Test
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
Disaster Averted
Well, of course I played
basketball last night -- despite a weird twinge in my left knee and a general
whole-body soreness from Sunday's tennis match/basketball shoot-around. (What
did you expect?)
And it was OK. I didn't roll
my ankle or catch an elbow in the mouth or take a knee in the groin. I mostly
stayed out of the way of the big guys in the paint and tried to make some good
passes and play sort of a middling defense. All my cardio work seemed to pay
off, in that I could go up and down the court for a solid 90 minutes and still
feel pretty fresh by the end of the evening.
All my old basketball
buddies had aged -- some more gracefully than others. D.D., who's in his
mid-50s, hobbled up and down the court like a man who needs a new hip -- which
he does. T.W., who's pushing 60, can't quite get off the ground anymore when
he's rebounding. And J.Y., now in his early 50s, doesn't really drive the lane
anymore for those acrobatic underhanded lay-ups.
They weren't alone in
showing their years. I didn't expect that I would exactly light it up after so
many years away from the game, but I also didn't expect it would be so tough to
get off a shot that didn't clang off the backboard or miss the rim entirely. In
the final game of the evening, with my team needing one basket to clinch the
game (we hadn't won one all night) I broke free for an easy lay-up . . . and it
rolled off the rim.
Still, it was fun to trade
jibes with these old guys again after so many years away from the court, and it
was gratifying to realize that my workout regimen over the past three years had
kept me in good enough shape to avoid cardiac arrest.
Now if I can just get my
shooting stroke back.
No Excuses
My father died 30 years ago
today, so some of my siblings and I (along with my daughter) will be marking
the occasion later this afternoon at a tiny cemetery in Becker, Minn., where he
and my mother are buried - along with a large contingent of the Cox clan
(including my grandfather and great-grandfather).
There will be much reminiscing about our childhood years, I'm sure, and I
expect we'll raise a few glasses of Grain Belt in his honor.
He made his living
delivering that golden elixir to bars and restaurants in St. Paul, an occupation
that earned him a barrel chest and arms like steel. (I remember returning from
Air Force basic training feeling pretty buff and foolishly challenging him to
an arm-wrestling match at the dining room table. It was over before I could
contemplate the true depths of my delusion.) He was strong, but somehow sickly
at the same time.
That barrel chest loomed
over an even larger belly (he fought weight issues for much of his adult life),
and he suffered from ulcers and other digestive ailments. His love of fried
foods and sweets was legendary around our house, and we all learned how to
smoke cigarettes and drink beer by observing him.
Of course, back in the '40s
and '50s none of us knew the dangers of smoking - much less the insidious
threats posed by greasy foods, refined carbs, a sedentary lifestyle and chronic
stress (Dad was a hall-of-fame worrier). So, when he landed in the hospital
with a heart attack at the age of 52, we were all shocked. And when cancer
claimed him eight years later, we all felt he'd been stolen from us.
So I was thinking about Dad
this morning while doing my morning zazen.
And later while sweating through a half hour of push-ups, planks and kettlebell
moves. He really didn't know any better. I don't have that excuse.
End of Conversation
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 50th 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.
Tasting Retirement
My eldest sibling likes to remind those of us who envy his retirement lifestyle that the one big problem with life after work is that "every day is a Saturday," which is to say a day in which you tend to go shopping, have lunch or dinner out and generally open your wallet on more occasions than you might otherwise do so. I was reminded of this concept last week, as My Lovely Wife and I sampled the fare at several of our favorite local bistros and happily drained our checking account.
Still, if my week away from work was any indication of how we'll spend our retirement years, I'm thinking I'm going to be OK with that next chapter. Sure, we ate out like we were on vacation, but we also hit the gym one morning, put 25 miles on our bicycles one sweltering Saturday afternoon, enjoyed a good long swim in Lake Nokomis, visited St. Paul's legendary Swede Hollow for a 3-mile hike, did a 45-minute yoga session at a new studio in the neighborhood -- I even played 18 holes of golf. So, despite all the fine dining, when I weighed in at the gym this past Tuesday, I was pleased to discover I was holding steady at 159.5.
