Every Night?

Someone asked, following a recent Blog, “Do you really go to the gym every night”?
Well maybe that is slightly overstated.
I have Ballroom Dance Lessons on Wednesday and to be strictly honest I have missed some nights but try to get to the gym at least six days a week.
I go mostly at night but on occasion the early afternoon and even the early morning. (I have never made it at 5:30AM like my wife)
I have discovered that if I miss a day or two I start feeling bad.
A “lethargy” kicks in and it becomes harder and harder to find the motivation to go back.
I even try to find a gym while on vacation to stay on routine.
I have exercised on a cruise ship and every hotel has an exercise room so there is no excuse for missing this critical activity.
It is not hard to find the places to exercise but if you really like yourself and want to keep living you will have to find the TIME.
I hear so many people say, “I just don’t have the time to exercise”.
But your time is yours to appropriate.
Unfortunately, it is usually easier to “start tomorrow”.
I guess most would find this routine of almost daily exercise, “boring” but it gives me more energy, makes it easier to keep my weight and cholesterol in check and I always look forward to another night of sweat and pain.
Besides the gym has become my second home and the people familiar friends.
Now I need to find the will power to take off the next 25 pounds.
The diet is easy, limit the calories.
I am amazed at the number of infomercials promising instant weight loss, pure abs with only 4 minutes of exercise three times a week, pills that reshape and burn calories and promises of eating anything you want and even little electrical gizmos that cause your muscles to contract while you sleep.
It sounds too good to be true and probably is.
The reality, it is hard work.
The next reality, it is never too late to start.
The last reality, every night, mostly.

Dumbbells

“Go get a set of dumbbells. We are going to do shoulders.”
Where did the term “dumbbell” come from? I have often wondered this even as I walked over to pick up this instrument of exercise torture.
It seems in the past a “Nal” or Indian club was originally used for weight training.
The “Nal” is one half of a modern dumbbell. It is much longer and may be as much as four feet in length with a heavy weight on only one end.
Later on, English weight trainers used hand held church bells for weight lifting.
To be able to lift quietly they removed the clapper: Thus the “mute” or “dumb” bell was born.
So what are shoulders?
This is an exercise that involves picking up a weight in each hand and then moving that weight up and down through many different repetitions.
It sounds exceedingly simple.
Ten repetitions, in front then ten more in front with thumbs up, then ten more with arms at an angle to bringing the weight to shoulder height and then ten more with thumbs up and then ten from the side and then ten more with thumbs up and so on and so on until you have completed one hundred repetitions.
No problem, you say.
Depends, I say.
First time pick a light weight maybe two pounds. You will feel burning in your muscles even with this little amount of weight.
If you must, go ahead and pick up six or eight or even ten pound dumbbells and try to go through the routine.
Eight pounds and the pain is insane. Can you finish? Every muscle is screaming. Block it out. Keep going, only 10 more, nine, eight, etc. etc.
“Go ahead and put them down, we’ll do one more set in a few minutes.
NO WAY, your brain screams! Can I sneak over there and get some three pounders
I guess the term “Dumbbell” could have been invented for the people that really thought they could do “shoulders” with the eights.

The Old Man Is Cheating

“You will all keep punching until I see someone’s hands hitting his jaw.”
The eyes, even looking at me from the mirror, peer deep into my brain and suddenly my fists begin meeting my jaw line.
“He’s using 6 pounders for the shoulder exercise.”
“Yeah, that’s true but he is also slinging them using his hips.”
The eyes again seer the back of my brain.
Am I moving the hips?
There apparently are actions initiated by me that are below my awareness but come under the intense scrutiny of the Trainer.
So I keep trying.
Don’t swing the arms. Do the slow movement, feeling each muscle fiber slide over the other.
Run the steps, ignore the breathing pattern and the gasping for air, think only of the legs going up and forward.
Find the patterns of the punches. They are already painted in the subconscious. Just go in and bring them out.
Find the rhythm; it is there you just need to hear the drum beat.
As my Dad once said, if I catch you cheating, you will surely rue the day.
I guess I am subconsciously cheating or maybe it is just being older and not wanting to admit it.
I still see myself as 62 going on 25.
Am I going to rue the day?
I don’t think so.
I have noticed that sometimes it is necessary to “cheat” to get through an exercise or move to the next weight but after a while the “cheating” fades away as I begin to own the routine or the weight.
So in the end the only thing I guess I am “cheating” is premature old age and/or death.
I may not make it back to 25 but I think I might get back to 50.

Some Goals Getting Real

Old men don’t do dips. Not enough musculature in the shoulder.
You’ll rip your shoulders out of joint.
Just like “Ralphie” and the BB gun; you’ll shoot your eye out!
But say it isn’t so.
Not total dips mind you, but three quarter dips, two sets of 10 followed by a third set of six.
On to the chin up.
Finally last night one chin up from a straight arm position with no extra kick or help.
Just one smooth chip up from full arm extension.
Not two or ten, just one, a small start, 204 pounds from ground to chin over bar.
On the way out, I asked the attendant her favorite protein drink, a "Carliss".
So I treated myself to a “Carliss”, 40 grams of protein, peanut butter, honey all blended into an ice cold “chocolate shake”.
I felt I had actually earned it.
What will I be able to do at 164 pounds and two more years of exercise?
Two more years, how do I know I will last that long, you might ask?
I don’t but right now I am planning on two more years of really hard exercise and committed weight loss.
If I go to the gym every night for 730 days the two years will pass before you know it.

