Good People doing Good Stuff

I’m going to start a new thread to my space here.  I’m going to start throwing in a piece on local heroes.  Not every week but from time to time.

Maybe it should be called Good Folks doing Good Things. It isn’t likely to be celebrities or sports stars or that sort of thing. I just want to see where it takes me. This community has a lot of really good people that don’t get much recognition.

Yes, I know this is the sports page and I can’t get away from sports, fitness, or being healthy, and this is likely to be an underlying theme to all that. Or maybe not. Like I said, I’m just going to throw it out there and see where it takes me.

It all started with my friend, Kenny Wiggins. I was just thinking what a great guy Kenny is, what a good friend he is to many, and what his journey has been. And it came to me that he was an unsung hero in our community. 

Let me tell you about Kenny.  Not too long ago he retired as Public Services Director for the city of Alcoa. That’s maybe not a really flashy job but believe me that you would know it if Kenny didn’t do his job.

I had met Kenny through the years but really didn’t know him well. Then his son-in-law, who worked in our fitness center, suggested that I invite him to work out with an early morning crew that I led.

Kenny had no trouble with the early hour (5 AM) and such began a several year stretch of working out three days a week. Along the way, he invited a church-mate that I knew well, David Henderson. 

David, who is a Detective with the Sherriff’s Department had played football at Maryville High in my early days in serving MHS.  Throw in my original workout partner David Spence and you had a quartet of dedicated early morning exercisers. And Peggy Bratt.  Can’t forget Peggy.

I’m not sure Kenny was ever an athlete but his daughter Katie was.  She played softball in high school and later coached softball at Alcoa High.  His son-in-law Caleb was an outstanding wrestler at MHS and later brought CrossFit to east Tennessee. 

I think it was Katie that convinced her dad that he needed to exercise regularly. That was years ago. We sweated and struggled and chased this thing called fitness together without interruption for a very long time.

I stepped away from that group about three years ago to workout with my son at noon but that hasn’t stopped Kenny. Now retired, he’s just as dedicated to his fitness as he ever was. I often find him already at the gym when I arrive. He’s here just about every day.

Through these years, Kenny has become very fit and then has maintained an excellent level of fitness. His dedication and perseverance are worthy.

He hikes. He bikes. He maintains an active lifestyle. And because of his exercise habits, he is likely to do so for many, many years.

But back to who Kenny is, not what he’s done.  Kenny is simply a good man. A good friend. A doting grandfather. A man of Faith. You might call him ordinary but he is anything but.

He’s quiet, definitely never loud or flashy. He’s likely to be embarrassed by this.  But he’s just one really great guy that makes up the fabric of Blount County.  An unsung hero that helps make this a great place to be.

Do you Care?

 If you read my blog, you might know that it is usually my weekly newspaper column.  After it is in The Daily Times on Sunday, I put it onto my blog and then share it through Twitter and Facebook.  I’m not much into social media but I use those two because of the distribution.  It’s about the only way to let folks know that I’ve posted something new.

Sometimes, I am compelled to write something that might not be totally appropriate for my newspaper column. It’s not that I avoid anything controversial—I just see my newspaper column as a tool to teach, a vessel to be uplifting and positive. To talk about sports and athletes and health and fitness.

Leaving the clinic today, I just had a realization that is highly personal and probably not OK for the newspaper.  Not because it’s controversial or anything and it’s not about politics or religion, two of the topics that I faithfully avoid. I do have (strong) opinions on both of those and if we are ever together and sharing an adult beverage, ask me and I’ll tell you.

It’s just too personal and maybe someone would even see it as self-serving if it is published and distributed to roughly 120,000 people.  This way, you can choose to read it or simply turn the page (as it may be).

Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think my opinion on those things will influence anyone. Now, if I’m talking about sports and injuries and those sorts of things, folks might listen.  They might even listen if I’m pontificating on how to be healthy and happy.