(I mention this to MLW, who suggests that I'm acting like a woman. This might be a compliment.)
I've been spending long, and not especially grueling, stints on the EDM for the past several weeks -- typically 45 minutes at steadily increasing resistance levels -- and I'm finding that it's a pretty reliable fat-burning regimen (the machine informs me that I'm burning a little more than 600 calories during these sessions). But, last night, I decided to shake things up a little and climb on the stationary bike for some intervals. After an easy five-minute warm-up, I cranked up the resistance on the machine and did six 30-second sprints (about 105 RPM) interspersed with 60-second rest periods. It's a nasty workout, but there's nothing like it for getting the heart pumping and ridding your body of a quart or two of perspiration.
A little, mostly clueless, stretching (how do you get those hammies to loosen up?) and I was ready to descend into The Pit. It had been awhile since I'd run through Marty Gallagher's "purposefully primitive" lifting routine -- barbell squats, bench press, dead lift, biceps curls, overhead lift, and tricep extensions -- and, one set into the routine, I remembered why. Barbell squats are just killers. With only 110 lbs. on my back, I managed three sets of eight, but it was not pretty. I was off balance and rushed and, if the bar hadn't been secured in a sliding rack, I suspect I might have created a bit of a scene (think old guy stumbling backward with barbell flying toward unsuspecting victim).
So, I back off a bit on the dead lift (80 lbs.), which is probably a good idea, since I'm having some difficulty keeping my chest out and back straight while bringing the bar up past my fragile knees. I avoid the barbell-oriented bench press in favor of pressing two 30-lbs. dumbells. That works pretty well, which is to say nobody got hurt. And I breeze through my curls and extensions with no further damage to my dignity.
I'm feeling it all over this morning. But, hey: It's the start of a long weekend, so who's complaining?
An Exercise in Humility
I was back in the Pit Monday, lifting and sweating and feeling generally OK about this fitness thing, when I ran into Robyn Wells, an LTF personal trainer who I met recently through my rugby-playing colleague JS. Robyn is a 20-something powerhouse athlete who specializes in teaching us lesser beings how to get the most out of their workouts. And she generously offered to help me out.
Now, anyone who's at all familiar with my peculiar fitness journey understands my fitness personality. To review: I'm a 57-year-old guy with a bum knee and rusty ankles who can't run, hates to stretch and heads down to the gym two or three times a week with only the vaguest idea of what is about to transpire. I have no plan, few goals beyond remaining functional into my twilight years, and only a modicum of discipline.
All this I confessed to Robyn when we met Wednesday evening for our consultation. And, to her credit, she did not put down her pen, crumple up the sheet of paper on which she was listing my defects, and send me away. She led me over to the EDM for a brief warm-up, after which we descended into the Pit.
I am not a confident fellow in this atmosphere, as you might imagine. So, you might think that having an actual uniformed P.T. at my side would lend a certain credibility to my efforts: You know, a guy working with a P.T. might actually know what he's doing; he might be serious about this stuff, a force to reckoned with. That sort of thing.
Or not. I mostly worried that Robyn was attracting a bit more attention (Duh!) than I would normally receive -- which, of course, added a certain amount of pressure to avoid humiliation.
And that turned out to be not that big of a deal, since she didn't seem at all convinced that I could lift much of anything. At the bench press, she started me with a naked barbell. Same with the barbell squat. I was prepared to be indignant and slap on a couple hundred pounds and reel off four or five sets without breaking a sweat, until she pointed out how bad my form was and the myriad ways I could injure myself if I didn't learn how to lift properly.
When I showed her my deadlift form, in fact, she was so alarmed that she found an altogether different piece of equipment -- a rectangular frame with barbell-like protrusions on which the plates sat and handles on the sides, all of which is designed to be lifted from inside the frame -- and urged me in no uncertain terms to abandon my former approach.
