Genetics and exercise
I’ve always liked exercise. I just don’t feel well when I’m inactive. After my severe back and arm injuries about two decades ago, and the resultant chronic pain, some of my range of activities was reduced. No more tennis, which had been my absolute favorite participatory sport up till then (although I was a raquetball aficionado for a while). I had quit ballet in my mid-30s, but that was shortly before my injury and because it was just getting harder and harder and harder to do it, with fewer and fewer rewards. No running, but then I never cared for running to begin with.
No, it’s pretty much fast walking for me now, and I’m lucky to do that. I’ve been consistent about it (some near and dear to me would say obsessive), but that’s because it really does tend to make me feel better. I stretch, too, twice a day, and don’t feel quite right without that, either.
I doubt that puts me on the high end of jockish people, although I suppose I would have qualified as such in my younger, ballet and tennis days. What’s more, I come from a line of jocks. My mother played tennis into her 80s. My older brother played several sports, and lacrosse at the college level, and still works out (and this despite also having a bad back; he had major back surgery at the age of twenty). My father, who only lived till his late 60s, was a special case because he had also hurt his back very badly in his twenties (as did I originally; are you detecting a pattern here?), but as a young man he’d been a football and tennis player. And both parents were avid ballroom dancers.
And so maybe there’s something to the genetics-and-exercise thing after all: see this and this. As we learn more and more about the specifics of the human body, it becomes more and more clear that we’ve got an awful lot left to learn.
Keep stretching and moving neo.
Neo…
Shatner swears by the flip-up-side-down rig that you see in on infomercial TV.
Decompression of the discs may do wonders.
I think that’s why we toss and turn at night.
W a a a a y back in the trees — we were used to getting our stretches — now we have to swing by our feet.
Being a jock and loving exercise are not really the same thing.
I am inclined to doubt your relatives would have severely injured their backs at young ages if they had not engaged in competitive, semi-assaultive (e.g. lacrosse) organized athletics, and instead had done solo long-distance swimming, for example. That’s serious exercise; boring, yes, but hoo-la! What a workout, of pretty much all muscle groups.
I know whereof I speak. In college, I played squash, and once, knowing full well I would run through my opponent’s follow-through if I were to get to the ball, I did so anyway. Got to the ball, but needed my eyebrow sutured; and the game was called on account of my bleeding.
Don Carlos:
Actually, my father’s back injury occurred because he fell into a concrete pit.
My brother’s, if I remember correctly, was incurred lifting heavy drums at a chemical plant.
And although my original (less serious) back injury occurred in my twenties, during a ballet class, my more severe injuries (an exacerbation of my back injury, and both arm injuries) occurred—are you ready for it?—during a program of intensive lap swimming.
I am here to tell you there is nothing innocuous about swimming, in the right hands.
ahh. Neo, go ro bed!
While I support people trying, striving, I think knowing limits is good too. I am more with Penn and Teller on this. If you haven’t heard of them, they can be considered… a little coarse. But they generally nail well what they nail right, not that we are in perfect alignment at all (they being atheists it seems).
It just happened that I had… caught wind of that link and was, and may still, use it for a post. But I thought you could use it first. There are experts, real ones, in there too. It isn’t just them saying just what they want, that just happens on the side. 🙂
ah,yes. Rattus rattus. It must all be in our genes (even though there were many DNA differences between the vigorous ratti and the sluggish ratti), so we are all pre-determined. Those of us with the right set(s) of genes have the genetic responsibility to rule those not so graced, no? Chechnya, here we come!
Try out Taiji Chuan.
It has great longevity benefits, even for those who cannot unlock the martial applications.
The medical theory can be heard here.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Dr+Yang+Chi+Gong&mid=B48C9495C9D350B64B4BB48C9495C9D350B64B4B&view=detail&FORM=VIRE2
I never liked exercise. At boarding school, they made us get up early, do 5BX exercises and then run three miles. I hated it. We were there to improve our minds, not our bodies, or so I thought at the time.
I started running at age 50 after a pleasant life as a couch potato. Last Sunday, at age 65, I ran the Athens marathon. I was trying to qualify for the Boston marathon for the fourth time. I missed by 35 seconds because of technical issues (me stupid).
The next day, we heard what happened. Had I been there, I’d have been close to bomb time and my wife would have been waiting for me at the second bomb location. I’m going to try to qualify again for 2014 at the Cleveland marathon, if conditions permit.
Anybody in moderate health can exercise. Doing it takes will. You have to overcome some thresholds where something alien to you slowly becomes familiar and easy. Most of my running friends got there, whether by upbringing or by deliberately changing their ways.
One friend hit age 40 smoking two packs a day and drinking two six-packs a night. He weighed 280lbs and looked like John Candy. He resolved to get himself in shape. Today, he weighs 160lb, doesn’t smoke or drink, has a nice new wife who runs with him, and has numerous marathons and ultra-marathons (50km, 50 miles, 100 miles) to his credit. All it took was will. Not genes.
Dear Neo:
May I suggest this alternative?
https://statelymcdanielmanor.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/my-aching-unmentionables-recumbents-to-the-rescue/
Yours,
Mike