I’ve done what I call “climbing the fitness ladder” at least five times already.
I’ve had a challenging relationship with my health and fitness over the years. I work in a job that leads me to be more or less sedentary. I spend most of my day in front of a computer writing reports, running scripts, sending email, and not moving nearly enough. I’ve gotten into “shape” at least three times, and tried to get back into shape at least two more times in between. Something always seems to happen that causes me to slip back into inactivity, sloth, and weight gain.
The first time I really got into good shape was after college. Like most college students, I gained weight while studying, drinking, and thinking about my future career. I hated my body and myself. So, I started to do something about it. In school, I took a “self-defense” class, which was really just a semester of Shorin Ryu karate. The main punishment for making mistakes was pushups. I could barely do any at all. So, that’s where I started; ten perfect pushups. Just ten. At twenty-one, I was able to quickly climb the ladder to fifty pushups. Then I added shadow boxing with weights and hitting a heavy bag. Then more pushups and situps. I got into pretty good shape. I did that at least three times a week for several years. Then, I changed my routine to nothing but push-ups and sit-ups in the morning, followed by more at night, along with dumbbells and pull-ups. I didn’t do heavy weights, but lots of repetitions and sets. I was lean, and I could bang out ten pullups at a time without too much struggle.
Then, I moved to Texas to be with my now ex-wife. There was no room in her little apartment with her and her daughter for me to continue working out regularly. Again, the weight started to pack on. To be fair, that wasn’t aided by the fact that she was a good Southern cook and fed me very well. We bought a house and moved out to the Houston suburbs, but I still didn’t get back to working out. Then, I lost my job and had more time and anxious energy than I knew how to handle, so I started again, with ten pushups. Again, as I was a relatively young man, I was able to quickly climb that fitness ladder again. Then, I got another job, and before I’d gotten far, I slipped off my routine and started to pack on weight again. This time, my ex-wife more or less hoped to kill me through cholesterol, weight, and high blood pressure by feeding me a steady diet of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. I’m not going to lie and say I hated it, but it was killing me. And, yes, she really did say to the man she was cheating on me with, that’s what she was trying to do. I read the email.
I didn’t waste time after she moved out, though, I just got back on that ladder. The first exercise? I bet you’ve guessed it already: ten pushups. By the time our divorce was final and I was showing off for the next woman I dated, I was doing fifty knuckle pushups again, not to mention all the situps and sets with the dumbbells. I wasn’t in the same shape I was when I was in my early twenties, but I was doing pretty well. Naturally, that relationship didn’t last, and not long after, as I mentioned last week, I was diagnosed with the “Emperor of all Maladies”: cancer. To be specific, diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
It’s hard to do pushups with a PICC line in your arm. It was inserted above my elbow, ran through the biggest vein they could find, and dangled over my heart. The idea was to pump as much poison into me as I could take, hoping to kill the tumor faster than they killed the rest of me. I know that’s a pretty bloody-minded way of describing chemotherapy, but let’s get real here; that’s what it actually is. Obviously, since I’m here typing this, I survived my year of slow dancing with the grim reaper, but I was left in a somewhat reduced state. Can you guess what I did next? Yep, I started doing pushups again.
Eventually, I worked my way up that fitness ladder again, and I managed to blind my new wife to all my other faults with an unreasonably fit physique for someone my age. Not long after we were married, I remember a guy working with me who was surprised to find out my age because I was in such good shape. But, as complacency set in, and boredom at the repetitive nature of exercise, combined with job changes, job stress, COVID, the death of my father, and a few other issues, the weight started to accumulate again. And, worse yet, I got soft. And older. At 56, calories stick to me like iron filings to a magnet. Just a furtive glance at a piece of cheesecake puts pounds on me, but once they’re on, they seem impossible to remove again.
This time around, I have some chronic injuries to deal with, too. I’ve developed arthritis in my knees far too early, and a fall broke my left elbow and shoulder, resulting in rotator cuff tendonitis. So, I’ve seen an orthopedic specialist who’s given me physical therapy exercises to do. As I get stronger from those, I’ll add in my favorite starting point to restoring fitness: ten pushups. I plan to keep on with the physical therapy exercises to keep my weakened joints stronger, but I do plan to add more movement back into my regular routine. I’ve done work with resistance bands, which I’ll start again, and I plan to start tai chi this year, somehow, someway. My main goal is to keep moving, slowly, for as long as I can. If my family history is any evidence, I have a lot of years left to live.
So, if you’re trying to get healthier for the first time or again after a rough time, start small and work your way up.
Even if it’s just ten pushups.