I was off on my overhead press, as well: slightly bending my knees and opening my chest kept my belly from unwanted exposure. And she showed me a more effective way to do tricep extensions (laying on the bench).
Only my beloved biceps curls seemed to be in working order.
Humility is not a bad thing. It's a good way to cope with one's limitations. And I have a fairly robust capacity for humility, in my humble opinion. But I have to say that I left the gym that night feeling every one of my 57 years. Not decrepit. Not ancient. Not completely irrelevant in a youth-crazed, age-phobic, botox-and-silicon-injected world. Just kind of old, kind of pathetic.
Which, of course, I am. Especially when you consider all the elements required to create a serious competitive athlete -- which I am not. My young P.T. offered me a tiny glimpse into the discipline, intelligence and devotion real athletes need, and her advice will no doubt make my middling workouts more productive -- and my body less injury-prone (thank you for that). But at some point during Wednesday's session I realized that the distance between me and a real athlete can best be measured in light years. And that made me feel a faint nostalgia for those years so long ago when I might have considered myself up to this sort of challenge.
(Disclaimer: The above is a slightly delusional form of nostalgia. I've never been a particularly disciplined athlete, except maybe in my youthful fantasies.)
In fact, I'm going to skip the gym tonight and take a leisurely bicycle ride home. I probably won't even break a sweat. Next week, I'll get back at it. My P.T. says I should try out the spinning bike. Break out of my routine. I just might take her up on that.
Miracle on Ice
I recalled on Saturday morning that, contrary to the post below, I had sort of resolved to drag out my old hockey skates and get out on the ice this winter. (I had actually communicated the resolution to my fitness guru, SW, in a moment of weakness -- making it all that more difficult to ignore.)
A bit of history: After years spent bouncing basketballs on Saturday mornings at my local grade school gym and perfecting my jump shot in my uncle's driveway, the National Hockey League came to Minnesota in 1967, and my best friend (who sucked at hoops) and I transformed ourselves into puckheads. Every night after supper, we'd slap on our breezers and pads, grab our sticks and walk down to Hillview Park, where we would lace up our skates and chase the puck around the rink along with whomever happened to show up that night. Sometimes, we'd have nine or 10 or more players -- of all ages -- crowding the ice on either team, creating a divine sort of anarchy -- avoiding the little kids, crashing into our peers, and always keeping the puck on the ice (nobody was wearing a cup, you know).
The warming house was always populated by our neighborhood's more adventurous girls, Marlboro-puffing vixens who inhabited a world far more mysterious than any hockey fantasies my sports-obsessed friends and I could conjure. So, it all made for some magical winter nights.
I played a couple years of park and rec hockey in high school and one particularly embarrassing intramural league game at Williams Arena at the U of M (I'd neglected to sharpen my skates and spent my dwindling shifts sliding around as if I were wearing boots while deflecting pucks into our own net) before giving up the game in my mid-20s. I still loved to skate, though, and My Lovely Wife still speaks of the time in the late 1970s when, at a skating party with a gaggle of local bon vivants, I cast wild aspersions on my carefully constructed literary-revolutionary identity by casually carving figure eights on Lake of the Isles -- while skating backwards.
But, I've been out on the ice only a handful times in the past 10 years, so when I sat down late on Saturday afternoon on the wooden steps leading to the the Lake Nokomis rink to lace up my skates (the warming house, of course, was closed -- budget cuts), I really didn't know what to expect. And that's a good thing, because if I'd had any idea how awkward it was going to feel, I probably would've stayed home.
Thankfully, there was no one else on the ice to watch me totter about, propelling myself speculatively -- prospecting for some sense of balance. Should I lean forward? Crouch more? And what do I do with my arms? For a while, I felt like I shared the impending tragedy of a toddler's first steps.
But, after a couple of turns around the rink's big oval, I was starting to get the hang of it again: leaning and pushing, leaning and pushing, arms swinging , body swaying, and blades skimming along -- frictionless against the frozen track. I was working up a bit of a lather after a few minutes; a healthy breeze greeted me after each half-circuit, forcing me to push through the oval's home stretch. It felt good, though. Despite the rough ice, the wind and a rapidly forming blister on the outside of my right ankle, this was actually kind of enjoyable.