A “Bucket” List

I loved the movie.
I guess each of us develops a Bucket List in our minds but very few have the luxury of fulfilling the “dreams”.
Seems life, reality and excuses intervene.
So now I am sixty plus and I have begun to review my Bucket List.
I have been working on it for a number of years.
I thought, put it out there and see how it plays to the public.
A lot of my list had been put on hold due to work, age and intervening detours but most might be accomplished and I am now actively pursuing parts of it.

1. I want to weigh 164 pounds for at least 3 consecutive years. I don’t want to weigh 164 pounds for a day or two as I pass through that weight on the way out. Why 164 pounds? This would be close to my ideal weight and I have not been there for at least 44 years. I believe I can do this. I just haven’t found the “won’t” power I need to leave all the snacks behind.
2. I want to be able to bench press 325 pounds. My rationale: It has often been stated that one should be able to bench press two times your weight. I am sure that this is really aimed at the under 30 crowd but I have this goal and it will be interesting to see if it is possible or if I “crash” first at about 180 pounds with the ultimate “Skull Crusher”.
3. I want to do an Iron Cross: Definition: “One of the most widely recognized skills performed on the rings is the Iron Cross, which is executed by extending both arms straight out from the sides of the body while suspended mid air for at least two seconds.” I could do this in my youth and it seemed so simple then but a lot of “fat” has gone under the bridge. I am urged on when I watch the Circ Du Soleil and the performance of the gymnasts. Surely I can do this without ripping my arms out of their sockets. Some have suggested that I will rip my arms out of their sockets. This will be quite a bet and a surprise, possibly.

I have a trainer, not just a trainer, but “THE TRAINER”
I will get there.


To be continued.

What’s In A Mussel/Muscle

I missed three days in the Gym.
I was in Baltimore with my wife visiting our granddaughter to help celebrate her fourth birthday.
It was a great time. We were able to visit the National Aquarium, take a dragon boat ride on Chesapeake Bay, see the Circus and stop in a little waterside Café for lunch.
My muscles weren’t aching.
I ordered a glass of wine, a real extravagance in the early afternoon and the steamed Mussels for lunch.
I heard the phrase echo in my mind as I ordered the Mussels, “old men don’t grow new muscles”.
Was I subconsciously hoping to eat Mussels/muscles?
My wife noticed the choice.
“That is an unusual entrée. I didn’t think you liked saffron and those Mussels are swimming in saffron.”
“Yeah, well I have become a big lover of saffron”, I lied.
Actually I hadn’t even noticed that the Mussels were “swimming” as I read the menu.
I had just noticed Mussels and had also noticed that my muscles weren’t aching for the first time in months.
Somewhere deep in my brain Mussels and muscles became interchangeable as neurons fired and remembered pasts fused into new thought.
“Well how are the Mussels”, she asked.
“Really quite good”, I replied as I pulled a truculent steamed Mussel from it's death’s grip anchor on the shell and tried to chew past the grit and sand.
“Really quite good”, I said again, trying to convince myself as much as her.
“Boy they gave you quite an order, I would say only 25 to 30 to go” she said laughing.
Was she reading my mind and casting out a challenge, “bet you can’t eat all of those”?
“I hope it is enough”, I said with extra emphasis. “I have been thinking of Mussels every since the restaurant that had fresh Mussels closed”. “They are a good source of low fat protein”, I said vindicating my choice.
“Well Bona Petit” she said and went back to her Lemon Crusted Salmon.
I did finish the Mussels (took over an hour) as I imagined I could feel all that healthy protein streaming into my muscles to replace and repair those which were ripped and torn by prior weeks of ongoing exercise while the sand coated my teeth and intestines.
“I think I’ll have the Lemon Crusted Salmon next time”, I said to no one in particular as we got up to leave, “they say it has lots of Omega-3 oil and that’s supposed to be really good for you also.”
“Yeah and you don’t have to eat a lot of sand”, she said to no one in particular.

“Cheshire Cat”

It is the smile.
The smile is the first thing you see.
Alice in Wonderland met the “Cheshire Cat” as a disembodied smile sitting in the tree.
The first time I saw the “Cheshire Cat” it was much the same, a large smile seemed to enter the gym through the front door.
It was only after she took out the wraps and began preparing for the upcoming training session and spoke a greeting that I realized this was a “Cheshire Cat” as the rest of her came into view.
It is the smile. It is “big” and warm and commands attention.
She is a commuter and drives over 60 miles a day (that is a long commute in Southern Indiana) to the job, the gym, finally reaching home late in the evening.
I believe some days she must feel more like Alice, who asks the “Cheshire Cat”; “which way do I go” with the “Cheshire Cat” responding, “where do you want to go”, and Alice saying, “it really doesn’t matter”, then said the Cheshire Cat “it really makes no difference which way you go”.
So it is not surprising that some days she just doesn’t make it and passes on the group.
Some of the others have said, for a better offer.
But when she shows the “Cheshire Cat” always brings the “Smile”.
The group definitely feels a “little better” on those days.