OK, it’s a lame variation on “Physician, heal thyself!”
But I recently realized something.
I’ve been doing active outdoor sports most days for years. But for the past couple years I haven’t been supplementing them very much with core-work or calisthenics. I just go out and do my gungho biking, paddling and xc skiing. I can still keep up with some of the young, fast types.
Oh, I occasionally have spells of doing bits of light or limited core-work.
But last year I didn’t do ANY rollerskiing before snow flew. I did cyclocross instead, which was fun and new but not core work. Heck, it is, however, hoisting and tossing your bike and running up steep hills with it. What more do ya want?
Well, sure, all these activities are fairly all-body and work the system pretty vigorously.
But they’re just not CORE WORK with any real emphasis on it.
The upshot is that I’ve noticed that I’m getting WEAK and becoming GAUNT. (I weigh the same, though, so I doubt it’s an illness.) My pants are getting baggier. I’m becoming bonier. Of course, I’m also becoming aged and elderly, but something else is going on.
The thing is that I used to do yard-weights and toss in a hard 3 minutes on the heavy bag every time, using both arms and legs, working high and low, fast and hard. I used to toss in heavy-stone tossing. And even a few years ago none of it would tire me out particularly. I’d so some jump-roping and a good bit of hard bungie-pulling for ski-poling. Heck, I did plenty of ax-chopping and bow-sawing of firewood.
Ah, and a few years ago I bought the smallest of snow-blowers since I had a parking lot to do in addition to our long driveway, which I used to hand-shovel. But just as bad: Henry is getting really bad and super-strapping and he’s been mowing the yard with the push-mower. I’ve even been having him do a lot of the leaf-raking! Oh no!
Well, I’m coming to my senses, finally. Lately I’ve started doing some old-fashioned calisthenics. I do a quick 15 minutes of minimal numbers of burpees, pushups, dips, bungie-pulls, situps, chinups, kettlebells, barbells. Then an hour later I’m WASTED. I’m almost sick with fatigue for a few hours. A bit of coffee helps. But I’m going to get on top of this. It’s starting to feel better. Whew, that was a close call!
I’m about ready to do ’em every day now. Yes, core-work is what I’m going to do from now on. I won’t forget ya anymore, man!
Ya need your core for pushing a car out of a ditch. For lifting a snowblower into the minivan (tho I am tempted to get a self-propelled and some ramps…). You need it for bone-health. And I’ve heard that menfolk need more strength and power in their base than ladies do for longterm health. Tendons and joints need stressing…and stretching…to last long.
Lunges have long hurt my hams bad. And I can’t do a 3rd World Squat on my heels. I’m gonna stretch my calves, spend a minute on that each day.
Ya gotta cover your bases, your basics, before you venture further.