And this seemed to be working muscle groups that I didn't even know existed. I could feel it in my lower back, my glutes, quads and knees -- especially my knees (but not in the way I felt it when running). Maybe even a little bit in my core, actually. This can't be a bad thing, I thought, as I marveled at the pink sunset on the west side of the lake. Then, coming out of the second turn, wind at my back, I was suddenly greeted by a glorious full moon hovering just above the eastern horizon. MLW had mentioned the arrival of the "perigee of the Moon" (she knows about this stuff), the closest encounter with the moon in 2009, which presents a fuller, bigger moon than you're going to see the rest of the year.
I'm not accustomed to these sorts of magical moments. I could've just as easily caught a blade in a rut and tumbled face-first onto the merciless ice. Or turned an ankle. Or skidded over a bump and torn open my kneecap. (At my age, you think about these things.). But, no -- here I was, gliding around this oval in nearly perfect silence beneath this glorious full moon feeling like I was, oh, maybe 45 again.
So, I coasted over to where I'd left my boots and, with more effort than you'd expect from a 45-year-old, sat down and pulled off my skates, checked my new blister and slid on my boots, welcoming their offering of stability.
I was recalling those long-ago boot-clad treks home from Hillview Park, skates hanging from my hockey stick, when I came upon a park police car that was just exiting the parking lot. No ticket on the Crapmobile. Hmmm. The half-buck I had reluctantly surrendered for an hour-long slot on the blacktop turned out to be a smart move. Magic.
Ya Say You Want a Resolution?
Everyone seems to expect resolutions at this time of year, which to me is an interesting phenomenon. It's the dead of winter, a time of reflection, certainly, but not action -- and you need both to make a resolution work, right? Still, the gym is packed with folks fuelled by resolutionary fervor, doing their utmost to fulfil some promise they made to themselves on New Year's Eve.
Or, at least I assume the gym is packed. I haven't been downstairs for a couple of weeks. Laid low by my annual holiday cold virus, I've been gulping echinacea and vitamin C capsules, blowing my nose and coughing until I feel like my head's going to explode. Evenings have found me wrapped in a blanket on my favorite living room chair, staring vacantly into space. (Night before last, I remarked to My Lovely Wife how I must look just about ready for the Home. She didn't disagree.) Not exactly a resolution-inspiring atmosphere.
I'm definitely on the mend, though. I slept through the night for the first time in recent memory last night, and enjoyed a pleasant walk to work this morning, despite temps in the single digits and a nasty NE wind. I almost lugged my workout gear with me. But not quite.
Still, I'm about ready to dive back in: Climb back on that Elliptical Death Machine. Start cranking away on bench presses. Maybe even get a little more disciplined about my morning routine.
Full disclosure: I've been struggling in recent months to rise early enough each morning to do a little routine I've enjoyed, sporadically, in the past few months: some pretend yoga, a little zazen, followed by planks (thank you, JS) and pushups. Maybe 45 minutes total. When I'm able to squeeze this routine in, it really gets the blood circulating. Makes the whole morning a bit more vivid. I just haven't been able to do it very frequently. I'd like to make that happen more regularly.
But I'm not resolving to get up earlier, because if I resolve to get up earlier, I might push myself to rise before I've had enough sleep, which would be counter-productive. And I'm not resolving to go to bed earlier, either, so I can get enough sleep, because sometimes when I'm lounging at night in my favorite chair, covered by a blanket, cradling a cat or two on my lap, and feeling every bit as old as I probably look, My Lovely Wife might be sitting there across the room in her favorite chair, her own lap blanketed and occupied by a cat, and a conversation could ensue and before you know it, it's midnight, and we're still going on about Darwin's orchids or Delacroix's obsession with the light in Morocco or a local postman's preference for wearing shorts in November (MLW is like this). And who would want to miss out on something like that?
