Physical Health

Early one morning, many years ago when I was in the Army, we were running down the road to a location about 7 miles away. Once there, were to board a boat, go out into the ocean about 2 miles, jump out, and swim back to the beach. I remember thinking: “When I get out of here, I’m never going to do this again.” I kept that promise and have avoided early morning exercise ever since. But, with time on my hands while running that morning, I continued to think about the exercise issue. We did this sort of training a lot and at the time I weighed 20 pounds more than now and all of it was muscle. It was the golden age of life, when one’s invincibility is assumed. I enjoyed it but recognized that it could not be maintained without continued intense training and that was not realistic. My life would go in a different direction, and I needed an exercise plan that would be an essential, but easily managed, part of my life and provide lifetime fitness. I spent much of the remainder of that run, and some later ones, thinking about this. Had to stop when we reached the beach; swimming in the ocean toward a target requires some focus and concentration.

The program that emerged was aerobic, involved all muscle groups in a balanced format, and included jogging, walking, and racquet sports as much as possible. It also included the use of stairs, that great exercise machine, rather than the elevator. Jogging, since I had done so much in the army, was how things began. After a few years it became clear that I was damaging my lower back and knees and I stopped. It was replaced by handball, which I had played in college, and when I tired of beating my hands against the ball, I switched to racquetball and let the racket take the punishment. I played racquetball for many years until there was mild pain in my right knee when I made quick turns and that was the end of racquetball.

In parallel, there was weight training but not the anaerobic heavy lifting of the body builder. I used moderate to heavy weights, I was a young man after all, and only after a few muscle and tendon pulls did I stop that and revert to light and medium weights. Lighter weight training has been a staple of the exercise program since. The amount of weight declined with time and was augmented with more repetitions to keep the total amount of weight moved about the same.

An important consideration was to avoid injury. If an exercise began to induce pain, then I either modified or abandoned it. I felt that the joints that came with the body were better than any artificial joint. The same is true of pulled tendons and muscles. Another consideration was to avoid sports that required people to run into one another. Concussion is not good for the brain.

I am concerned with not damaging the body. My feeling is that you only get one and it makes sense to care for it. Evolutionarily, we have a hunter-gatherer body. It is designed to walk, run or sprint when necessary, climb, lift moderate weight, push and pull things. It likes to work and is self-restoring. If you ask it to do these things, it will repay you by not only doing them, but by doing them for many years. How many machines work for eighty years or more and continue to make automatic repairs and adjustments as needed. You do not damage it by using it; you damage it by not using it. Hunter-gatherers did not sit at desks.

You care for the body by making it do what it was built to do, but not stressing it to the point of injury. Injuries come back to bother you as time goes by and may progress even though you are not doing what caused the injury in the first place. You use your muscles and joints every day either in weight-bearing or in moving items as a daily routine. This constitutes continued injury to previously injured joints and is why the unanticipated joint replacements becomes necessary as one ages.

Geographic change played a role in my life and exercise as well. When our family moved from the Midwest to Colorado, we became aware of the possibilities offered by the mountains. Skiing and hiking in the mountains became avid interests. In addition, rock, ice, and snow climbing were incorporated into my exercise plan. You are not locked into weightlifting and running on a treadmill if you can take a mountain trail or climb and pull yourself up a wall of rock. If one modifies one’s lifestyle, the exercise program should change along with it. That is particularly true as we age.

A few years later, as knee and back pain began to recur after ski runs, skiing reluctantly was set aside. In a similar way, as upper body strength began to wane in later years, climbing also was set aside. The decision was easy, one can hike in the mountains and walk in the city for a lifetime unless damaged joints and muscles prevent it.

During those years, in a period of significant stress, I began to look for something that would provide both mental health (stress relief) and physical fitness and settled on martial arts. I began with Taekwondo and later moved to Karate. These require mental focus, self-control, and awareness, along with physical strength and flexibility. I began at about age 46 and continued for 20 years. At age 66 I won a karate tournament against a much younger opponent and decided it was a good time to stop. The repetitive arm movements and falls were beginning to bring muscle and joint pain and I suspected that I would not be able to beat younger opponents much longer anyway. Nothing I have done has provided the mental health, physical fitness, and sheer enjoyment of mind-body coordination as martial arts.

Now I am walking, working with light weights, resistance bands, and body weight. These continue to do well for me, and I emerged from the two-year COVID hibernation in better physical condition than when I went into it.

It now is about 55 years since I ran down that road in the army thinking about how to maintain realistic physical fitness for the rest of my life. This variable and adaptable approach to mental and physical fitness has served me well. The program has included walking, jogging, racquet sports, weight training, skiing, climbing, hiking, and martial arts. The concept of avoiding injury has been important and I still use the joints that came with the package.

There are a few conclusions from these observations and experiences that are useful as we think about what to do at 70. If fitness is something that one must perform each day, it will not happen. If it occurs as a normal and enjoyable part of one’s day, then it will be painless and profitable. It is not necessary to buy a new exercise outfit with violent colors or eat something trendy that arrives in the mail each week. Make your exercise plans a part of your mental health, not an add on. If you like the Swedish method of early morning quiet contemplation of nature, you can sit outside with coffee or, since you have more energy in the morning, make that the time you walk and combine the mental and physical benefits. If you enjoy the social benefit of spending time with others, then use the gym and combine the social interaction with your physical strengthening. However, remember that time given only to talking does not count as exercise time…even though it may count as mental health time.

Your exercise plan should use all muscle groups over the course of a week and include walking (aerobic work), light weight training (muscle strength and definition), flexibility, and adequate rest. It may require a gym, if only for the social benefits, or a dance studio – I think dancers have the best mental and physical fitness program possible, with martial arts a close second – or a collection of resistance bands in a downstairs room, or an exercise routine done in front of the TV. What you do is less important than the fact that you do it.