Pumping Irony

My motto: Make friends with new machines.

Well, I didn’t get to the gym on Wednesday (worked too late — not enough time for a good workout. . . . so, sue me! Geeze.), but I managed to get downstairs last night for a little sweat-a-thon. I did 25+ minutes on the treadmill while watching CNN talking heads lip-synch something about the Obama-Clinton race, which for some reason prompted me to hit the “incline” button a few times. And, about 15 minutes into my session, I inexplicably broke into a run. Was this a sympathetic response to Hilary’s uphill battle for the nomination? Anyway, my heart rate was creeping into the mid-140s (coronary territory???) and I was sucking wind and Wolf Blitzer was segueing into a story about John McCain’s medical records (71 is old?), all of which kind of took the wind out of my sails. Defeated, I slowed to a walk, pondering my own mortality and the civic value of soundless TV news, before switching off my virtual runway and moving on to better things.

Last week sometime, a dizzying array of new resistance machines arrived at the club, so after nearly eight months of learning how to use the old machinery without hurting myself, I’m suddenly back at square one. For most people, this does not pose much of a problem. The hulking, tattooed denizens of the weight room seem to instinctively know which machines do what to their impossibly buff bodies; they simply bend the machines to their iron will. Other, less imposing specimens seek out a nearby helpful personal trainer and simply ask their advice.

I, on the other hand, wander aimlessly amid the shiny white monuments, squinting at the inscrutable hieroglyphs designed to explain the machine’s proposed relationship with the user’s body. It’s as if I’d stumbled upon a trade show for tool-and-die machines or the latest in Romanian commercial bakery appliances.

No, I do not ask for directions.

Instead, I climb on the most familiar-looking pieces of machinery and crank away, marveling at how smooth and silent the transaction feels. Poundage that felt oppressive on the old machines I can hoist almost effortlessly. I did have pasta for lunch (see “Superfood?”), but that can’t entirely explain how easy this feels tonight. I pile on an extra 10, even 20 lbs. more than I’m accustomed to, and, 10 reps later, it’s: Whoa! I’m da man!

It momentarily occurs to me that different resistance machinery could register different results, but I quickly dismiss that thought and consider, just for the briefest instant, venturing over into the free-weights area, where the real men and their tattoos lurk. I even think, for the tiniest of nanoseconds, that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be totally out of line for a guy my age to get a tattoo. (Why should my daughter be the only one in the family with one?)

But, just as suddenly, the thought fades, and I’m back on the ab cruncher thingy, wondering about this new pain in my lower back. Way across the room, Obama’s on CNN again.

Skinny guy, I’m thinking. Probably no tattoos. Someday, maybe, the most powerful man in the world. Hmmm. . . .

Not my hammock, not my house — but a guy can dream, can’t he?

I skipped the gym last night and stayed home from work today in hopes of thwarting a cold bug that’s had me sniffling and sneezing — though not yet completely miserable — for a couple of days. And, while there’s ample evidence to indicate that exercise can help cure the common cold, older guys like myself like to rest rather than recreate when visited by our most familiar virus.

Former Minnesota Vikings defensive end Jim Marshall said it best years ago, when he explained why he liked to report late to training camp: “There’s only so much tread on the tire.” (Of course, this was a guy who made history by running the wrong way with a fumble during a 1964 game against the San Francisco 49ers, so . . . .)

More scholarly sources, however, suggest that Marshall may be right in pacing himself — especially if you’re fighting a cold. Dr. David Nieman, a professor at Appalachian State University, says moderate exercise may boost your immune system, but going too hard when you’re sick could slow your recovery. That’s because the body produces more cortisol and adrenaline during intense workouts, and these hormones tend to suppress your immune system for up to 72 hours after the session.

Not that I need any excuse to take a nap today.

The good news is that this fitness regimen I’m on — as erratic as it sometimes is — should actually keep the cold and flu viruses at bay. Forty minutes of moderate exercise a day (which I’m just going to assume includes walking to work) helps the body produce more macrophages, cells that destroy bacteria (the bad kind, I’m assuming), which, in turn, leads to a stronger immune system.