That's the trouble with traditional resolution-making: It can become kind of an all-or-nothing deal that doesn't account for the serendipitous occasions that are rewarding in their own right, even as they derail your stated intentions. Or it can become so all-encompassing that you ignore your body when it's pleading with you to slow down.
The key, as Elizabeth Larsen points out in this EL piece from last summer, is to celebrate small victories on your way to bigger goals. "As with so many life goals,
becoming fit isn't just about some mythical 'end result,'" she writes. "In fact, the
unexpected benefits of fitness -- improved energy levels, better
concentration and a closer relationship with your body, to name just a few --
can prove much more satisfying."
I've managed to avoid resolving anything during this two-year personal fitness adventure, and I feel like I've accomplished more than enough to keep me moving in the right direction. My walking commute has been nothing but a joy; for all its randomness, my resistance training has significantly increased my upper-body strength; and my cardio efforts haven't done me any harm (at least once I stopped running on the treadmill). Yeah, I could do more stretching, and some days I do (so bug off, OK?). But I'll never make it part of a resolution. I'll just try to keep it in mind, continue doing what I've been doing and see what happens.
Hey, maybe that's my resolution: Stay mindful. Keep moving. See what happens. I can live with that.
Duct Tape and a Prayer
Act your age, Tony
I climbed into the Crapmobile for my morning commute today -- not because it was too cold to walk (10 degrees is positively balmy to a devoted walkophile), but because I didn't have enough time to hoof it across the bridge and still prep for a 9 a.m. meeting. No matter how fast I seem to be walking, it always takes me almost exactly 35 minutes. It's like there's some unwritten rule of quantum physics that prevents me from arriving any sooner or any later. It's a little weird.
Anyway, the Crapmobile is a bit of a metaphor for my middle-aged body. It's held together by duct tape, bumper stickers, rust and karma (sort of an accumulated cosmic faith in Japanese automobile technology, circa 1991). But it just keeps puttering along, well into its mid-life (180-some thousand miles). It may not look great (thank you very much), but it gets me where I want to go.
I bring this up not just because it's all suddenly occurring to me as I write this (partially true), but also because I've been noticing more anti-aging gimmicks recently. I may be irrelevant in the eyes of the mainstream advertising industry -- with the notable exception of ads for Viagra and Cialis ("Now for daily use!!!") -- but there are always enterprising individuals out there advancing the proposition that aging is a bad thing and that you should do everything in your power to deny its hold over your (aging every second) body.
There are plenty of garden-variety hucksters hocking anti-aging hormone treatments, anti-aging diet systems, and other magical potions. Then there are are e-mails from PR flacks promoting 50-something bodybuilders like Tony Little (that's him above -- what, you thought it was me???), who is "determined to whip himself into world-class shape, both as a personal challenge, as well as to be an inspiration to his fans."
Puh-lese.
I'm sure Tony Little is a very nice person as well as an AWESOME DUDE WITHOUT A SHIRT ON (AKA an ADWASO), but this kind of thinking just gets older people obsessing about the glories of their lost youth or despairing about their sagging torsos or both. It's not very productive.
Who wants to relive their 20s, people?!?!?!? I mean, think about it, for goodness sakes.
I'm not saying we should just slip quietly into the great beyond, without taking care of our body and mind and whatever other accessories we may have at our disposal. There's plenty of research indicating that regular moderate exercise, including both cardio and resistance training (and, yes, stretching -- jeeze) will keep our cellular power plants, the mitochondria, pumping away happily into the forseeable future. I just don't want to obsess over it.
It's not why I'm headed to the gym after work tonight. Sure, all the work I put in on the EDM and the weight machines is good for my body, but it's even more about the state of mind it puts me in -- not young, certainly; more like pleasantly exhausted. Like I've just carried a family of four to Ely, by way of Alexandria, without dropping my exhaust system on the highway (another story). And that's not a bad thing.
Because, when you're held together with duct tape and a prayer, pleasant exhaustion can be surprisingly gratifying.