Republican/Democrat, Conservative/Liberal---you really don’t want my opinion.  You might want to know what my opinion is so that you can convince me that I’m right/wrong.  Same thing with religion. What I think is unlikely to change who you vote for, what you believe, or how you live your life.

So back to the story that started this whole train of thought.  I had seen two patients at one of the ancillary clinics that we operate, this one in a drug/alcohol rehabilitation center.  Two really good guys but with really crappy insurance. 

Let me step back just a bit. I’m doing this thing called StoryWorth for my daughter.  Each week, I get a question to answer, mostly about my life. It gives you the chance to look ahead at coming questions (and create your own) so I know that in a couple of weeks, those folks are going to ask me “what is the meaning of life?”

I don’t know…to love, to serve, to live a life that is a single drop in the ocean of life’s millennium? I’m not sure how I’m going to answer that question. Maybe, like my column, when the deadline looms I’ll come up with something, although I doubt that a realization of what is truly the meaning of life will arrive quite so on demand.

But today, after seeing a pair of patients that had tons of problems of their own and which I maybe didn’t have a lot to offer to, I realized that I care.

That’s it.  It really can be that simple.

I’ve been a physical therapist for over 43 years and an athletic trainer for most of that same time. And despite 4+ decades of clinical practice, I am probably a pretty decent physical therapist.

Oh, if you don’t know what’s wrong with you, I’m probably the guy you need to see. And if you’re injured in a sporting event, I’m probably the person you want to see next.

As far as a physical therapy skillset, I’m about like everybody else. No better, no worse. But there is that one difference—I care.

Theodore Roosevelt has been quoted as saying “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” I think I am the personification of that.

So, here’s the message, young PT’s:  Make sure that they know that you are committed to understanding where they are. Make sure that they know that you are an active participant in why they showed up on your doorstep. Make sure that they know that they are going to get everything that you have-your best every moment of every day. Make sure that the patient in front of you knows that you care.

If you do that…if you genuinely care for them as a person…then the rest of this stuff is easy.

And maybe that’s the meaning of life. Maybe that’s why we were put here. To care for others. To genuinely, deeply be concerned for the wellbeing of everyone that you encounter.

Good shape for the shape you're in...

Long ago, I had an older patient (probably no older than I am now) tell me “whatever you say, don’t tell me that I’m in good shape for the shape I’m in.”

He didn’t want to know that he was OK, considering where he was. He wanted to be OK, regardless of what he was going through.

His health wasn’t good. He was diabetic and a life-long smoker. He wasn’t obese—anything but.  He was maybe 5’7” and 150 pounds. I don’t remember why he was in the hospital but my job was to get him moving again.

For some reason, that has always stuck with me. And I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone “you’re in good shape…for the shape you’re in!”

I’ve learned that you have to go where the other person is. Your goals for them are meaningless. It’s their goals that matter.

So, what shape do you want to be in? Keep in mind that people come in all shapes.  Short, tall.  Round, thin. All shapes. People bring all sorts of problems to the table.

I saw a fellow this week. 33 years old, 230 pounds. Broad shoulders. Back pain. He thinks he needs to lose 50 pounds, to take him back to his weight when he was in the Army. I told him that if he weighed 180, he’d probably be in the hospital.

Maybe it’s a matter of being careful what you ask for. The short person wants to be taller. The heavy person wants to be skinny. On and on and on.

How about this—focus on the things that make you healthy. That 33 year old with back pain? He needs better core strength. He needs better stress management strategies. He needs regular cardiovascular boosting activities.

Simply losing weight will not help him at all yet he thought that weight loss would fix all his problems. Maybe he needs to lose weight, maybe he doesn’t. The bottom line is that he is a big guy…he will never be a little guy.

Six pack abs? OK, maybe that’s what you want but what does that do for you? Does that help you feel better? Does it help you not hurt? Does it help you live longer?

I tell people all the time “stay away from the scales.”  My advice is to eat better and exercise daily. Do those things and your weight will find what it needs to be.

