The Best Exercise Program Ever

I watched someone as they walked/jogged on the Greenbelt last week.  It was probably more walk than jog.

The buddy I was with said somewhat disparagingly (he's not nearly as kindhearted as I am) "why?"  

He seemed to be asking "why bother, when all you're going to do is shuffle along at a pace that generates barely a sweat in most people."

Why indeed.

My oft-repeated quote on that (well, I oft repeat it anyway) is that the BEST exercise program that you do is the one that you do.  The WORST exercise program is the one you don't do.

Effective exercise programs take many, many forms.  It can be something as simple as a walk in the park (literally) to a demanding CrossFit workout that leaves you gasping for breath.

Is one better than the other?  I don't know if that is the most important question to ask. 

Again, the best exercise program is one that holds your interest.  That you can sustain. That you even (yes, really) enjoy!

You may have the most evidence-based exercise program in the world, recommended to you by the best personal trainer ever, and based on a thorough examination of your physical capacity and medical needs but if you don't do it, it is totally worthless.

Just like the millions spent on diets and diet plans that people just don't follow, that exercise program that you don't do will never help you.

So let's look at the ingredients for a good exercise program.

It needs to have some components of cardio training.  In other words, it needs to be strenuous enough to get your heart rate up. 

How much?  That's where your Primary Care Physician (PCP) comes in.  You must depend on them to determine if you are physically able to participate in any type of exercise first and then they should be able to help you set safe parameters.

But if your PCP says that exercise is a bad idea regardless of your health, then go find yourself a new PCP. 

It needs to have some components of strength training.  This is especially true as you get older.  And it is more important for females than males.  Strength training may be your best hedge against osteoporosis.

I've also often stated that it is more important for the 40-something (and older) to lift weights than it is for the 20-something.  Yet, our gyms are full of those 20-somethings, looking for the better body through throwing around weights.

But we begin losing muscle strength at about age 28 and will lose a half to full percentage of our muscular strength every year.  That means that at 48, we have lost 20% or so of our muscle.  Since we likely haven't also lost 20% of our body weight, that means that muscle has been replaced by...well...bad stuff, like fat.

It needs to have some component of stretching.  Maybe yoga.  Probably some every day.

The second most important component is that it have a significant focus on developing core strength, which I define as essentially that region between your armpits and your kneecaps.

And the most important component (already mentioned above) is that you will do it.  

Teammates Can Be the Tie that Binds

Family is family and family should definitely come first but the friendships that we develop on our playing fields are something special. 

There's just something about working together for a common cause, fighting together, being a part of a team...that just brings us together.  It's a bond that is cemented by shared wins and  shared losses.

Although we don't communicate often, I feel that special bond with a couple of guys that I played high school football with. 

J.L. Millsaps was one of those.  A head-hunting linebacker, J.L. signed to play football at Memphis State University.  Lonnie Hawkins was another.  Lonnie was our star tailback and headed off to Tennessee  Tech after graduation.

I don't see either of these guys often.  Through the years, it has mostly been for medical reasons or ballgames of one kind or another.  But when we do see each other, it's like the years melt away and that friendship that reaches back (WAY back) to our teenage years is immediately renewed.

It's like that friendship has been put in suspended animation or something and is immediately available to us whenever we meet.

I find that in my professional life too.  Some of the very best friends that I've got in the world are found all over the country.  Tab and Barney in Georgia.  Skip in South Carolina.  Barb in Michigan.  Mike in Nashville, Debbie in Chattanooga, and Danny in Elizabethton.  Secili in Virginia. Pete in Ohio.  I'll stop because the list gets long. 

We see each other maybe twice a year but it's like nothing has changed--that friendship just steps in where it always was.

Despite going our separate ways professionally, one of my former partners in private practice (Baron) and I have stayed as close as ever.  He has always been someone that I could count on.  All of my former partners have remained friends.  I work with two of them every day (Randy and Tracy) and talk to another (David) regularly.  Distance has had no impact on those bonds.

My best friend in high school and college roommate and I still stay in touch.  Again, we don't talk often but when we do, you can be sure that it won't take us long to get around to old stories (and maybe old lies) and it's like nothing has diminished from that friendship.  We renew and become as close as ever.