Swimming Upstream
I've been comparing notes recently with Hodding Carter, the 45-year-old writer whose new book, Off the Deep End, chronicles his manic pursuit of a spot on the 2008 U.S. Olympic swimming team.
Carter, who 20 years earlier won Division III All-America honors for his alma mater, Kenyon College, uses his pursuit of Olympic glory as a vehicle to escape a nasty mid-life crisis.
It's an insightful and often hilarious read, and it contains some lessons for geezers who turn to exercise as a way to relive/revive their former athletic prowess.
Primary among these lessons would be the following:
• Don't blow up your marriage while you're trying to rebuild your body/self-esteem. Carter has no sense of balance -- he's all about full-on training and he treats his wife and three kids like they're obstacles between himself and his fitness goals. This is not a good idea.
• Don't live in the past. In his obsessive drive to cut his time in the 50 freestyle by two seconds, he actually goes back to Kenyon and lives in the dorm and trains with his old coach. Not surprisingly, he finds he doesn't fit in very well.
• Don't assume that just because you're trying harder, your performance will improve. On multiple occasions in his quest, Carter clearly is overtraining -- and it shows. In one classic anecdote, he arrives at a regional masters swimming meet feeling better than he's felt in years, and finishes last to a bunch of guys even older then he is.
The good news is that Carter eventually gets it -- not the spot on the Olympic team (the trials are looming as the book ends), but the real reason why he began his quest. At one point, he's offered the job of coaching young swimmers at his local YMCA. He takes the gig because he figures it will give him more pool time (and he really needs the money), then gradually realizes that maybe he's found a niche that allows him to embrace swimming in his middle years.
All three of his kids are swimmers suddenly under his clumsy wing, but he finds that their interest in the sport mirrors his own. And maybe that's enough.
At the state meet, he writes how his youngest, Eliza, beams after swimming her fastest time. "[It] . . . made me realize the weekend wasn't only about the drudgery and unending chaos. I'd been enjoying the days' races but Eliza's happiness made everything complete. I felt blessed to have three of my own kids deriving joy from the same sport that had been, and still was, such a large part of my life."
It's a sweet moment in an often cynical chronicle, and it reminds me that my own fitness quest could actually use a goal or two (I know, I know. . . You told me so.), but I refuse to pretend that I'm going to suddenly get back out on the asphalt and go one-on-one with some twentysomething who would break my ankles with his first killer crossover.
I'd love to be able to play hoops again, but I have no interest in reconstructive surgery.
What Carter learned throughout his quest, and I what I ought to someday admit, is that a little guidance isn't a bad thing. He sought out coaches and like-minded athletes; it probably wouldn't hurt me to do the same.
The Fountain of Youth
I’ve never been particularly obsessed about my age, partly because I’ve always looked younger than I really am (which was a huge disadvantage when trying to buy liquor as a teenager). But the more I immerse myself in this fitness stuff, the more I see how a regular exercise regimen can peel away the years. An hour at the gym just leaves me feeling more youthful — my heart’s pumping, my muscles are aching, my lungs are burning. I always come away feeling more energetic than when I started.
There’s a reason for that, according to a new study by researchers at King’s College in London: Regular exercise actually affects your DNA. Staying active can actually slow down the aging process.
Researchers studied 2,401 twins and found that those who were physically active “appeared biologically younger than their sedentary peers,” the BBC reported. They measured the effect by looking at pieces of DNA called telomeres. These repeat sequences of DNA sit at the end of chromosomes and protect them from damage. As we age, these telomeres become shorter, leaving cells more vulnerable to damage. In sedentary people, those telomeres shortened more rapidly than in their active counterparts.
Indeed, the most active people in the study — those who exercised at least 199 minutes a week — displayed telomeres that were comparable to those in folks who were 10 years younger.
I’m still not going to obsess about my age, but I have to admit that this is good news to a geezer who’s spending at least a couple of hours a week at the gym and racking up the miles on my walking commute. I don’t know if I’m going to be 10 years younger as a result of all this, but as long as I’m feeling great, who’s counting?
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