I’m stuck at 195 pounds. As a bicycle rider, that’s not good. I know that I could climb hills better at 175. But I eat smart and exercise every single day. I enjoy food and refuse to starve myself.

So I’m stuck at the back of the pack when we get to a hill. And I’m OK with that. I’ve accepted my body for what it is and, maybe more importantly, accepted the fact that I’m not willing to do what is necessary to get down to 175 just to climb hills on my bicycle faster.

Some might say I’m in pretty good shape for a man of my age. That’s not what is important. Am I doing the things that are necessary to stay healthy and live long? I hope so.

But don’t tell me I’m in good shape for the shape I’m in.

Shoulder Plague

Shoulder problems continue to plague us.  A lot of the blame goes on the widespread usage of computers.  So many jobs these days require us to sit too long at a computer.  More on that in a minute.

The vast majority of shoulder problems that I see are impacted by posture.  One of the first things I do when I evaluate someone with shoulder problems is to look at them from the front. 

When I look at them, do I see the back of their hands?  I look at them from the side. Are their shoulders inturned? I look at them from the back. Are their shoulder blades farther away from the spine than they need to be?

That’s the postural component that I’m talking about. So much of our world is in front of us these days. It’s not just the computers but a lot of the other things that we do, the way we spend our lives.

If you have shoulder pain, you may hear the term “impingement.” That’s a fancy word for “pinching” and has to do with the rotator cuff.

A little anatomy lesson. The rotator cuff is a group of flat, small muscles that surround the head of the humerus (the upper arm bone) and are essential to normal shoulder movement and function.

That postural component that I talked about earlier allows the head of the humerus to sit in the front of the shoulder joint, impinging on the rotator cuff. That hurts. If you ignore it long enough, impingement can lead to other, bigger problems.

So, for those of you that sit at a computer all day, you’ve got to take breaks. At least every 15 minutes, step away from the computer, stretch your arms backward, relax, shake, and then go back to it. That doesn’t take but 15-20 seconds and your work will still get done.

Another thing that I see on a regular basis is a shoulder problem that is caused by improper strength training form or misguided focus in the strength training program.

Bad form needs to be corrected by a strength coach.  The best advice does not come from your friend or from the guy down the street with big muscles.  Look for experts in the field and then listen to them.

I see way too much focus on the anterior chest and the front of the shoulders. I must admit that I’m not a big fan of the bench press.  I know it has its place but it gets way too much attention.

Particularly among young lifters, what’s the first question one asks another?  “How much can you bench?” It is their measuring stick when they should be more focused on performance and on a whole body exercise like power cleans.

There is no doubt that some athletes need the bulk and power that comes from lifts like the bench press, but over four decades of experience in this field tells me clearly that it is the source of shoulder problems in far too many people—people who really have no need for a big chest.

Same thing for the biceps. “Curls for girls” has been a motto since I was young. Focus on the biceps without similar focus on the triceps does nothing for performance or injury prevention.

Don’t get me wrong—strength training is essential, not just in athletic performance but in staying healthy. Unless you are a competing athlete, strength training is more important in your 40’s, 50’s, and older than it is in your 20’s.  You lose significant amounts of muscles mass as you get older and to combat the bad sides of aging, you need regular strength training.

That doesn’t mean just to hit the gym and do what sounds good. There are tons of local people that really know how to help you to better health through the weight room. Use them.

What do you do when you don't feel like it?

Don’t feel like getting up the in morning?  Do you have the luxury of sleeping in?  Folks tell me I’ll enjoy that part of retirement (no…not yet…not for a while).  But on days when I might sleep in, I wake up anyway.

Are you one of those that hit the snooze alarm every day?  Not me. I really have no idea how the snooze alarm on my bedside clock even works. Oh, I’m sure I could figure it out, but when the alarm goes off, I’m wide awake. You’ve got to find motivation to get up and get going.

