Recently in Discipline Category

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.

Before Monday's workout, I'd been away from the gym for a couple of weeks (vacation + procrastination), and I'm feeling the effects today: sore shoulders and arms from lifting, mostly. So, of course, I'm wondering whether there's a less painful way for geezers like myself to come back to their workout regimen after a period of relative inactivity.

(That's not to say I did nothing during those two weeks. During the first week, I played three rounds of mini-golf with my son, trekked three times to the lodge -- a 2-mile round trip -- to fetch donuts (yum!) and a newspaper, and spent an hour or so one afternoon paddling around on a flotation device of dubious reliability. Back home, I bicycled to the food co-op -- about a 16-mile round trip -- a couple of times, played two sets of tennis, and briefly considered cutting the grass.)

But nothing gets you lathered up quite like an hour or so of cardio and lifting (oh yeah, and stretching) at the gym. Trouble is, after a bit of a layoff it can be  a little tough on your body. If I'm not feeling sore (like I am today), I tend to dive right back in, even after a long layoff, and crank out my usual 75-minute cardio/lifting routine. And that might not be the best approach, actually. The folks at Harvard Medical School suggest that you cut your workout time in half for a few days as you readjust. Of course, they also added this intriguing bit of trivia:

"The value of maintaining an exercise program became evident when the results of the Harvard Alumni Health Study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The men who had been moderately active but later became sedentary had a 15% higher risk of death than their counterparts who had never been active."

Which makes me want to double my workout time. After all, what's a little muscle soreness in the broader scheme of things?

So, as promised in my earlier post, I'm reporting back. And as I suspected, I haven't been able to get to the gym every day on a regular schedule since then, but I have been getting in some good workouts when I've been down there. Most notably, I've taken my young PT's advice about lengthening my stints on the Elliptical Death Machine. I've done 45 minutes on a couple of occasions, which burns about 600 calories and leaves me pretty much drenched in sweat (but in a good way). I've been mixing my resistance training between the machines and The Pit (heavier on the machines).

To review: Rather than the M-W-F lifting, T-Th cardio, and Sunday basketball ritual, I've been content to mix cardio and lifting on alternate days and imagine myself shooting hoops (with great style and accuracy -- and really cool sneakers) on Sunday. I've never actually attempted a serious workout two days in a row. Maybe someday. When I'm younger.

Oh, and I've cured my obsession with FitDay. I simply stopped filling out the info one day. I figure after about three months of tracking my eating, I'm pretty clear on what I need to do to stay on track. It was an interesting experiment, actually. I learned that I don't consume that many calories (about 2,000/day on average) and that I don't have a great deal of trouble getting my RDA of most nutrients. I'm a little low on vitamin E and calcium, and it seems like I can eat a half-dozen servings of fruits, veggies and nuts, plus a 4-by-8 sheet of plywood and still not reach my RDA for fiber, but for the most part, it appears I'm eating a pretty healthy diet. I've been avoiding refined sugar and carbs as much as possible and a more mindful approach to stuffing my face is paying off, I think. I've dropped five pounds since I started keeping track of this stuff. My goal is to drop five more (down to 155) by the end of the summer. If I succeed, please be assured that I will not appear at a local beach in a speedo.

Anyway, it appears that I'm motivated again. I'll do 45 minutes on the EDM tonight and some upper-body work on the machines. Maybe I'll even try to stretch out this right calf of mine, which has been cramping up of late. Or not.

Got milk?

You know, you look up from the mess on the desk in front of you and you notice that a month has gone by and you haven't sprained an ankle, torn an Achilles tendon or blown out your knee and that's a good thing, generally, though you also notice there are cobwebs collecting now on your blog site and the seven readers you once had are now busying themselves filling out March Madness brackets and catching ESPN updates every three minutes on their I-Pod-Phone-Touch thing. So, it appears some catching up is in order....

The ice is out on the Mississippi and the roads and park trails are clear, which is always the signal for me to roll my old Schwinn out of the garage and change the nature of my commute. Sunday, I actually cleaned out the garage and chipped the ice from the floor (don't ask), which turned out to be a great little functional fitness workout -- bending, twisting, lifting, squatting, digging, cursing, lamenting poor foundational structure, etc. Then I climbed on my bike and rode west, past Lake Nokomis along Minnehaha Creek and through several smaller bodies of water that were  too large to describe as puddles. I managed to stay upright and remain more or less dry all the way to Park Avenue and back -- a distance of about 5 or 6 miles.

