A Fibonacci Number of Grandpa Truths

One. I care less about what I look like as a result of my physical activity than in how I feel and what I can do. It’s not like at 62 years old I’ll be entering any physique competitions. I’d be much more about Senior Games. Or just fun and fulfillment.

Two. Why shouldn’t it be fun? I’m running out of time for fun. When it comes to regular work, I’ve often said, “If it ain’t fun, don’t do it.” Or, if it’s not fun, find or make the fun. I like to be playful. Grandkids are fun. Playful. They bring joy. I’ve been learning from that. For me, staying fit for grandkids should be those things as well. Check out Ginny Maccoll on Instagram; she’s working her butt off day in, day out, and having a blast doing it. She smiles!

Waiting

I’ve been waiting a lot. In regards to this blog, I’ve been waiting until I figured out exactly how and why to continue writing. Sharing about my activity — movement, exercise — was starting to feel too much a combination of I had to “show off” a bit with a good dose of “who cares?” One can go on Instagram and into Facebook groups and see people of all ages and ilks demonstrating, sharing, celebrating (and showing off). There is enough fitness sound out there. I don’t want to add static noise into the mix. I more enjoy being inspired by updates from my diligently playful Instagram friend @kanti.chiba or watching the adventurous @ginnymaccoll than sharing whatever I’m doing (or not doing, as more days have been since late last year). (I like to check out the exploratory Darryl Edwards as well, by the way.)

Acting Like an Adolescent

I was at a church event a couple of months ago. It was a social and activity event for youth in the process of preparing for, or considering, confirmation. One of the activities for the youth was to blow up a balloon and see who could get it the biggest in a certain amount of time.  Beyond the 13-year-old boys-with-13-year-old girls dynamic, it was interesting to watch each of their approaches to the balloon challenge.

Some kids blew up their balloon sort of big but didn’t want to pop it so they stopped early; they didn’t at all approach pushing the capacity of the balloon or using the time they had to work with; they blew air into it, tied it off, and then spent the rest of the time in awkward posturing the way 13-year-olds might do when in the presence of some of the opposite sex.

A couple of other kids went too far and too fast in blowing up their balloons; their balloons popped. And then there was The One Girl.

Rebalancing the Portfolio

Last post I talked about the different components of fitness that I integrate into my weekly movement account. Driven by the accountability of writing this blog, I know I have been pushing things a little bit hard; so this past week, I began to rebalance my portfolio of movement investments.

I previously explained that walking my dog twice a day (with some enhancements, such as running, skipping, or rock hopping) is my daily foundation; it’s going to happen and I give it significant time. Along with that is yoga, although yoga has not been daily this past while. That is because I’ve been doing two days a week of more traditional bodyweight strength training, and THAT has further resulted in needing some walk-only-days to recover. So, my week was looking like this:

So Many Activities!

As I considered this blog entry I thought the word “activities” and my mind immediately went to this scene from the movie Step Brothers. Brennan, played by Will Ferrell, seems as if his brain is temporarily seized up at the thought of all the possible activities.

That’s what fitness for me can seem like, in regards to all of the components that I try to integrate into my weekly routine. I sometimes feel a bit lost in the possibilities, and I know that I might be missing the main tree because of the forest. That main tree is keeping, or even gaining, if possible, muscle. Muscle mass, and how often we train for it, are really important for older people . . . and so are many of the other possible activity components. *sigh*

As I approached sixty years old, I became concerned about muscle. In my mind I saw my aging body shedding muscle faster than a hair band drummer shedding his curly locks at Army boot camp. I began to follow a three-day-a week muscle building-focused routine, which was largely the main activity beyond my dog walking. I stepped back the yoga, which I had started to practice more regularly again. My strength training was nothing crazy, a fairly simple initially-bodyweight-oriented routine; the intent was to be challenging enough to ensure progressive overload so as to stimulate muscle growth. I was very sensible . . . until things went nicely for too long and the 42-year-old-me (or even 52-year-old-me) came out and I starting pushing things a bit more than the 60-year-old-actually-me should. Sacroiliac joint injury ( think). It still lingers, months later.

For the love of a dog

See the stream?
It’s flowing and fresh.
If you drink the water,
it’s the best!
See the puddle?
It sits there still.
That stale water
will make you ill.

I learned a fighting principle from my Taekwondo Korean great-grand-master a decade and a half ago, which he expressed in this adage: “Flowing water is alive; it never gets rotten or dies.” Short explanation: keep moving, don’t just stand, or lay, there.

As I aged I began to apply that adage to fitness and life activity. Keep moving! Stop moving and I will get rotten or die. So how do I keep moving? As it happens, a lot of my moving is walking. I walk a lot in the scheme of things. Which keeps me moving and also gets in the way of moving in other ways.