Don’t feel like going to work? I’m not guilty of that one either. I know that I was lucky, extremely lucky, to discover a job that I truly love, that I look forward to each and every day. When that alarm clock does go off, I am blessed to not lie there and say “oh woe is me—another day at the old grindstone.”

Nope. For me it’s “oh man, I get to go do this stuff again today!”  If that sounds self-righteous at all, it’s not meant that way. I know what it means. It means I won the career lottery.

When kids come to me for college advice, my core recommendation is to find something that you truly love doing and build a career around it. As the cliché goes, if you find something that you love and make it your life’s work, you’ll never really work a day in your life.

I saw a meme one time that went something like this:  8 AM plans for dinner--baked chicken, salad, and two vegetables.  5 PM actual dinner—pizza and sodas.

The real part of life is that sometimes you just don’t feel like cooking. And that healthy meal became junk food out of necessity.  I get it. I really do. My wife and I do that from time to time.

Planning your meals helps. Laying out that chicken in the morning makes it more likely that you will not stop by for fast food on the way home.

But the big ticket item on this topic is exercise.  What do you do if you just don’t feel like exercising?  I said something last week about not always enjoying biking on the hills that are everywhere around here or the strength training that I do 2-3 times per week.

A buddy and I have a saying about all that. “Are you riding or are you hiding.”  That may be all about the weather or maybe I just don’t feel like it. With few exceptions, once I get out there or get started with a ride or a workout, I’m glad I did. You know in your head that you need to exercise (or eat right or sleep enough) but your heart just isn’t in it.

What do you do? Listen to your heart and ignore your head? An Accountability Partner helps. Traveling the path to better health is easier with someone in your life to go with you. To hold you accountable.

There is no doubt that an exercise partner helps, especially on those days when you might not feel like exercising. There’s just something about knowing that someone else is counting on you being there that will make you get out of bed in the morning.

For years, I exercised with the same group of people. If somebody missed, they were likely to get a text message. “We missed you” is common. Sometimes it was more like “get your lazy butt out of bed.” In any case, it helped.

Maybe you made a New Year Resolution. To get healthier. To exercise more. Gyms are usually full in January, taper off in February, and are back to the regulars in March.

If that’s you, then let me offer you a suggestion. Establish a new mindset. Decide that this is going to be long term. Decide that this is going to be your lifestyle from now on. 

And then find an excuse to get out of bed in the morning.

Why is fitness important to you?

 What is the purpose of fitness? Why do you exercise?  What do you hope to accomplish?

Are you doing it to prepare for a sport?  We know for sure that exercise and good fitness are important for whatever sport that you might happen to be playing. And regardless of your age.

Sports-specific programs are important not only to help you be better at your sport but also to prevent injuries.  How does fitness prevent injuries, you might ask.

Lots of injuries happen late in the game.  Fourth quarter. Last ski run. Those kinds of things. Fatigue is definitely a factor. As you get tired, your technique deteriorates and your focus wanes. 

Your body’s ability to a change in direction (think about planting your foot to cut to your left) or to react to outside forces (think about getting bumped while you’re running) lessen with fatigue.

Performance is the goal for a lot of people. I took up CrossFit in 2008 because I could see that the emphasis on core strength would help me on the bicycle, particularly the mountain bike.

I can remember when Pete Rose broke down barriers in the 70’s by lifting weights.  Back then, baseball players avoided strength training fearing that they couldn’t perform well with big muscles. We now know how wrong that was.

Now we know that strength training, stretching, and sport-specific training are all essential to successful sports performance (along with eating right, getting adequate sleep, and listening to your body) regardless of the sport.

Weight management is another great reason to seek better fitness levels.  Dieting without exercising is futile. You just can’t get the results that you want.

Maybe you exercise to look better. That’s OK. Whatever drives you. I’ve said often that the best exercise program that you can do is the one that you WILL do.  Same here. It doesn’t matter as much WHY you exercise as it does that you DO exercise.