I just got back from a week mountain biking with another great friend.  For some reason, he and I can spend 24/7 with each other and never have the hint of disagreement.  We genuinely like each other.  I realize how special a friend like that can be.

What's the point of all this?

Your teammates should be your friends.  Take care of them.  Build those relationships and then don't let anything get in the way of holding on to them.  Oh, they won't all stick around but the good one's will.

A friend is too valuable a commodity to waste.  A friend will tell you when you're wrong without being judgmental and loves you even when you don't listen.  A friend knows who you are and likes you anyway.  With a friend, you never have to worry about rejection.

A friend is someone that lets you be yourself.

They aren't your family and they most likely can never be but they are an important part of your life now and for hopefully for many years to come.  

Travel We Must!

I've had the good fortune to travel here lately. Actually, throughout my adult life, I've been really blessed to go places and do things that I didn't even have the room to dream about when I was growing up.

I'm convinced that we all need to travel.  And we need to travel to places and truly experience those places.  Meet and get to know the people. 

We need to see new places.  Try new things.  Eat different food.  Listen to different music.

We need to discover how somebody else does things.  We might just find a better way to do what we do.

When I was a high school junior, we won the football state championship.  It was a big deal in my little town. The community actually raised money and sent the whole team to see Tennessee and Florida play in the Gator Bowl. 

Most of the players on the team had never been out of the state of Tennessee.  One player, my age, had never been outside of our home county. 

So we find ourselves in a budget motel in downtown Jacksonville where we were told to stay off the streets because it was the big city and so it was dangerous and all.

That didn't stop us.

One boy discovered liquor that trip--a discovery that would haunt him the rest of his life.  A few went looking (unsuccessfully) for girls.  Most just wandered the streets.

In some small way, we all learned that there was another world out there.  A world outside of our tiny burg of three red lights and two grocery stores.

Yes, travel.  Get out of your comfort zone.  See new things and experience different cultures.  It will be good for you.   

I just got back from a trip this week.  It was all that and more.  I had even been reluctant to leave my comfortable little world for a week.  I like my life.

But seeing new things and new places teaches us that the world is a big place.  It gives us perspective.  It lets us know in no uncertain terms that the world does not revolve around us.  That we have to live with others and find a way to make it all work.

Travel, put most simply, opens our eyes.  Opens our eyes to the beauty that lies in our own backdoor.  Opens our eyes to the value of collaboration with people sometimes very different from us.  It makes us more accepting of things that are different.  It opens our eyes to the possibilities of humanity.

In part of those recent travels, I crossed Oklahoma.  I saw people there, people of the Cherokee nation whose roots in this area--in the hills and valleys of east Tennessee--are far, far deeper than our own. 

People who were forcibly marched across this land to an area that was harsh and even barren, especially when you consider the mountains and rivers where they came from.  Certainly far from their home.

Yet, they have survived and have built a life and yes, a culture there.   That survivability, that uniqueness of the culture that has evolved, is something that we could all learn from.  While we will never be able to relate to what they've been through as a people, we can still learn from them.

But we've got to get out to where they are to even have that opportunity.  We must travel and not inside some monstrous ship or to a cookie-cutter hotel that happens to be on the beach.  We've got to get out there.

"Finish each day and be done with it."

"Finish each day and be done with it.  You have done what you could.  Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in;  forget them as soon as you can.  Tomorrow is a new day;  begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered by your old nonsense."

That's my favorite quote attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I remember back in the middle of the football season when a local coach said of his quarterback "he can make a mistake and then put it completely out of his mind.  It's over.  It's on to the next play."

It was meant to be a compliment.  It certainly seems compatible with Emerson's advice.  Could there be any better advice in the middle of a big game?  It is often said of those athletes that can do that (forget about past mistakes and move on) have ice-water in their veins.

Forgot about it.  Put it behind you.  Move on.

One of my responsibilities with the MHS football team is the conditioning of the kickers.  Think about it.  Pretty much all they do at football practice is kick.

And I can tell you that it's easy to kick too much.  Sometimes we even count the number of kicks.   

So what happens is that the kickers get finished before the rest of the football team.

That's where I come in.  I take them through their conditioning and stretching drills.

What also happens is that I get close to them.  We become pals.  I don't coach them--we've got plenty of good folks that can do that--but I'm definitely there to encourage them.  Maybe pick them up when they get down.