So, I’m hoping to be back at the gym tomorrow diligently producing macrophages and toning up my newly buff immunity.

Domestic chores demand a strong body.

My Friday workout felt hasty and ill-conceived, sort of a circuit-training approach without the “training” part, as I wandered from treadmill to ab-cruncher to lat pull-down to chest press, etc., etc. — all crammed into about 60 minutes of low-energy grunting (I really need 90 minutes to do this right). Part of the problem was that I was still a little sore from Wednesday’s high-energy workout, and I didn’t want to hurt myself.

I have a meeting tonight, so I think it’s going to be a Tuesday-Thursday schedule this week, which suits me just fine.

I did walk to work this morning, so I managed to get 35 minutes of low-impact, bone-strengthening cardio into my day. This on the heels of a “non-workout” weekend that included a 90-minute hike through the Mississippi River gorge with a couple dozen amateur geologists (including my lovely wife), my annual mid-May trip to the cursing driving range (I have the blisters to prove it), the first lawn-mowing of the spring (long grass and a reel mower make for good cardio and resistance training), and a heroic wrestling match with a garden hose and an extension ladder, during which I managed to clean out my gutters and downspouts without falling to my death (R.I.P. Max McGee).

My lovely wife, by the way, trumped all of this activity on Mother’s day by climbing on her bicycle and pedaling 13.5 miles into a nasty north wind to visit her mother in Roseville — and then she rode all the way back home. That’s 27 miles, I reminded myself as I sipped a glass of cabernet and perused the latest issue of Utne Reader over lunch. (I did cook dinner, by the way. And washed the dishes.)

This all had me reconsidering my earlier assertion about having no fitness goals. In fact, the best reason for hitting the gym two or three times a week is because I want to be able to haul out the extension ladder every spring to clean out the gutters and I want to be able to mow the lawn and ride my bicycle and carry wet laundry out to the line in the summer and chase grandchildren around the yard (though I’m in no hurry for that. . . really, kids. . . . take your time). This is called functional fitness, a concept designed to enhance the ability of geezers like myself to remain upright and reasonably useful in our old age.

Of course, if I really want to pursue this approach, I’m probably going to have to be more strategic about my gym workout. As Gina Shaw points out in this WebMD piece, just cranking away on some resistance machine doesn’t actually work your body in a way that will be particularly helpful to your long-term functionality. In my case, all the lifting I’ve been doing has been working isolated muscle groups, which might make me feel stronger (and look less flabby), but it does little to strengthen the integrated muscle groups that we use to lift or reach or bend or squat during the course of our normal day.

At some level, I’m happy to learn of this approach, even though it will ultimately force me to ask a personal trainer about a new regimen, which to me is akin to pulling over at a gas station when I’m hopelessly lost and asking directions. It’s just not something guys like me do.

This is how it feels sometimes. Really.

I rode my bicycle to work this morning, even though I chose to wear the inexplicable sneaker-khakis combo (see “If the Shoe Fits” below) previously designed for walking. So, that means I’m destined for the dreaded treadmill tonight at the gym. Running Walking builds bone density, after all, and if I don’t hoof it to work, I try to do it on the moving rubber mat.

Except on Wednesday, when I bicycled to work and  then was mysteriously attracted to the stationary bike downstairs, where I did a sort of interval thing (pedaling at about 80 RPMs for a couple of minutes and then cranking it up to about 110 RPMs for a minute or so), which pumped my heart rate up into the high 130s. This pretty much knocked me out after about 20 minutes, but it made me think about something I read recently (and you’ll see in the magazine in September) about how adults need to really work their bodies to their maximum RPMs every day for at least a minute or so. It’s good for our vitality (if we don’t keel over from a heart attack in the process).

It does feel pretty good, I have to admit: lungs burning, lactic acid conquering the muscles in your legs, heart thumping through the wall of your chest, etc.