Kids need to exercise so that they become active adults. That’s a proven fact. And it’s also a fact that if their parents will exercise with them, the kids are even more likely to participate and to continue an active lifestyle into adulthood.

You might exercise for the way it makes you feel. Although I have never ran far enough or hard enough to achieve a “runner’s high,” I do know that regular exercise keeps me feeling better.

I’m not going to lie and tell you that it feels good on some of the long hills on my bicycle or that the strength training that I do is always fun. But I can tell you that as soon as it is over, it feels great. Exercise causes the release of endorphins in your system that will leave you almost euphoric.

Exercise is a key ingredient to living longer or, at the very least, living well in you later years. Again, study after study has indicated that.

I know people my age that feel like they’ve reached the age when it is time to slow down…that it is the natural progression of aging. That is most certainly a slippery slope.   If you let it, age becomes an excuse for getting lazy.

Stay active, stay strong, and don’t let birthdays dictate how you feel or what you do. You are neither too young nor too old to pursue fitness. And let me repeat what I already said:  It doesn’t matter nearly as much WHAT you do as it does that you DO it.

In My Lifetime

In my lifetime, there was a time when football helmets didn’t have facemasks. I can barely remember it but I know when I got my first football helmet, before I started playing youth football, it had a clear plastic facemask and was something of a novelty item.

Thank goodness everything about the game of football has gotten better. Equipment is better. Training is better.

I have seen concussions as something you shook off change to where we now know that they can be life threatening events with horrible consequences. I shudder at the thought of some of the advice we gave in my earliest professional days. But we’re better now.

In my lifetime, I have seen sports medicine go from hot tubs and analgesic balm to high technology and evidence-based practices. But we’re still taping ankles, pretty much the same way.

In my lifetime, I’ve seen backpacks go from bulky canvas to featherweight nylon. My first backpack was a Boy Scout issue with a wooden frame that I made myself. My current backpack, which isn’t the latest and greatest but good nonetheless, is aluminum and nylon and weighs nothing.

Same for my sleeping bag. I use a three-season bag that can be comfortable in winter with the addition of clothing and which can be used if it gets wet. If my first sleeping bag got wet, it was useless for days.

My boots are Gore-Tex and sturdy. I once hiked the portion of the Appalachian Trail inside the Smokies in canvas Converse All-Stars! And a friend started that trip (we were 12) with an iron skillet and a fishing rod.

And speaking of which, in my lifetime, I’ve seen basketball shoes going from those same canvas Converse All-Stars to Air Jordans and beyond.

I’ve seen rules changes in basketball where dunking was made illegal and then later it was embraced as part of the show. I’ve seen girls’ basketball go from a 3-on-3 half court game to a full court game. That half court game was a thing until I was in college. Hard to believe now.

Regular, five-on-five basketball was supposedly too strenuous for girls. How wrong we were!

In my lifetime, I’ve seen the polio epidemic.  It was scary but mostly because of the iron lungs that some children were forced to live their lives in.

I have had more of a chance to be scared this time. I was just a kid then but those iron lung things were the items of nightmares. Still, I’ve had friends and family members die of Covid-19. I’ve probably preached enough on that sermon so I’ll move on.

In my lifetime, I’ve seen Jim Crow America.  I can remember separate facilities for non-whites.  Separate bathrooms, separate water fountains, separate entrances to stores, separate seating sections at events.

Us kids were all thrilled when schools were integrated (I was in the seventh grade) because it meant that we got to go to school with our friends who happened to be a different skin color. And we got to play on the same sports teams.

Old people talk about the Good Ol’ Days. Were they? Certainly parts of life then were simpler, maybe easier. But I would never go back.

Look around. Embrace the world as it is today. Love one another. Take care of the environment. Take care of each other. This is the Best of Times. Have a Happy New Year. I’m sure you’re like me and ready to put 2020 behind you.