I am part of their support system.  I know that I try to be the first one to greet them when they come off the field during a game, whether they had a good kick or not.

For a kicker that has just missed one or shanked a punt, nothing is more important than to live by Emerson's mantra.  Forget that last kick.  It's gone.  You can't do it again. Just nail the next one. 

We all make mistakes.  No one is perfect.  We're going to miss a free throw or strike out or double fault. 

But it's what we do next that is most important.  Do we shake it off?  Forget about it?  Move on to the next opportunity?

Or do we dwell on it.  Beat ourselves up for the miss.

I think we should all take Emerson's words to heart in our games and in our lives.  In the real world we're going to make mistakes.  We're going to screw up.  We're going to make bad choices. 

When we do, the best thing to do is to move on and do better the next time. 

I've said many times that sports are life lessons.  Maybe this is one of those lessons.  Learn from your mistakes and do better next time.  Figure out what you did wrong and fix it. 

But do move on.  Do forget about it.  What's happened has happened.   What you do next--how you respond to adversity--often defines the person you are and the person you are to become.

Golden Years?

We are all getting older. There is little we can do about it.  I'm certainly there.  63 is staring me in the face.

I've heard all the clichés.  "Getting old is not for sissies."  And "60 is the new 40."  (That's a lie.)

Or my personal least favorite: "he/she looks good for his/her age."  That one reminds me too much of comments made at the funeral home.  "He certainly looks good."  Well, he looks dead too (not to be too callous).

I don't want to look good for my age.  I want to look good period. 

Wrinkled?  Sure.  Slower?  Most certainly.  Sagging where I might not like it?  Maybe.

Yes, I have the bifocals and hearing aids and maybe I can't do some of the things I used to but making excuses by using those things is just...well...making excuses.

We all want to live longer but we want to do it on our own terms.  Good health.  Sharp mind.  Able to do the things we love.

But are you doing the things today to help you get there?

It is a fact of life that most of the things that negatively impact our health in our later years are things we can do something about. 

Like our weight.  Our activity level.  Smoking.  Eating right.  And yes, even our social life.

It is a proven fact that if we have friends and an active social life we're not only going to live longer but we're going to be healthier as we age.  Check it out.

And then there's exercise.

If you exercise regularly and vigorously, pretty much all those other things are going to take care of themselves. 

Some people complain that we put too much emphasis on sports.  But we also know that active children become active adults and sports just happen to be one of our better vehicles to promote activity in children and teenagers.

Sports serve us by teaching us the joy of movement.  And the rewards of physical activity.  Never learned that?  It's never too late.

I know of lots of folks that dream of the day that they can retire.  They might even be able to tell you how many days and hours it is until retirement.

But have they adequately prepared financially for retirement? With life expectancies increasing, are you sure that the retirement plan that you've been working on for 40 years is going to last you 30 or more years more?

The embarrassing fact is that you might not have the finances to live as long as you do.

So what's the bottom line on all this?   Start preparing to be old today. 

Exercise.  Eat right.  Make new friends.  You're probably going to have to work longer than you planned.

But science and common sense both tell us that if you're going to be healthy enough to enjoy those golden years, then it starts now.

Thanks for the Mentoring!

I ran into one of my high school football coaches last week.  I hadn't seen him in...oh...I don't know.  Maybe 30 years.   

  

It didn't seem like he had changed much.  He had long ago lost a lot of weight--well over a hundred pounds while I was away at college.  I had seen his new, svelte self but, like I said, it had been a while.  We were both at an Upward basketball game for our grandchildren. 

In the brief moments that we were able to chat, I tried to tell him some of the things that he had done for me.   People kept interrupting (in a nice way).

I was able to introduce him to my daughter and a couple of the grandkids and shared something with them that he told me when I was a senior in high school.

We had just lost a really tough game that likely would keep us out of playoff contention (it did).  I was broken hearted and he came up to me, put his big arm around my shoulder, and told me that he was proud of me.  That I had given it my all.

I doubt that he realized what an impact that he had on me with that.  Sure, I remember the game.  At Cleveland.  Final score 28-35.  The player that I battled most of the night was already headed to Kentucky.

But I can feel his arm on my shoulders and hear the words he spoke even now.  And this is 45+ years later.

It was a lesson in effort.  And pride.  And maybe even perspective.