Not the same as pedaling through the park.

Anyway, tonight it’s the treadmill, more ab work (really — I just love that stuff!), some lifting, and a leisurely ride home on my Schwinn.

My goal this morning was to walk into work (I’d left my bike in the office due to yesterday’s thunderstorm) wearing my sneakers and schlepping my workout gear and computer in my backpack. But then I noticed how dorky my sneakers looked with these khakis (you can imagine, no?) and slipped on my regular brown office shoes, one of which (the left foot) is about a half-size too big. The last time I wore these walking to work, the shoe produced a nasty blister on the back of my foot. It also tends to roll my sock around inside the shoe, which is very annoying.

Anyway, I’m tromping awkwardly over the Intercity Bridge, admiring how the river has nearly inundated the small island below the Ford Dam, when I notice the Crapmobile zipping past me, heading east. I waved, but my lovely wife was oblivious, and for a moment I wondered whether she’d notice my shuffling gait and take pity on me by pulling over and transporting me the last half mile to the office, but, no, she just continued on. Which, of course, made me wonder whether I’d committed some domestic faux pas this morning that had left her peeved (even after 28 years of marriage, you sometimes never know . . .  especially if you’re as oblivious as I am), so I flipped open my cell phone and gave her a call and learned that she had indeed seen me on the bridge and had thought about stopping, but there was no shoulder on which to safely pause and, besides, she was anxious to get to the co-op and get some potting soil before the washing machine repair guy showed up.

Relieved that I had not somehow offended her earlier, and happy to notice that the sock on my left foot had made one complete revolution, I walked on up the hill.

No treadmill tonight.

OK, so I promised that I would report on last night’s workout — specifically focusing on my 10 goals for the evening. Overall, my goal-oriented approach took time away from stuff I would normally do (I so missed brutalizing myself on that lat pull-down machine….), but it also cajoled me into other arguably constructive — and slightly irritating — activities. Anyway, as promised, here’s my report:

1. Avoid sudden — or even gradual — cardiac arrest.
So far, so good.

2. Wipe the sweat off my face without knocking the glasses off my nose.
Mission accomplished, though I nearly tumbled off the elliptical thingy in the process.

3. “Run” for awhile on that elliptical thingy without holding onto the handles (or falling off). See if I can get my heart rate into the mid-120s. Or not.
See #2. I did manage to spend a few minutes on a couple of occasions “running” with my hands free, but it’s quite disorienting. (The “poles” you’re supposed to be holding could actually present a bonking hazard if you were to lean forward too far and just a bit to the right or left — does that sound improbable? Not to me.) Average heart rate for the 30-minute session: 111; top heart rate: 126.

4. Take time to stretch after “running” on that elliptical thingy. Try not to look like a dork, but also don’t pretend that I know anything about stretching.
Mixed results here. I found one of the little rubber stretching mats unoccupied and did my favorite “sit up with the soles of your feet together to loosen your hammies or something” stretch for awhile, before folding one leg to my side and extending the other (repeated with other leg). To my credit, I did not try to touch my toes, but I was exerting way too much energy, given that I could barely reach past my knee. On the debit side, I was seated 3 feet from a floor-to-ceiling mirror, which resoundingly confirmed my dork status.

5. Work my abs for once. Jeeze.
My fitness guru, SW, tells me that I need to work my lower back in order to strengthen my abs, so I climbed onto this back-extender machine to see what would happen. I did three series of 10 reps with 50 pounds and I was delighted to notice that my abs felt great! My lower back, on the other hand, seemed to be tightening up.

6. Resist the temptation to roll up my sleeves to expose my rippling biceps while I’m doing curls (ha ha ha ha ha. . . .).
They really shouldn’t have mirrors in the gym.

7. Abs. Really. I mean it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. . . . I did three series of 15 reps each on the ab-cruncher machine and noticed that, toward the end, my lower back was barking at me.

