Tag: grandkids

Planting Fitness Trees In Her 70’s

My wife retired five years ago. Up until the time she retired, her sole fitness activity had been walking. She walked as much as she could at her school, given her long day at the building, and a dedicated fitness walk was a pleasure reserved for weekends. Upon her retirement, she declared that she could finally walk each day like she wanted, and she did. If she is anything, she is consistent. I was happy for her. For two years or so, that was her sole fitness activity, and a good thing it has been.

A couple of years ago, realizing that there is more for her fitness that she might do beyond walking, she ventured into a daily practice of a simple yoga for seniors class online. Her daily walks were later followed by her 25 minutes of yoga, a do-able class length for her in regard to both time and physical challenges. Again, her consistency has been admirable. I am proud of her.

A week ago, rather out of the blue, three months out from turning 71, she joined a fitness center and began a strength routine using the machines there. What is a word for happy and proud and a tad bit incredulous all rolled into one?

My wife is wonderfully future-focused. Life circumstance and choices in combination resulted in her never being a physically active person in any fitness sense. She knew it was time and started on the basis she did. She did not fall into a “why bother” or “it just never became my thing” mindset. Certainly a big motivation for her has been our grandchildren and imagining a future with them. She has been progressively moving into a greater “Grandma Mode” in a good way.

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” I’ve leaned on that Chinese-attributed adage a lot these past fifteen years — first, I think, on a sixty-something-year-old guy who approached me about starting taekwondo, wondering if he should even bother. He said he always wondered about getting his black belt after dropping taekwondo during college. He started classes with us. He took breaks and returned after two different hip replacement surgeries. He earned his black belt at age 68. It was not an easy test. I was really proud of him, on more than one occasion.

Just this week I surprisingly scolded a couple of people who negatively commented on a trainer’s Instagram post about a 64-year-old client of his who has been building up to doing some plyometrics. It showed him hopping and springing and shuffling in different ways. Nothing spectacular compared to much you might see, but certainly more than many 64-year-olds will take on. He was moving pretty good, in my opinion.

One guy who is also older dismissed it outright — what he saw wasn’t impressive enough to highlight, and he himself could do much better at that age. Really? Jerk.

Another guy, even older, didn’t dismiss it so much as make it about himself — his own ability to do all that and more, and how people should really start training earlier in life so they can still do it all when they’re older. He didn’t disrespect the man’s achievement. He just didn’t let it stand on its own; he turned it into a springboard for a different point.

I know why my wife was not physically active in her earlier decades. I know why my black belt never ventured back into taekwondo after college. I don’t know if or why the man in the Instagram reel was or was not active in his earlier years, or if he’d stopped for some reason along the way. What I do know is that I admire anyone who, after standing on the ground, gets up on the horse of the first time, or back on the horse after falling off. Or, to put it a different way, anyone who plants a fitness tree.

My wife getting at it post-retirement: no, she does not at all look the same in her activities as if she’d started them thirty years ago. My black belt student jumping into taekwondo training: he did not look like other students in class. The guy in the reel working with a trainer and working to still progress in his athleticism probably does not look quite the same as a Senior Games medalist in the triple jump.

Yes, if any of them had planted their fitness or activity trees earlier, they would by now have much more full, flourishing, fruit-bearing orchards. But, they didn’t. They also didn’t give into the despair of “why even bother.” They planted.

Whether you planted trees years ago or are just now breaking ground for a first sapling, plant it. My wife just did, three months shy of 71 — full Grandma Mode, machines and all. Someday there will be fruit to enjoy, which she will certainly share with the grandkids.

Rocks On My Knees Or In My Head?

It was just the type of thing an active grandpa does: walks across some rocks on the Gooseberry River with his grandson. The river was sparse so it was lots of rocks and very little water. Did I say lots of rocks? All shapes and sizes, though not many big ones. The boy had gotten dirt and mud in his Crocs so he said he was fine barefoot. I figured we’d see.

I could tell he was struggling a bit, but he was toughing it out; his six-year-old pride was stronger than his capacity to wear grimy shoes. I had on the twelve-pound “all the kids’ stuff” backpack, not heavy but an element of awkward when rock balancing.

We were doing fine enough when he came back toward me after encountering a lack of good rock options and then he lost his balance. I was balanced on two slanted, narrow rocks myself at that exact moment. He grabbed the front of my shirt. I lost my balance. He felt himself falling backwards. He pulled more decisively. Then, thirteen different factors came into my head in the two seconds it took before we were both down on top of multiple sized and shaped rocks.

I didn’t crush him (part of the elaborate two-second plan). He didn’t land hard (also part of the plan). I ended up on two mostly-extended arms and one foot (also in the plan), and on one knee, on the ridge-edge of a rock (NOT in the plan).

The result was the boy on his back, on the rocks, and me on top of him, though with no weight on him, supported on my hands and a foot and a knee that I fell onto.

The boy was OK. My knee really hurt. At first I thought it had split open. It hadn’t, but it almost looked as if I had a bloody scar; I must have been a half-pound of pressure short of a split. I got up, shook it off, and we continued on. The boy continued barefoot.

We got close to the other side, hung out on a small rock plateau for a bit, then headed back. Half way back, with the boy hobbling barefoot, I swung the backpack around to my front and loaded the barefoot boy onto my back. I piggy-backed him the rest of the way, walking and balancing on the rocks. Grandma wasn’t happy. She suggested I should have come back and gotten his shoes for him. Yeah.

Overall, the fall was probably a pretty remarkable recovery in action. I saw it as a failure. Why? Well, first, I fell! Second, I sustained an injury, though thankfully nothing of note lingers two days later. Still, it could have been worse, both for me and the boy.

They say that getting up off the floor is a fundamental ability for anyone, never mind being able to do it as one ages. Getting down onto the floor with some degree of control is a corollary. Getting down onto the floor is step one. Falling and not getting hurt is step . . . eight? Falling on top of a grandkid and not hurting them, step twenty one, maybe. Piggy-backing them across the river rocks: maybe that’s the rocks in the head. But we made it!

Whatever it was I did, it started as being able to get down onto the floor, and then getting up from the floor. When you can’t do those two actions, things are going downhill. You might not be walking across rocks, but you can more readily enjoy life, and grandkids if you can handle your body enough to get down and get up.

If getting down and up from floor are challenging, there is lots of guidance online for how to do those things properly (here’s one) and on how to work toward them if they are a challenge (see here).

Yes, walking on pointy rocks and falling without injury are lots of steps past that, but I’ve been doing all kinds of getting up and down off of the floor for more than three decades now. Still, that mishap has me thinking about what else I could work on that would have let me fall with more control, more grace. Or not fall at all. Core strength? Balance? Whole body coordination? I have some ideas to explore.

As it happens, grandpas and grandsons get back on the horse after they get thrown off. He and I had fun the next day back along Duluth’s Lakewalk on the shore of Lake Superior. He did his version of Lakewalk parkour while I followed along as his videographer.

Whether you’re up to hopping along on some rocks or simply getting down onto the floor, keep at it. You never know when a grandkid might require it of you.

Stay in the game.