This managed to work my hamstrings and quads in a way they haven't been worked for a while -- I've been avoiding the bicycle-that-goes-nowhere machine at the gym for many months, because it tends to leave my left knee barking. But, I'm happy to report that my Sunday ride and my subsequent jaunts over the bridge to and from the office this week have been kind to all of my functioning body parts, as far as I can tell.

Of course, I don't push myself very hard on my commute (last summer, in fact, a jogger passed me going up the hill from 46th Street to the Intercity Bridge) or when I bicycle for recreation. I'm just not one of those guys who pulls on the skin-tight bike shorts and colorful shirts with the pocket in the back and races automobiles on the parkway. I like to coast.

I feel like I've been coasting at the gym in recent weeks, as well. Same old comfortable routine: 25 minutes on the EDM, a little stretching (maybe) and a half hour on the resistance machinery. I've been avoiding the free weights since my last (and first) visit there back in February, but I may get back there for a bit tonight and see what happens. I got a little inspired last week, when I had occasion to drop in on Marty Gallagher's Web site. He's a former championship  powerlifter and now trainer who argues passionately in favor of free weights (and lots of them) over the resistance machines. His new book, The Purposeful Primitive, draws on the wisdom of legendary lifters like Paul Anderson (above) and Ed Coan to design a serious cardio and strength-training regimen.

It's fun to read about guys like Anderson, who had a two-hole golf course set up on his Tennessee farm and liked to squat-lift an 800-pound barbell a few times after putting out, then tee off, chip onto the green, putt out and press 400 pounds a few times at the other green. "Paul combined short, intense workouts ... throughout the day, with periods of rest. For example, he would do 10 reps in the squat with 600, rest for about 30 minutes, and then do a second set of 10. After another 30 minutes rest, he would increase the weight to 825 and do three reps, rest again and do two more reps with 845. then he would rest again and conclude by doing half squats with 1200 for two or three reps and quarter squats with 1800. the whole routine took three hours or more. He would sip milk during the rest periods, consuming a gallon or more throughout the course of the day."

I would do that, of course, but I'm not a big milk drinker.

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.

I've been trapped in the gulag of budgeting and other brutal corporate pursuits for the past few weeks, so -- well, you know the drill . . . .

This morning, however, I arose at a reasonable hour, let out the dog, ignored the disaster in the kitchen, spread out my mat and sat zazen for maybe 15 minutes (all the while doing my best to breathe through the sounds of the cat climbing into and out of the wreckage of last night's spaghetti dinner). The bicycle ride into work was a bit bracing (mark Oct. 9 as the first day I've needed gloves) and I marveled at the trees along the riverbank, which are well into their annual autumnal fireworks. All that was missing was the bold woodchuck that has lately been foraging in the woods near the bridge. Still, pretty much a perfect morning.

I've been thinking a lot lately about becoming more disciplined about my morning routine, because when I do manage to leave myself enough time in the pre-commuting hours to run through my preferred wake-up regimen -- a little stretching, 30 Dr. Oz pushups, a few yoga poses and a 30-minute sit -- before a quiet breakfast and a cup of tea, I always feel great the rest of the day. To make that happen, though, requires a good 90-minute window of time before I pack up my bag and climb on my Schwinn. And that means I need to crawl out of bed sometimes when I'm not fully rested -- which, of course, is not a good thing for an older person like myself. If I don't get enough sleep, my immune system rebels and I'm susceptible to the common cold, etc.

So, the key is to get to bed nice and early in a household full of night owls. Hmm. . . . Like I said, it takes some discipline.

A brief note on last night's sweat-a-thon: Because it had been nine days since my last real workout, I decided to take it easy. I did about 20 minutes on this new Elliptical Death Machine -- which I prefer to the older Elliptical Death Machines, because its orange-and-black  exterior reminds me of Halloween (or the Chicago Bears uniforms) and I seem to be able to operate it with much less risk of bodily injury. It also really gets my heart rate going (it must be love). I skipped the stretching stuff because I guess I didn't want to stretch. Then, I spent about 30 minutes working my abs and upper body on the resistance machinery -- also refraining from pushing myself too hard.

It must've worked. I feel pretty great today. And it's not just because the budget's done.