8. Fail. As in lifting to failure — at least some of the time. OK, twice. . . . Once? No, do it twice. . . . Because I said so. . . . Shut up.
I shall not fail! Failure is not an option! Failure is for failures! And I barely eluded failure on my third series of 10 reps with 100 lbs. on the push-the-bar-straight-up-from-a-sitting-position machine. The last three of those reps were excruciating, so I kind of short-armed them. Success!

9. Work those #@$%&*#@$ abs, you sniveling maggot!
I did three series of 10 reps on the swiveling-chair machine with, I think, 45 lbs. This is the one where you put your arms in these arm-holders and swivel first to your right (30 times) and then to your left (30 times). That’s 60 times, OK?

10. Maintain a positive frame of mind.
Not a problem.

So, there you are — 10 goals pretty much achieved, depending upon your particular point of view (succeeding at failure, for instance, is not as successful as failing to fail, as I did in #8). And, while this may prove that even a goal-less fitness regimen needs some goals in order to avoid certain failure, failing to set goals could, in fact, lead to success, in that nothing succeeds like a successful failure.

I hope we’re all clear on this now.

Are fuzzy goals worth protecting?

Everybody in the fitness biz talks about hitting plateaus in your workout regimen, times when you don’t seem to be progressing toward your goals and, thus, need to change your routine. I manage to avoid plateaus not by changing my routine, but by refusing to set any goals. Now, I know this can be a problem — at least I’ve read as much. I mean, why go to all the trouble of working out at the gym if you don’t want to tighten up your butt or break the three-hour barrier in your next marathon — or maybe run a three-hour marathon with a really tight butt.

Anyway, it occurred to me the other day that I am bereft of fitness goals. My butt is just my butt, and I’m really never going to run a marathon. Like any good Minnesotan, all I really want out of this new fitness regimen is the satisfaction of a job well done. Or something like that.

I’m not being evasive here — I like the way I feel after a good workout, and there’s evidence that I’ve dropped a few pounds and built some muscle over the past 16 months, but all I’ve really needed to get me to the gym most days is the knowledge that this stuff is keeping me healthy. For a variety of reasons — not the least of which is my desire to enjoy this world for awhile longer than my father did (he suffered a heart attack at 51 and died of cancer nine years later) — I don’t need a lot more prodding than that.

Besides, any goal I’d set for myself would be pretty arbitrary, wouldn’t it? (Joe Hart discusses arbitrariness and goal-ness here.) I mean, rather than challenging myself to hobble a mile on the treadmill twice a week — which would greatly irritate me (not to mention grind up the faltering meniscus in my left knee) — I could set as a goal pedaling in a leisurely manner three times a week on a stationary bike — an activity recently made more compelling by the little TVs that have been installed between the handgrips.

No pain, no gain, you say? I say: a tiny bit of discomfort, a small and perhaps faintly measurable reward. Or, put another way: no pain doesn’t hurt a bit.

But, if I must set goals, I must set goals. So here are 10 things I’m going to try to accomplish at tonight’s sweat-a-thon:

1. Avoid sudden — or even gradual — cardiac arrest.

2. Wipe the sweat off my face without knocking the glasses off my nose.

3. “Run” for awhile on that elliptical thingy without holding onto the handles (or falling off). See if I can get my heart rate into the mid-120s. Or not.

4. Take time to stretch after “running” on that elliptical thingy. Try not to look like a dork, but also don’t pretend that I know anything about stretching.

5. Work my abs for once. Jeeze.

6. Resist the temptation to roll up my sleeves to expose my rippling biceps while I’m doing curls (ha ha ha ha ha. . . .).

7. Abs. Really. I mean it.

8. Fail. As in lifting to failure — at least some of the time. OK, twice. . . . Once? No, do it twice. . . . Because I said so. . . . Shut up.

9. Work those #@$%&*#@$ abs, you sniveling maggot!

10. Maintain a positive frame of mind.

Unless I’m unable to achieve goal #1, I will report back tomorrow.