I really hope that coaches and teachers and other adults in positions to influence and lead teenagers understand how much impact their words and actions have on those in the midst of what surely is their most impressionable years.

I hope that teenagers stop to listen to the wisdom and counsel that is coming their way, sometimes in rare and special moments. 

I've already told you here (several times really) about my high school coach who remarked "if he works at it, he can be a good one" when asked if I was any good.

That comment transformed me from an underachieving slacker into someone who truly believed that if I worked hard at something, anything, that I could accomplish it.  I took that initiative, that work ethic, on to several college degrees and a career that has been maybe somewhat successful.

Don't pass up any opportunity to thank those that have been a positive influence on your life.  Coaches.  School teachers. Sunday School teachers. Scout leaders.  Maybe just the nice guy next door.

You never know when, if at all, another opportunity might arise. 

Thanks, Coach Dutton.

The Exercise Manifesto

Let's talk about exercise a bit.

There are more misconceptions about exercise than there are about pretty much everything.  Except dieting.  And that's for another day.

You've got your joggers.  Life is running. 

I used to run.  It's easy and cheap.  A good pair of running shoes is all that you absolutely have to have.  What you wear is most of the time irrelevant.

I was never a "runner." I never had to get my run in.  The only runner's high I ever had may have been due to a beer after a run.

But still I ran.  Until my knees forsook me.

You've got your weight lifters. 

The worst of the kind spend hours in the gym.  They spend more time resting between sets than they do actually exercising.

You've got your cardio kings (or queens).

They have their favorite cardio equipment in their favorite gym that they do regularly in what I suppose must be their favorite time of day.  Wearing their favorite gym duds.

I've seen people on the same piece of equipment regularly for years.  Nothing ever changes.

Some people have got to play something.  If there isn't a competition to it or some kind of game, they just won't do it.  My thing used to be basketball.   I LOVED playing basketball.  I was a Basketball Jones.

For some people it is tennis.  I used to play that too but life got in the way. 

OK, so I'm going to do something that will seem really odd.  Something that will violate every code of creative writing ever written.

I'm going to offer you the conclusion in this, the middle of the piece.

Here it is:  The best exercise program is the one that you do.

You may have discovered the most perfect exercise program in the world.  You may have found exactly what works for you.

But if you don't do it, it won't help you a bit.

Everybody is different.  And every body is different. 

What works for one person may not work for you at all.  You've got to find their niche.  Your "thing."

Oh, there are certain basic principles that you've got to folllow.

You've got to do some things that get your heart rate up.  I'll not get into the argument right now about target heart rate and how high your heart rate needs to be in order to derive benefit from the exercise but do remember this--from time to time, you've got to exercise hard enough that you can't carry on a conversation. 

Not every time.  Not all the time.  Sometimes.

Of course that depends on medical clearance and all that.  If you're past 40, make sure your personal physician approves.  (Oh...you don't have a personal physician?  Well goodness gracious, get one!)

You've got to do some things that put some stress on your muscles.

I am of the strongly held opinion that you don't need to do strength training of just one muscle or muscle group. 

Your strength training needs to be multi-joint and it needs to be functional.

What does it mean to be multi-joint?   It means that you need to be doing exercises that involve more than one joint.

A good example is the power clean.  Great exercise.  It engages your legs, hips, back, shoulders...pretty much your whole body.

A bad example is the biceps curl.  Or the bench press.  And goodness knows that the machine where you just sit and kick forward is a waste of time.

Why do we lift weights?

We lift (well, most of us anyway) to make sure that our body is strong enough to do the other things that we want to do. 

Some people lift to train for a specific sport.  For some, it is important for their job (think firefighters and EMT's).   For a lot people, we lift weights because we sit at a desk in front of a computer for long periods of time every day.

Strength training is the best (and I could argue ONLY) way to combat that.

I don't know of many people any more that lift weights just to look good.  No doubt that is true for some but then you get past your teenage years and then what is the point?

Get the picture?  We lift for solid, functional reasons.  

We lift to combat aging.   We lift so we can climb the stairs.  Or carry a child out of a burning building.  Or even play with the kids (or grandkids).

There are a million reasons that we exercise.

We exercise to be healthier, happier, and live longer.  When you get down to it, that's about it.

Why do you exercise?

Or maybe I should ask...why don't you?